Advisers advise, but do ministers decide?

The prime minister’s special adviser Dominic Cummings. ‘Clearly in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street, advisers now decide without reference to ministers,’ writes Steve Griffiths. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty ImagesThe sacking of the chancellor’s special adviser, Sonia Khan, by the prime minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, has turned Margaret Thatcher’s famous maxim, that “advisers advise and ministers decide”, on its head (Report,