Dominic Cummings: shameless

Boris Johnson’s failing government was on the ropes tonight after the prime minister’s chief adviser refused to resign after breaking England’s lockdown rules. Dominic Cummings travelled 260 miles to Durham when his wife developed COVID-19 symptoms.

The government had already been fiercely criticised for its car crash response to coronavirus – see my previous blog posts here and here.

The government’s response to Cummings’ disastrous mistake will make it far more likely that others will decide to ignore the rules. After all, if the rules don’t apply to the PM’s chief adviser, then logically they don’t apply to anyone else. It’s just the latest example of the government’s PR own goals. And on the day that The Times published an editorial asking ‘Where is Boris Johnson?”:

“The government is … paying the penalty for its poor communications. This risks undermining public confidence at a vital stage in the fight against the pandemic. For this much of the blame lies with Mr Johnson. It is the prime minister’s job to provide leadership. Yet he has been largely missing in action and not only when he was in hospital. Since his televised address two weeks ago, he has made one statement to the House of Commons, which remarkably was his first since the crisis began, and he has turned up twice to prime minister’s questions. Apart from that he has attended no press conferences and given no interviews. Instead he has left the communication of public policy to a succession of ministers, whose uneven performances have often added to the confusion.”

It was pitiful tonight to see an array of cabinet ministers sycophantically tweeting support for Cummings:

It is beneath contempt to claim that criticising an unelected official for breaking the law is politicising the matter. Cummings will surely be gone in 48 hours.

Cummings has been regarded as a political and communications genius by many after his role campaigning for Britain to leave the EU. It is clear tonight that his reputation as a messiah has been overstated. In reality, he’s just a very naughty boy.