Nuclear Dom. Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA Wire
Dominic Cummings is to the Government what Prince Harry is to the Royal Family — both a thorn in the side, and a broken record.
We’re all familiar with what both men think about the institutions they used to be part of. And yet they keep on telling us. That doesn’t stop us from paying attention every time they have another go, but we’ve ceased to be shocked by their revelations. With subtle variations, we’ve heard it all before.
Thus the conventional wisdom is that the Cummings interview with Laura Kuenssberg last night doesn’t matter. It will do no more to shift the polls than Cummings’ select committee appearances, his Twitter threads or his pay-to-view blog. The Cummings factor has been priced in.
In fact, if anyone’s stock falls it will be Kuenssberg’s. Editorialising as she went along, she was performatively shocked that Cummings the campaigner might marshal facts to make effective slogans; and that Cummings the advisor might tell his boss what to do. It was a tedious waste of time that should have been used to extract more information about the inner workings of Downing Street.
When we got the insider info, it was only because Cummings was so eager to volunteer it. We normally have to wait years to understand the true nature of a government. By the time the memoirs are published and the official papers released, what’s unveiled is of historical interest only. But not in this case. Here we have a Prime Minister and his closest colleagues exposed in situ.
No government can operate in complete secrecy. Off-the-record briefings and counter-briefings are routine. However, the usual practices of political gossip do more to obscure the truth than reveal it, which is why they’re tolerated. What we get from Cummings is different: a dissection, not a diversion.
We know his general diagnosis: Boris is a clueless bluffer, Carrie is an interfering minx, that sort of thing. But leaving aside the personal animosity — or, in Cummings’s case, the impersonal animosity — one has to conclude that he’s basically right.
When it comes down to it, there’s something very wrong indeed with the Downing Street operation. This is a government that’s incapable of learning from its mistakes — which leaves an abundant resource to go to waste.
Take the issue of lockdown. On that front, Cummings made a big mistake of his own — badly mishandling the public rage surrounding his trip last year to County Durham. He’s admitted as much and did so again last night. The key point though is that the Government should have learned a lesson — which is that they can impose lockdown restrictions on the population, but only as long as ministers and their advisors stick to the same rules.
Anything else violates the sacred principle of fairness, which matters more to the great British public than either freedom or equality. And, yet, when Matt Hancock was caught breaking the rules with a lady friend last month, the Prime Minister airily declared the matter closed. But it wasn’t closed at all — and the Health Secretary was gone by end of the next day.
So a second chance to learn the lesson. But just this Sunday, Boris tried it on again. Instead of self-isolating like the little people, he thought he could dodge this requirement by recourse to a convenient loophole. He thought wrong — and this time it took just three hours to get from shameless defiance to shamefaced u-turn.
If this was the only hat-trick of bad judgement calls, then it might not matter that much. But with this government, it’s a pattern not a fluke.
Another example is the declaration of “freedom days”, which then don’t happen. Thus we had the Christmas amnesty of 2020, which was cancelled; followed by June 21 this year, which was also also cancelled; followed by this week’s liberation, when we woke up not to freedom, but a full-blown pingdemic.
You see the pattern? First there’s a mistake, then a failure to learn from it, and then a failure to learn from it another time.
In his interview, Cummings compared the Prime Minister to a “shopping trolley”. This will have confused viewers — but the reference is to a faulty conveyance that constantly veers off course. It takes a huge expense of time and effort just to get it back on track — only for it veer off again.
It’s an apt metaphor — but it wasn’t Cummings who came up with it. As noted by Michael Savage and documented by Tim Shipman, the comparison was first made by Boris Johnson himself — in reference to himself. “Yup, that’s why it’s so widely used in no10,” Cummings confirms, “everybody knows not only is it true but HE knows it’s true.”
So if Boris knows he needs help, then why isn’t he getting it?
According to the Cummings view of the world, the quality of government in this country is compromised by two systems — the party system and Whitehall system. These need to broken up because they restrict the flow of talent into key government positions. And it’s true: unless you’re willing to work your way up the bureaucratic ranks or slither-up the greasy poll of party politics, then opportunities to serve are limited.
