Durham Dom affair stabs at the heart of our democracy
“NOTHING is true and everything is possible.”
That seems to sum up the age we are living in pretty well. Profound, right?
I really, really wish I had come up with that phrase.
Unfortunately it is the title of a book by journalist Peter Pomerantsev called Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.
I also really, really wish that I was the sort of guy who reads insightful books about Russia. However, I am not.
I am far more likely to read Lord of the Rings for the 1,285,034th time.
It is a point of consistent and unwavering disappointment in myself that I fail to use my precious (see, more Lord of the Rings) toilet reading time to better myself.
Alas, the reason I know about this profound quote is because I heard it on an Enter Shikari song.
If you don’t know who Enter Shikari are just scream the word “ahhhhhhhh”.
Having thoroughly eroded my intellectual credibility, let’s get back to this quote: “Nothing is true and everything is possible.”
Over the last week, the Cummings affair has brought home to us all how little many of our elected representatives think truth matters.
Now before I plough on, please bear in mind that I am penning (or should that be keyboarding?) this column several days before it appears in your paper over your Special K.
If, over the last two days, it has turned out that Dominic Cummings was in fact going up to Durham in order to volunteer with charities helping dying kittens take back control (lol) of their remaining days but had kept this a secret because he is so damn altruistic, then I apologise.
If that is the case please stop reading.
Still with me?
I thought so.
Anyway, what the situation with Durham Dom has shown is the rotting wound in the heart of our democracy and public life.
This is not the first time it has surfaced, and this wound is by no means a new injury.
It has been chock full of maggots for years but nothing has quite burst the skin, sending pus everywhere, like this episode.
The first is the inability of the UK Government (and previous ones) to admit fault or mistake.
Any sign of contrition, error or apology is seen as a weakness and must be avoided.
This leads to the absurd situation in which we now find ourselves.
If Boris/Dom (because don’t forget that the only reason Dominic Cummings makes massive decisions about your life is because of the PM) had come straight out, apologised and said it was not a resigning matter, we would no longer be talking about this.
Another sign of the rot is the misinformation, distraction and misdirection.
We saw it in the EU referendum (yes I know “we have left” and don’t @ me on Twitter), we saw it in the election and we are seeing it now.
How often have you heard a member of the cabinet say in the last week “many of the claims about him were false”?
In fact, Mr Cummings has confirmed all of them except that he went back up to Durham afterwards.
Even in that case he says he has evidence to prove that allegation wrong but the Prime Minister refused a request by the liaison committee to release it.
This idea of claiming that all the facts are not right in order to muddy an overall message is a well-practised trope.
Even if you ignore the idea of driving an hour to test your eyes and accept that Mr Cummings was within the letter of the rules, he was not acting in the spirit.
But this shouldn’t come as a surprise because he has shown that if the rules can be bent, they will be.
Anyone who remembers the Conservative Party press office changing its Twitter account to “FactCheckUK” will be familiar with this.
Along with other political reporters I sit through the majority of lobby briefings with Downing Street and remember us asking several times where Mr Cummings was self-isolating.
Every time the spokesman would say: “At home.”
Following the revelations that he was in Durham we checked with the PM’s spokesman and he said that by
“at home” he really meant “not at work”. Again, anything is possible and nothing is true. Another tactic we have seen employed is diminishing the ability of journalists to ask questions. Has anyone noticed reporters were denied follow-up questions in the daily briefings?
A small thing for some, perhaps, but another erosion of the systems meant to enforce accountability.
We have seen the secrecy autopilot switched on several times before with the refusals to publish all the advice from Sage, for instance. Cutting off reporters before they can ask follow-up questions is not the sign of a healthy democracy. It is a symptom of a deep-rooted cancer.
Any sign of contrition, error or apology is seen as a weakness and must be avoided