Boris Johnson has sacked Dominic Cummings, until now his closest political adviser, after a week of political turmoil involving the Prime Minister’s senior staff at 10 Downing Street.

Cummings, sometimes compared to “Rasputin”, the self-proclaimed Russian holy man who somehow had an unhealthy hold on Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra, was a divisive figure hated by Tory ministers and MPs but whom Boris found indispensable.

Until now that is. After what appears to have been a power struggle inside Downing Street over the appointment of a new chief of staff, Cummings was photographed leaving Number 10 on Friday night with a cardboard box containing his belongings.

Lee Cains, a former tabloid reporter whose promotion from director of communications to chief of staff, was allegedly blocked by Boris’s live-in girlfriend Carrie Symonds, has also been asked to leave – with immediate effect.

Cummings, 48, and Cain, 39, are veterans of the Vote Leave campaign and worked closely with Boris to deliver the Brexit vote during the 2016 EU referendum.

For a week now the reporting of Britain’s raging coronavirus crisis has taken second place to what the former Pakistani-origin chancellor, Sajid Javid, once referred to as the “Cummings and goings” in Downing Street.

Javid will shed no tears over the departure of Cummings from the centre of power. It will be recalled that back in February Cummings insisted Javid could only remain chancellor so long as he dismissed all his special advisers. The new ones would all be appointed by Cummings and take orders from him. Javid resigned rather than accept what he saw as a humiliation.

One of Javid’s advisers, Sonia Khan, was dismissed by Cummings without the chancellor first being informed. She was frog-marched out of Downing Street on the orders of Cummings by an armed guard after being accused of leaking information — something she denied.

Sonia has just settled a case for unfair dismissal with a reported five figure compensation payment.

There have been many other cases where Cummings was accused of being high-handed not only in his treatment of “Spads” (special advisers) but also Tory ministers and MPs. He could have lost his job during the first lockdown when he broke the rules of quarantine by making an unauthorised trip out of London with his family.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith wrote in the Daily Telegraph that Cummings’s influence had led to “a ramshackle operation in the hands of one man”.

Tory former deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine: “I can think of no man who has done so much harm to this country in so short a time. He has left a generation to pay the price of Brexit.”

There are so many briefings and counter-briefings that it is difficult for outsiders to establish the truth. According to one account, Cummings was seen off the premises after his supporters allegedly briefed against Carrie. She was apparently dubbed “Princess Nut Nuts” behind her back and it was also claimed that “she sent 25 texts an hour to Boris expressing her thoughts on policy” despite having no official position.