Senior advisers are supposed to act as lightning conductors for their bosses. Dominic Cummings is a lightning generator
are supposed to act as lightning conductors for their bosses. Dominic Cummings is a lightning generator. He has repeatedly produced sparks that have badly singed Boris Johnson—by arguing that Parliament should be prorogued, picking fights with every institution in the land and trying to hire an infant eugenicist as a Downing Street adviser.
Britain is obsessed by the Cummings affair because it turns on two things that are noxious in all democracies, but doubly so in one as class-obsessed as Britain: entitlement and hypocrisy. Caroline Nokes, one of many Torys who have criticised Mr Cummings, proclaimed that “there cannot be one rule for most of us and wiggle room for others”., a middle-of-the-road newspaper, splashed “stay elite” on its cover, a play on the government’s new slogan, “stay alert”.
The government calculates that this storm will eventually blow over. Mr Johnson has an 87-seat majority and does not have to face the electorate for another four years. There will be plenty of dramas between now and then. But the story is nevertheless revealing about the nature of the two men who sit at the apex of British government and the bond that unites them. Both have a long-standing habit of breaking rules whenever it suits them.
Mr Cummings has spent his life in politics breaking things—big things like Britain’s membership of the European Union, but also small things like rules and regulations. He was declared in contempt of Parliament for refusing to appear before the House of Commons committee of privileges over his leadership of the Vote Leave campaign. David Cameron called him a “career psychopath” and refused to allow him to continue to work for Michael Gove as a special adviser.
One of the problems with this vision is that it is hard to reconcile with the humdrum work of running a government. A willingness to break rules may serve you when you’re trying to up-end the old order but it becomes a problem when you’re trying to administer a new one.
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