However, there’s one problem with this theory — which is that though the pool of talent on the Tory benches is a shallow one, Boris has yet to exhaust it. If you look around the Cabinet table it’s quite clear that he’s not fielding the A-team.
It isn’t “the system” that’s stopping Boris from getting more support; it’s his refusal to carry out a comprehensive reshuffle.
The original line up — chosen before the 2019 election — was selected to amplify a simple message: get Brexit done. However, priorities have changed and the Cabinet needs to change with it.
Let’s start with Rishi Sunak. A year ago, he was a good fit — both as Chancellor and as the PM’s designated successor. But with Boris in better health and the levelling-up agenda in need of generous funding, Sunak is becoming an impediment. After his pandemic spending spree, his fiscally cautious instincts are coming to the fore. That’s understandable, but the PM needs a CX who will back his northern strategy to the hilt. Time to move Sunak to the Foreign Office, and move a true believer like Michael Gove or Greg Clark into the Treasury.
Dominic Raab — the current Foreign Secretary and the Cabinet’s resident tough guy — would make a better Home Secretary. In particular, he needs to be charged with getting a grip on illegal immigration before that problem becomes a crisis. This move would displace Priti Patel, but in the run up to general election there’s an obvious position for her as party chairman.
As always, there is deadwood to clear out and promising junior ministers promote to Cabinet. Among the latter, Penny Mordaunt has impressed at the dispatch box, Nadhim Zahawi has excelled as vaccines minister and Kemi Badenoch has shown the right way to prosecute the war on woke.
Boris would also do well to appoint a Deputy Prime Minister. If he won’t apply himself to the detail of policy development, then he should empower someone who would. Jeremy Hunt would be a safe choice; the newly ennobled Ruth Davidson a bolder one.
Of course, bringing two new senior figures into Cabinet — a deputy PM and a new Chancellor would fundamentally change the dynamics of the Boris Johnson’s premiership. But is that such a bad thing?
The only excuse for keeping this shopping trolley government on its present course is if one thinks that it’s heading in the right direction. Looking upon the present chaos, the Prime Minister can’t possibly believe that to be the case.
He’s therefore got two options. Either to wait for the country or his party to run out of patience — or to take control of events. Of course, he’s not Dominic Cummings. He’s not going to re-invent our entire system of government. But what he can do is reinvigorate his Cabinet.
Time to get on with it.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
peterfranklin_ 
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeBiden/Boris, what an absolutely useless pair of losers! And this is what the West has during its existential crisis? What a tragic situation. Then throw in Trudeau, Morrison, and Arden (Canada, Australia, and NZ), the five stooges, Xi has won the Mega-Millions Lottery and is set to take the world.
Sometimes it looks like the best option. Rather him than the WEF/UN/Gates mob.
Who would the western public back? Probably Xi/CCP as they are not overtly trying to destroy living standards and public health. CCP/PLA knows all they need to do is sit tight whilst we destroy ourselves, as the Romans did with their subject territories, England in clan ruled Scotland and Britain in most of the Empire. However US/UK are nuclear armed, so it may not be an option to sit and wait. PLA must have some sort of invasion /occupation plan. It will be interesting if gates/wef/eco-nazis don’t surrender should the PLA give them the option. They will be sliced and diced and it will be our loss as we didn’t do it ourselves when we had the chance.
Well said.
You want Sunak to go? You want tax and spend and waste to get worse? And all because you want Johnson’s career to continue? Are you mad?
People have gained the impression that the magic money tree can be shaken for ever. If the Treasury starts to think so too then we are indeed on the way to an inflationary boom and bust.
I was in local government for 35 years and the ungrateful recipient of the policy making of successive governments. It’s in local government and the various govt agencies where you can really judge the quality or not of an administration.
So my take on this is that we are still suffering from the Blair years. I’m serious. The civil service was comprehensively changed during that time to reflect only those who were ‘on message’. And all the agencies too. Education, universities, media … All now successfully entrenched in that way of thinking. Stubbornly unwilling to change. Wedded to the beliefs of that time. Therefore, how difficult is it for any non left govt to penetrate the herd mind of this modern establishment? I think it’s pretty impossible. Cummings identified the civil service problem with its lack of continuity in job roles, changing jobs every 18 months or you’re considered a failure. Promoted to your level of incompetence.
