Why Dominic Cummings’s campaign to discredit Boris Johnson should not be taken lightly

Cummings' tweet
Cummings’ tweet

Behind the crumpled shirts, tracksuit bottoms and “critics go hang” persona of Dominic Cummings lies a man who really does care what people think of him. And most of all he wants to be seen as a winner.

Having been given huge credit – and even a Benedict Cumberbatch docu-drama – for his part in making Brexit happen, he desperately wanted to be The Man Who Beat Covid.

The fact that he failed in that mission, whether through his own inadequacies or, as he believes, because people in power didn’t do as he said, has been eating away at him ever since he was forced out of Number 10 last November.

The one person he is never likely to blame is himself. Imbued with the self-belief of a cult leader, Mr Cummings must instead find others to shoulder the blame, regardless of whether the facts get in the way of his narrative.

Mr Cummings’s new-found zeal for public scrutiny is particularly hard to fathom.

In a 26-part Twitter thread on Tuesday, he insisted that “one of the most fundamental and unarguable lessons of Feb-March is that secrecy contributed greatly to the catastrophe. Openness to scrutiny wd have exposed Gvt errors weeks earlier than happened”.

During his time in Downing Street, he was in overall charge of the communications strategy, but regarded journalists as “reptiles” and tried to micro-manage the work of ministers’ media advisers to shut out those reporting on Whitehall.

Rather than helping ministers get on with explaining to the public what they were doing, special advisers were expected to seek Downing Street’s approval for every proposed media briefing, which were often withheld.

Under the Cummings regime, ministerial advisers who were regarded as being too helpful to the media – in other words striving for transparency – were summarily dismissed.

Ministers were barred from appearing on the Today programme and Good Morning Britain because broadcasters dared to pick a fight with Downing Street, while others were simply barred from the airwaves altogether because they were regarded as untrustworthy, inept, or both.

While Mr Cummings undoubtedly had talents that Boris Johnson found invaluable, he has never been an elected politician and sees the world in black and white, rather than the shades of grey that make up real life.

On Tuesday he insisted that “we should have done human challenge trials immediately and could have got jabs in arms [last] summer”. Yet he possesses no medical qualifications to make such a bold statement, and makes no allowance for the fact that public confidence in a vaccine depends on the thoroughness of the process, with a significant minority still avoiding the jabs because they believe the speed of their development was rushed.

Mr Cummings, of course, will argue that his Twitter storm was motivated by a desire to improve pandemic response and save lives, but those who know him are in no doubt that he is also motivated, in part at least, by revenge.

Mr Cummings believes he was betrayed by Mr Johnson who, egged on by his fiancee Carrie Symonds, broke a pact they had agreed when Mr Cummings took on the job as the Prime Minister’s chief adviser.

Mr Cummings believed he would be given free rein to reform the civil service, carry out the levelling up agenda and set up an advanced research agency, but was ousted before any of those things were achieved.

His quickly-deleted tweet on Tuesday, darkly asking what he should do with “the only copy” of a key Covid decision-making paper, had everything to do with making his enemies squirm, and nothing to do with the public good.

Mr Cummings has an appearance before the joint health and science super committee on the Covid response next week, during which he will try to convince the world that Covid would more or less have bypassed Britain if only everyone had done exactly what he said all along.

Regardless of the truth about Covid, Mr Johnson knows that Mr Cummings is a brilliant campaigner, and that his new campaign – to discredit the Prime Minister – should not be taken lightly.

The Dominic Cummings Twitter thread explained

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1: Early on in the pandemic many lockdown sceptics pointed to Sweden, which opted not to impose the same severe restrictions, as evidence that they were unnecessarily harming the economy.

However, this narrative has been fiercely contested, with critics pointing out that over the first six month nearly 6,000 Swedes died of Covid-19, one of the higher per capita death rates in Europe.

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4: Taiwan’s success in battling coronavirus has been attributed to a strict border policy, a ban on foreign travellers and a mandatory quarantine requirement. It has recorded just over 2,000 infections and 12 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, despite having a population of more than 23 million people.

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5: Critics of the border policy say that the quarantine policy does not go far enough, with only red list arrivals forced to spend 10 days isolating in a hotel. There is also growing anger and confusion over the amber list of countries, which are not illegal to travel to, despite ministers urging Britons not to book holidays to any destination which is not green rated.

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8: The success of the Vaccine Taskforce (or “VTF”) is largely attributed to the fact that outside experts were parachuted in to lead it, with Kate Bingham, its chair, given freedom and resources to act fast to secure agreements with pharmaceutical giants.

The experience of members of the taskforce is said to partially explain why the UK has experienced fewer problems than the EU with its contracts and delivery schedules. CABSEC is believed to refer to Cabinet Secretary, the head of the civil service, who at the time was Sir Mark Sedwill.

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9: Lieutenant General Leslie Groves was a United States Army Corps of Engineers Office who led the Manhattan Project, the top secret research programme that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. He directed a huge construction effort and made critical decisions on the various methods of splitting the isotope, acquiring raw materials, and directing the collection of military intelligence on the German nuclear project.

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10. Human challenge trials only took place this year, but the development of vaccines was rapid in comparison with work on jabs for other diseases. The Vaccine Taskforce has been credited with helping to deliver a major volunteer programme to ensure manufacturers were able to get jabs from development to regulatory approval faster.

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11: The Vaccine Taskforce has been moved back from the Department for Business to the Department for Health, with some critics fearing it will be turned into another bureaucratic body. Mr Cummings has previously claimed that Matt Hancock’s department was a “smoking ruin” when the crisis struck.

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14: The Civil Contingencies Committee (COBR) is convened to handle matters of national emergency or major disruption. Its purpose is to coordinate different departments and agencies. It is different from SAGE (the scientific advisory group on emergencies), which convenes independent scientific and technical experts to give advice to COBR during emergencies.

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15: Government sources have repeatedly cited national security concerns as a factor in why more details cannot be published on the vaccine programme and delivery schedules. While daily vaccination figures are published, the movement of vaccines within the country, as well as exports and imports from other supply chains, are steeped in secrecy.

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17: Prof Sir Timothy Gowers is a prominent mathematician and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He sits on the Society’s DELVE committee, which is analysing data on the UK’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and is providing input to SAGE. He has not been asked to look into other contingency planning for potential emergencies or disasters.

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18: MPs could attempt to force the Government to publish its plan for tackling variants of concern through Parliamentary motions, although it is unclear how opposition parties such as Labour would command enough support in the Commons, as Boris Johnson wields a majority of 80.

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19: Michael Story is a so-called “superforecaster” – someone who tends to be better at making predictions – and has been pictured outside of Downing Street previously. Last year, Mr Cummings hired Andrew Sabisky, another superforecaster, as a contractor.

However, he was forced to resign over a series of past remarks.

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20: Sir Patrick Vallance has pushed for the Scientific Advisory Committee on Emergencies to regularly publish minutes and documents, which it now does weekly. However, the documents are sometimes published weeks after decisions are taken, and are difficult to navigate.

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23: Robert (Bob) Taylor was a prominent American computer scientist who previously worked for the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Mr Cummings has successfully argued for a British version, the Advanced Research & Invention Agency.

Its £800 million in funding will help drive cutting-edge research in areas such as artificial intelligence and data.

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24: Boris Johnson has announced that a full public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic will be set up from Spring next year. However, it remains uncertain whether it will conclude before the next general election.

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