The man who could cost Boris Johnson his job
IS THIS THE MOMENT Boris Johnson lost the next election? It might sound like a strange question, when we’re still four long years away from the end of this Parliament. But right now it looks as if the Prime Minister’s refusal to sack his chief advisor, Dominic Cummings – who famously drove his potentially Covid 19infected wife Mary and their four-year-old son halfway across the country during lockdown, to get family help with childcare – may be costing him.
Johnson’s personal poll ratings dropped 20 points virtually overnight as the story went viral, according to pollsters Savanta Comres. And that was before it emerged that, while holed up in a cottage on his parents’ farm in Durham, Cummings broke the rules by driving his family to local beauty spot Barnard Castle, supposedly to test his eyesight. The PM has insisted his aide was only doing what any loving parent would, to make sure his son would be safe if both parents got sick. But that doesn’t seem to have cut much ice with other frazzled parents, juggling work and home-schooling for months now without a break.
One survey of Mumsnet users found that 81% either hadn’t or wouldn’t have travelled for emergency childcare during lockdown. Almost one in four said they’d been in the same position as the Cummings family, with one parent sick and the other worried about catching it, yet stayed home and coped by themselves. What’s really hurting the Tories is the lingering suspicion that it’s one rule for ordinary people but another if you’re close to the Prime Minister.
Downing Street will be hoping the public mood brightens as they begin relaxing the lockdown for everyone, with barbecuing in the back garden now officially allowed – so long as there’s no more than six of you (eight in Scotland), and everyone stays two metres away from people they don’t live with – and shops re-opening. Life may still be far from normal, but at least there’s light at the end of the tunnel now.
And as Ben Page, chief executive of pollsters Ipsos Mori, tweeted, it’s a mistake to get carried away by what could simply be a blip. When Ed Miliband was leading the opposition, he raced 12 points ahead of David Cameron at one point, yet still lost the 2015 election, so Labour’s new leader Keir Starmer shouldn’t start celebrating just yet.
But the fear among Tory MPS, a quarter of whom have now openly condemned Cummings’ actions, is that all this has
knocked public confidence in their handling of the pandemic. Over two-thirds of Britons think it will now be harder for Government to get vital public health messages across, according to Yougov, with some treating this episode as an excuse to break the rules themselves, while others worry that lockdown is being lifted now for all the wrong reasons.
As Grazia went to press, Cummings was still in his job, after Durham Police concluded that the trip to Barnard Castle was only a ‘minor’ breach of lockdown regulations. But it’s unclear yet whether the story will fade away, as Downing Street hopes, or linger on long after we’ve forgotten family Zoom quizzes and PE with Joe Wicks.
There are some moments in politics that come to define people, fairly or unfairly; think Ed Miliband’s battle with a bacon sandwich, or the stage set collapsing as Theresa May tried to give a speech. Boris Johnson’s fate may depend on making sure the dash to Durham isn’t one of them.