It will take a hard-headed realist to get to grips with this rot and make the civil service and agencies fit for purpose. But unfortunately Margaret Thatcher has passed away. It seems Boris prefers to capitulate to the establishment rather than disrupt it.
Anyway, as it takes years to master your ministerial brief and impose your will with any level of competence, it’s foolish to reshuffle. Make ministers dig deeper in their departments and make them work effectively. Challenge incompetence. Reshuffling simply allows the civil service to manipulate a new minister into their groupthink … And we are back to square one.
Finally, we are still suffering under the utterly stupid Blair laws such as Fire Safety Order 2006 (responsible in my view for Grenfell), Tenancy Deposits (unenforceable) EPCs (job creation scheme) HHSRS (idiotic housing standards assessments) student loans … Sorry but the list goes on and on. Apologies for my rant but somebody needs to say this.
great to hear from your extensive experience – there is nothing better for getting perspective thanks. And the dynamic you have outlined seems to be similar to that of many other countries .
I once had a chance to ask Sir Norman Tebbit what the biggest failure of the Thatcher Major government was. His answer was the failure to reform the bureaucracy and get the public sector unions under control so that they served the public rather than the other way around. That should be a central piece of the agenda for the Conservative government in the time left available to them.
I fully agree that Penny Mordaunt impresses at the despatch box where she covers an enormous brief. She also does so in person and is immensely bright, focussed, charming with a dry wit and thoroughly engaging style.
If she has the stamina for the fray she could go very far.
“You see the pattern? First there’s a mistake, then a failure to learn from it, and then a failure to learn from it another time.”
Actually what I see is a different pattern: a leader who persistently tries to put basic liberty ahead of the priorities of a technocratic elite that is not half as clever as it needs to be to handle something as complex as navigating an advanced service economy through a pandemic, but is clever enough to make every mistake look like the fault of the afore-mentioned leader.
Boris Johnson has, God knows, many faults, but his persistent scepticism that the government’s default response to emerging pandemic problems is correct: that is not one of his faults. He is certainly at fault for not having enough courage to stick to his principles, but even here I have to cut him at least some slack, because I am quite certain that if I, a fellow libertarian, were in Boris’s shoes, I’d have no more success than he does when it comes to drawing a line that the technocrats can’t cross.
That’s a very true and well argued point
I agree, and suggest Boris’ job will not get any easier until he has vocal and persuasive media/academic forces supporting his instinct for liberty. Maggie had many public intellectuals, like the IEA. Time to support Institute of Ideas, Free Speech Union, Andrew Neil?
If Boris was replaced with a dart board to make the national policy/decisions/select the people the result would be being wrong only half the time, which would be an improvement.
Then there is Carie, who leads Boris around by his XXXXX, and is so wrong about all matters and who is doing irreparable harm to the Nation.
I look at USA Politicians and despair, but then I look at the rest of the free world and can only think we are out to self-genocide.
Thinking back to Prime Ministers, Blair, Miliband, Cameron… They have a lot in common with Boris, sort of innocuous, ‘nice’ guys. No fire, no passion, no morality, no Patriotism, sort of anti-leaders. Weak and Liberal guys seems to be what the voters want – and so they get weakness, and further down the slippery slope of decline.
It is time for a passionate Patriot, one hard and with an uncompromising Pro Britian – no tolerance for moral relativism, no tolerance for foreigners getting rights which should be for British, one in fact like Trump. Farage is too much the type above – not one of them an Alpha-Male. Who could be Britain’s Trump? It seems all the British Politicos now are utter wimps or snakes.
“We’re all familiar with what both [Prince Harry and Dominic Cummings] think about the institutions they used to be part of. And yet they keep on telling us. That doesn’t stop us from paying attention every time they have another go, but we’ve ceased to be shocked by their revelations. With subtle variations, we’ve heard it all before.”
…yes, and I think most of us would like both of them to finally shut up and disappear.
