‘MAD DOM’, THE GURU BORIS JUST CAN’T DO WITHOUT
Ihave had many memorable meetings with Dominic Cummings in the 20 or so years I have known him. But few stand out like the evening last summer when we met in Downing Street.
It came shortly after he was made Boris Johnson’s senior No 10 adviser, and three years after he had masterminded Johnson’s victory in the eU referendum. I was left to wait in a large room before Cummings eventually turned up, scruffy as ever. he didn’t mention why he was late. It was quite a while in the conversation before he got round to explaining why. he casually observed he had just fired Sonia Khan, a young Tory special adviser to Chancellor Sajid Javid, for leaking information to friends of Javid’s predecessor Philip hammond.
Cummings seized Khan’s phone and had her frogmarched out of Downing Street by an armed policeman. I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him: but he wasn’t joking.
any other No 10 official who had acted like that would have been dismissed on the spot by the Prime Minister. There was never a chance Johnson would do that.
Cummings wasn’t just the brains behind Johnson’s eU referendum campaign. he helped him win an election landslide.
Two of the most extraordinary against-all-odds results in British political history.
It led to Cummings being portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in a Tv film showing the ruthless, unconventional – some would say illegitimate – tactics he used to get the UK out of the eU.
To his foes he is a Rasputin-like figure at the heart of Johnson’s No 10 court (though unlike Rasputin, Cummings is happily married; I will return to this later). To his admirers, he is a genius. Lifelong eurosceptic Cummings was responsible not only for persuading his political mentor and friend Michael Gove to defy
David Cameron by joining the Brexit campaign. he also helped Gove to talk a reluctant Johnson into agreeing to lead the campaign. Cummings’ phenomenal Brexit success led to Johnson asking him to join his No 10 team. he didn’t disappoint, and unleashed a fresh armoury of highly provocative tactics designed to enrage Brussels, Tory traditionalists and Labour.
But ‘Mad Dom’ proved them all wrong again. Using a Cummingsesque slogan, ‘Get Brexit Done’, Johnson won a landslide.
The Prime Minister’s loyalty is not limited to Cummings: his aide’s wife, the writer Mary Wakefield, worked closely with Johnson when he edited the Spectator magazine.
When Johnson was accused last year of behaving inappropriately toward a woman at a Spectator lunch, Wakefield, who was also at the lunch, came to his rescue by defending him.
Plenty of Conservative MPs would love to see Cummings sacked. They think his eccentric antics and utterances and power over Johnson are unacceptable. earlier this year he posted an advert inviting ‘weirdos’ and ‘misfits’ to apply for jobs at No 10.
he also has powerful foes in
Whitehall who would like to see him brought down. When he was adviser to Gove in his days as education secretary Cummings lampooned the mainly Left-wing educational establishment as ‘ The Blob’. he has carried on in similar vein as Johnson’s right-hand man, threatening to scrap entire Whitehall departments. Cummings has also come under fire over his role in the coronavirus crisis. he was accused of dismissing the risk of deaths among the elderly in insulting terms – an allegation he denied.
There were also claims he was behind the initial and controversial ‘ herd immunity’ strategy – ditched after warnings it could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
There was another row when it emerged that, contrary to usual Whitehall protocol, Cummings had attended meetings of the Government’s Sage committee of scientific advisers.
Cummings has never done things by the book.
No one knows that better than Johnson, who would not be Prime Minister if it were not for Mad Dom’s unique skills.
If the claims of Cummings’ lockdown breach are as serious as is alleged, Johnson may have no choice but to do to him what Cummings did to Sonia Khan.
Tell him to pack his bags and leave Downing Street.