Rasputin. Svengali. Machiavellian mastermind. Ruthless. Darth Vader. Elitist twat. Yes, all — and then some — epithets have been used to describe Dominic Cummings. And unless you’ve been living on a different planet this week, his name has dominated headlines in the UK as its death toll from coronavirus edges closer to 40,000.
Indeed, the Daily Mail — long the staunchest British tabloid for all things Boris Johnson — asked of the Prime Minister and Cummings, his top political aide: What Planet Are They On?
It’s a headline that sums up most Britons’ reaction to an incredulous explanation — sorry, no apology or regrets offered — as to why Cummings took a 900-kilometres round trip, and then some, at a time when the nation was under strict pandemic lockdown.
Is it any wonder then this outrage has fuelled very strong sentiments that there’s one rule for the English, another for rulers; that the government’s message is ‘Do as we say, not do as we do’; that hypocrisy holds sway; and that the new message to the British people now as they emerge from pandemic needs to be altered once more, from “Stay Alert” to “Stay Elite”.
Now, one junior has resigned, more than 30 ruling Conservative MPs have called for his sacking while the IN boxes at Westminster fill with emails baying for blood.
But Boris is standing by his man. Why?
Why does Cummings have such a hold on the prime minister? Why does this man elicit such a visceral reaction from most reasonable people?
Publicly flouting lockdown
And why does he think he can get away with publicly flouting lockdown laws when millions of Britons have sacrificed everything, lost loved ones, were prohibited from gathering at funerals or anywhere else — and simply did as they were told by the Johnson government?
Is it any wonder then this outrage has fuelled very strong sentiments that there’s one rule for the English, another for rulers; that the government’s message is ‘Do as we say, not do as we do’; that hypocrisy holds sway; and that the new message to the British people now as they emerge from pandemic needs to be altered once more, from “Stay Alert” to “Stay Elite”.
Johnson’s chief adviser admits he made a round trip of more than 900 kilometres from London to his parents in Durham for childcare support after his wife displayed coronavirus symptoms, despite strict COVID-19 isolation rules. He was also seen in a beauty spot 50 kms from Durham, then again in the county after he had returned to London.
The stories broke last weekend and Johnson insists Cummings acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity. The howls of protest grew louder, with Cummings taking to the Rose Garden of No 10 Downing Street for a bizarre media briefing.
And for such a supposed communications genius, he mumbled, fumbled but just couldn’t humble himself. Yes, sorry seemed to be the hardest word. The crisis has rumbled on.
While the 48-year-old has a reputation within Westminster as a political Svengali and radical reformer, he is also a divisive character, once described as a “career psychopath” by former PM David Cameron — Cameron never met him.
But Cumming is the man credited with plotting the ‘victory’ to the unexpected 2016 Brexit vote, and chosen by Johnson as his top adviser. Since then, he’s rarely been left out of headlines.
In HBO’s Brexit drama released last year, Benedict Cumberbatch portrays Cummings as a tortured genius who played on the emotions of the disillusioned electorate to pivot the EU referendum in Brexiteers’ favour.
“This is an insurgence against the establishment,” the Cummings character says. “Our expectation is to create the biggest political upset since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Even Nigel Farage, the arch Brexiteers, calls him “a horrible nasty little man”.
Although he’s operating within the political system, Cummings has also shown utter contempt for politicians themselves. He dresses in jeans and T-shirt or rumpled shirts — a personal code that infuriates those within the top echelon of British public and political life.
He’s described the Conservative’s Euro-sceptic European Research Group as a “narcissist-delusional subset”, “useful idiots” and a “metastasising tumour”.
He’s called former Brexit secretary David Davis “thick as mince” and “lazy as a toad”, and also that “to a large extent, parliamentarians are not particularly bright, are egomaniacs and they want to be on TV”.
Behind the scenes
Caustic and uncompromising, he’s been accused of changing his unelected role into that of a puppeteer, controlling the movements of government behind the scenes. He fired the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid’s adviser Sonia Khan and had her escorted off the premises by armed police — an episode that has toxified the atmosphere in Whitehall and Westminster.
Born in Durham to a father who worked as an oil rig project manager and a mother who was a special needs teacher, he attended a local private school before Oxford University. He graduated in 1994 with a First in Ancient and Modern History.
A Russophile with a passion for Dostoyevsky, Cummings lived in post-Soviet Russia for three years after his graduation and helped set up an airline in the 1990s. It failed after facilitating one flight. Returning to Britain, he cut his teeth in politics by spearheading several campaigns including against Britain adopting the euro.
In an early sign of his take-no-prisoners approach, Cummings was made Conservative Party director of strategy in 2002 but left the role after eight months, branding then party leader Iain Duncan Smith “incompetent”.
He became special adviser to Michael Gove who was education secretary at the time, making a name for himself by developing an us-against-them bunker mentality within the department towards the rest of government.
He disdains the civil service and referred to them and teachers as the “blob” during his time with Gove, based on their hostility to his reforms.
Cummings was found in contempt of parliament a year ago for refusing to appear before a committee that investigated fake news during the EU referendum campaign — he accused the committee members of having “greater interest in grandstanding than truth-seeking”.
The reality now, however, is that for Cummings, truth is an inconvenience. So too morality and conscience.
Mick O’Reilly is the Gulf News Foreign Correspondent based in Europe