“In fact, if anyone’s stock falls it will be Kuenssberg’s. Editorialising as she went along, she was performatively shocked that Cummings the campaigner might marshal facts to make effective slogans; and that Cummings the advisor might tell his boss what to do. It was a tedious waste of time that should have been used to extract more information about the inner workings of Downing Street.”
The Oprah-ification of the BBC.
“You see the pattern? First there’s a mistake, then a failure to learn from it, and then a failure to learn from it another time.”
Hmm, yes I agree – but only in part. Some of the instances mentioned are just plain bad judgment (notably: the demonstration that there’s one rule for the governing, another for the governed). Others were about taking risks. And risks go wrong. But some, like the vaccination campaign, go right and save the day. I do think Boris is an incompetent that should not be at No.10, but let us not entirely damn the act of trying things. Only by trying can progress be achieved. The UK (and the EU) should not judge failure so harshly, as it results in an overly cautious society that neither innovates nor progresses.
To me it’s not that shocking how quick these anti-Tory Tories have cleaved the country again. They are the imagined Thatcherite/’Alan B’Stard’ offspring, horribly disfigured, indolent, arrogant & corrupt.
Johnson needs to go, not survive. How can anyone think it’s right he should remain PM? If there was decency in him he would act on the absurdity of the situation. He would step down. It cannot be right that his dysfunctionalism is accepted as normal and tolerated.
Of course, ‘politics’, being in essence amoral, dictates. Once he’s a liability, he’s gone. Not before. Meanwhile he can recline and indulge like some gouty Augustan Gillray grotesque.
(Republicans in the UK should think long & hard because Boris Johnson is precisely the type of person who without shame, would inveigle the British voters into electing him, ‘President of the UK’, only to behave like an absolutist monarch.
( As we learned from the interview Cummings seemed content to use Johnson as a quasi-‘President’ while it suited them.))
I’d have agreed with all that by December 1997, mutatis mutandis.
The Tories are in for two terms and, depending on the results of 2023, likely three. Time to get used to it.
Truism: who our Prime Minister is is important. We don’t elect our PMs so we expect our parties to pick someone ‘decent’, in every sense. This terrible character has been foisted upon us.
Tony Blair divided us, yes, but at least he was competent and knew what he was doing, certainly in the early years.
We should also expect our elected representatives to hold the government to account. This is the bigger problem. They don’t serve us, they serve themselves.
Disagree about foisted. Without Boris the Conservatives would not have won their majority.
I do understand that you would prefer Tony Blair though, which means the EU etc, so this is all quite a reach for you.
I think somebody said politicians should never assume that the electorate are fools, but we did elect this mob.
If we don’t want to become a republic with a president, we need a better way of selecting party leaders. It shouldn’t be an internal matter for parties only. Something like a ‘Primaries’ system? Then at least if a dud like Johnson becomes PM, considerably more people would have actually put him there. This means absolutely fixed term parliaments and an end to removal of leaders by the party members themselves.
A key problem is the patronage in the appointments made by the Prime Minister . All MP’s should be paid one of two rates – full time + 35 hours or part time + 20 hours. Nothing extra for holding office. The rate can be higher than current MP pay. That might help policy ministers to challenge the PM. A key disclosure by Cummings was that the Cabinet was sidelined. MPs and the Cabinet both need to hold the PM to account for what he does in their name.
Two points. You can’t prevent a party leader resigning if they have lost the confidence of their party. And the current Fixed Term Parliament Act was shown to have an important deficiency in 2019 when the government couldn’t command a majority for its key policy, but the opposition parties were unwilling to trigger its confidence provisions. Instead they were content to leave the country rudderless for their own political advantage. That could have gone on indefinitely if the Lib Dems hadn’t blinked.
In 2019 the situation was obviously extraordinary and unforeseen, with a divided governing party, due to cataclysmic events since 2016. The issue itself caused so much dysfunction everywhere, with ‘remainiacs’ and ultra Europhobes everywhere creating mayhem.
Probably one of the most disgraceful episodes in modern Parliamentary history.
If governments can call elections at will on a whim, they invariably end up with an advantage – kind of ‘tag team’ government. While other parties could be prey to extremists’ intrigues and fixing, making them unelectable. (Of course I have in mind recent events here.)
