Sartorial choice spoke volumes as a symbol of humility for waning star
Dominic Cummings slouched and plodded his way into Downing Street yesterday morning like a condemned man bound for the gallows. Was it his funeral march for fallen consigliere Lee Cain, I wondered, or was it for himself?
With his bowed head and unusually smart attire, Mr Cummings had the truculent, hangdog air of a scruffy geography master who had been summoned to the headmaster’s study for a wigging so made a token effort at formality, but still favoured the threadbare rucksack over the smart briefcase.
This in itself spoke volumes, for Cummings’s indulgence in fashion – or rather anti-fashion – has always seemed a kind of power-play. While his grip on No 10 was absolute, he displayed a performative scruffiness that only someone in total control would contemplate. At his zenith, he rocked up in ill-fitting jeans and a bobbly sweater, trousers at half-mast revealing unseemly builder’s cleavage. These ensembles were dress-down Friday cubed – part computer hacker, part Homer Simpson.
Cummings is at heart a revolutionary, so it is fitting that his sartorial fluctuations have mirrored his waning influence like a Marie Antoinette in reverse. Awaiting trial in solitary confinement, the French queen replaced her towering wigs and lavish rococo gowns with shabby black widow’s weeds, in a canny act of social potholing. She was forbidden from wearing them to the guillotine for fear of sparking public displays of mourning. Smarter attire is – conversely – a sign of humility for Mr Cummings. Reprimanded by No 10 for his Barnard Castle sojourn, he broke long-standing convention by arriving at the Rose Garden press conference in a proper pair of trousers, and a shirt that was only slightly creased. His sober attire yesterday suggests his star has fallen far indeed.
Disdain for ties and cufflinks is just one of Cummings’s many foibles that the competing factions of the Conservative Party find objectionable. The Vote Leave cohort’s iconoclasm and abrasiveness upsets Tory grandees as much as they do the Left, while Cummings’s refusal to become a card-carrying member has always grated. Sir Charles Walker, vicechairman of the 1922 Committee, made it clear on Radio 4 what the backbenches crave: a sound, clubbable presence in No 10.
Walker’s earnest concern was reminiscent of a loyal retainer of Rohan in Lord of the Rings, desperate to rid good King Théoden of the malign influence of Gríma Wormtongue, Saruman’s agent. If they could just expel Wormtongue from the Tory mead-hall, Walker seemed to suggest, then all would be well. But will neutering Team Cummings herald the return of the old buccaneering King Théoden – or will a new cabal, with its own set of alien orthodoxies, simply replace the current paranoid clique? Either way, the war of Johnson’s ear is already raging.
Time may be running out for Dominic Cummings to become a Proper Tory, but he could yet master some of the etiquette. Learning to preside over summer fêtes and Christmas fayres for a start; spinning the tombola, chatting up the Shires ladies serving cream teas. He could join his local parish council committee and become a “fraahfully good shot” – eyesight permitting. He may even have to start reading