Election cycles/fixed-term parliaments clear the decks and make the elections a fair and proper competition.
A party leader shouldn’t lose confidence of their party, having been elected by a much bigger proportion of the electorate in a ‘primary’. If everyone is aware of the ground rules, the ‘constitution’ or ‘charter’ then a natural stability guides the process.
Goodness- and then we could have been stuck with Theresa May for even longer!
I don’t agree -Sunak is the first chancellor we have had who is numerate and financially literate. Keep him. Or make him PM.
The problem with number ten is that it is full of junior none to sharp inexperienced young “advisors” who vary between vacuous and plain gormless . Chuck them out and use the professional civil service and admin will improve.
Boris will stand down soon. He has had his day in the sun . He wants to go back to earning more money.
Chuck out Carrie. They are her people.
Cummings strikes me as naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world. His portrayal of the dysfunction inside Number 10 and the erratic performance of his boss suggests that he has a childish belief that the world is run by capable grown-ups who calmly make the right decisions, plan ahead and don’t make mistakes, against which the reality of government is bound to seem chaotic. His apparent shock at what he witnessed in Downing Street and disgust with Boris’s failings are a measure of his own limited experience rather than evidence for any particular shortcomings in those areas.
This government has thrown another fifty-odd million quid at the French (on top of what we are already paying) to prevent further illegal crossings of economic migrants — so it seems they are awakening to a growing crisis. But if the author believes that tough guy Raab could deal with the crisis then why is Priti Patel unable or unwilling to act?
I think Macron has clocked onto Erdogan’s tactics of extracting cash for coastal/border patrols and is using them for himself. As is Lukashenko. Not that any European media would ever dare to put the sainted, oh-so-European Macron in the same basket as the other two.
BJ, like Biden, is a useful idiot and a puppet of predominently leftist beaurocrats. The weakness of our current system is such that the “leader” can do nothing. Initial virus modelling fake? Get a real maths modeller who knows all math models are wrong but some are more useful than others, and sack the fakers. SAGE committee run by far left entryists who actively seek to destroy our economy? Get Mi5 on them. Pro virus goons send out “pingdemic” software (malware) to cause disruption and economic damage? Mi5 again but FFS shut the software down – not difficult if its on Android, IOS etc – Chinese do it all the time. As many comments agree – these clowns, vandals and thieves leave the global field open to Putin and Xi, who well know how to deal with threats to society like BJ, SAGE etc.
As I’ve said elsewhere, Dominic Cummings’s problem is that he’s only ever worked for one Prime Minister, and has no real experience on which to compare Boris with any other. Dom has, in his mind, an idealised picture of how a Prime Minister ought to think and act, and Boris doesn’t measure up to it. But neither, I’m sure, would Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown or Tony Blair. Dom seems to think that repeatedly pointing out Boris’s flaws will cause people to turn against him. But he isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. And he doesn’t seem to realise that most people are aware that every hero has feet of clay.
Equally, the steady drip, drip drip of new “revelations” from Dom is starting to come across as a Prince Harryesque telling of “my truth” that only partly intersects with reality as perceived by others involved.
As for the cabinet, yes, it’s time to move Priti Patel on to somewhere that she can actually do a decent job of. Party chair seems like an obvious post, although – were it not for the fact that it’s a demotion, and one she would probably therefore reject – I think she’d be a very good, albeit somewhat left-field, choice for education. I’d prefer to see Michael Gove replace her at the Home Office, though. I think Dominic Raab is doing a good job at the FO, and shouldn’t be moved from there yet.
Rishi, though, should stay where he is. Of course he’s clashing with Boris over spending. But that’s precisely what he is there to do. The chancellor, of all people, should not be a yes-man. He needs a good working relationship with the PM, to be sure – we don’t want a repeat of the Blair/Brown antipathy – but he needs to be able to stand up to the PM when necessary. And Rishi comes with a lot of public goodwill, both inside and outside the party. He’s consistently rated as one of the cabinet’s best performers by ConHome, for example, and his approval rating continues to do well on the regular YouGov tracker. That it has dipped a bit since the heights of last year only reflects the fact that the focus has moved away from the Treasury. He is still well into positive territory, and looks set fair to stay there unless he does something seriously wrong.
So, unless Rishi himself wants to move (and I’ve not heard any rumours that he does), moving him against his will would probably undermine, rather than strengthen, the PM’s position. And I don’t think Boris is daft enough to make that kind of mistake. Whatever Dom says.
Agree with all that. Nevertheless, Rishi at the Foreign Office is an enticing prospect.
The Tory Party needs to get rid of Boris first, but who do they have to replace him? Thatcher rightly said socialists only stop spending when they run out of other people’s money. The Tory party adopted socialism with Cameron. They had no other option. Once socialism rears its ugly head, in combination with democracy, all parties have to become socialist to get elected. They all use taxpayers money to buy votes, so the government continues to grow in size no matter who is in power. They also use regulation to give power to their elite business mates. Competitive trade is vanishing and we suffer even more.
Priri Patel. She has learned much, is now seriously underrated, knows her own strengths and weaknesses, and is hardworking. And the left would be exposed for their underlying sexism and racialism
I think you are right on Sunak, he is not firm enough on managing our expenditure, furlough should have stopped long ago. he hasn’t the cajones to take on the public sector inflation linked defined benefit pension disaster – they must all be ruled off and switched to DCS like the rest of the country asap.
I would leave Patel where she is – she needs to finish the job get a good result or he rep is in tatters – give her the chance to do this.
Raab is doing a good job; he may lack Boris’s “personality” but I would trust him over BJ and Gove to deliver, even as PM
If Boris can’t change and get a grip he has to go
This was a ‘can you do me a favour Laura?’ interview. Contrived. Not forensic. Cummings so clearly setting the agenda. More Oprah/the Markles than what we should expect from the BBC. However, when Cummings says: “The PM is lost. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. His girlfriend (wife) is pulling the strings. It’s not good for the country and the sooner it ends the better”, I believe him. This is a question of character: Boris Johnson’s. What needs to happen isn’t happening because he doesn’t have what it takes to make it happen. I hear he doesn’t like firing people. Seriously? This desire to be popular seems to run deeper than being a weak politician. He’s like a needy child. When there’s the potential for things to run relatively smoothly – like unlocking. Decision made (for good or ill); get the ducks in a row, cover the bases etc. – he seems deliberately to throw a curve ball into the mix and create chaos. He chooses chaos, always. He thrives on chaos. Fine for his personal life (well…kind of) but to inflict this on the country? It’s dangerous. Even if Johnson has to remain as PM, somebody else urgently needs to run the country. People are not crying out for some ‘grand vision’ frenzy with endless highs and lows, stops and starts c/o what the PM’s thinking might be on any given day of the week. Good old dull, steady competence would be great.
Since when did a PM run the country bar Thatcher and Blair? The PM or President is a talking head. Cummings, schmummings, dripfeeding low grade oxygen to Labour. If I was Boris I’d see this year out and bow out on health grounds, long covid or similar. I suspect the rest of the Cabinet are wary of popping their heads over the parapet, volunteering for the poison chalices of Covid and Brexit. I’d plump for Penny Mordaunt who seems to possess those which are currently held in Carrie’s handbag. I’m sure she would fire the present incumbents. They’ve had their turn and failed; time for some new blood.
Total pantomime; “performatively shocked” captures perfectly Kuenssberg’s handling of the interview, and her theatrical gurning at various moments of the “reveal”. Unless she has risen to a senior position at the BBC without some basic understanding of what happens in real world politics?
It’s good knockabout fun, but the BBC may also like to spend some time examining why Boris’s opinion poll lead keeps growing over opposition parties. Our entire political class, in power and in opposition is entirely unfit for purpose. Or weren’t we supposed to notice?
It is Johnson who has to go and re-shuffling cabinet is like the boy who saw the Emperor had no clothes
I’ve got a feeling you weren’t ever a fan, were you?
All that’s true apart from the important bit about replacements. Gove/Hunt/Davidson/Mordaunt are all duds and would fair little better than the incumbents. That’s why Boris correctly resisted pressure to dump Hancock.
… but all four of them could probably manage to spell ‘fare’ correctly …!
Mordaunt is excellent.