In conducting his lockdown tour of London and the North East , Dominic Cummings has confirmed himself the central figure of British politics. He is the Bismarck to Johnson’s Kaiser and the most effective British political operator of the past 10 years.
Cummings’ refusal to admit to having done anything wrong and his sneering at the left-wing press have endeared him to at least 52% of the country,
Cummings has become the focus for the frustration of many but his defiance is absolute
#Policing #coronavirus #lockdown ‘made much harder by #DominicCummings‘ actions’
Read More: https://t.co/rCbfWnQX0J#coronavirusuk #covid19UK #Lockdown #DominicCummngs #COVID pic.twitter.com/RFr2HiZIpT
— Oigetit Health (@Oigetit_Health) May 24, 2020
I have three observations to make
- We all love a baddie
- We want the baddie on our side
- Cummings is the person we don’t dare to be
We all love a baddie
Cummings has all the attributes of a political baddie. He’s unelected, arrogant and secretive. He has absolutely no interest in pleasing anyone and he’s quite ruthless.
He is not a pantomime villain, a Dick Dastardly, he is a very real baddie
We want the baddie on our side
If you had to pick your political football team, you’d want Cummings in charge of the defence. For everything that his behaviour tells us about the abuse of power, we want Cummings in charge – even if he picks up a few cards along the way
Cummings is the person we don’t dare to be
Forget all the minutia, Cummings is the husband and Dad, as well as the Bismarck to Boris’ Kaiser.If he survives (and I think he will), he will be the most notorious adviser in Downing Street for decades.
Though he focusses all our discontent, he thrives on the opprobrium heaped upon him. And his stature is the greater for him driving a reasonably sized family car into which he piles his family and all that goes with them.
He is what we want to be and that is hugely frustrating.
Is Dominic Cummings running Britain?
The answer quite clearly is yes. Have we the power to sack him – we will see, but I suspect the answer is “no”. Will he diminish those around him- undoubtedly he will, Johnson already looks a second order Kaiser beside this Bismarck.
Does it matter if he does?
It’s worth noting, that Britain is not only in the grip of the pandemic, but it is in the midst of a political change. Both are likely to be momentous and both are being managed by Cummings.
We have to look at the alternatives to the Cummings way, the problems we had moving forward under May and Cameron, the ineptitude of most of the current Cabinet and utter irrelevance of the opposition (though this may change).
Cummings is where he is for a good reason. He is filling a vacuum. If we find a way of ridding ourselves of him, we will have to find an alternative. Where is that alternative?
I am encouraged in this view by this blog by Simon Carne. He argues that whatever we think of Cummings’ behaviour, the press are not the judge and the jury.
Then German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck (correct spelling, Henry), introduced the world’s first state pension system in the 1880s. One had to be 70 years old – and the expectation was that you would probably only live a few years after that to collect it. But in 1916, they lowered the pensionable age to 65. A pensions hero, surely?
Let’s hope we have a Bismarck 2 – spelling corrected – thanks
Adolf Hitler was a pretty effective dictator. Mussolini got the trains running beautifully. Mao was a pretty good organiser. Genghis Khan was quite a useful conqueror and absolute ruler. None of them was at risk of being sacked. Cummings is a bigger c*nt than all of them for taking the piss out of the whole country. What absolute drivel to say he in effect has every right to think of his 4 year old son. He and his wife are exceptionally wealthy. I accept the likelihood that he has absolutely no real friends at all and so therefore wanted his family to care for his son because no decent human being would wish to care for the spawn of this political Satan. However on what parallel universe would someone with the size of a planet not consider the other obvious alternatives to getting in a car and driving his virus ravaged near corpse and son 260 miles. How about paying for the same close relatives up in Durham to get in a taxi to collect his son and take him back to Durham? How about getting social services to transport his son? Or pretty much anyone else other than him? It shows contempt, arrogance and disregard for everybody else’s safety. He is a c*nt. But as you say Henry, whilst there are plenty of c*nts in the cabinet, they are utterly useless at organising themselves never mind the country. So you are probably right that Cummings will survive.
Sorry Henry, you never said there were plenty of useless c*nts in the cabinet that was me. There of course at least 36,000 people who can never vote Cummings out even if it were possible to do so. Hopefully their relatives, friends, colleagues and associates will instead remember the lily-liveried, self-interested hypocritical cowardice of the party keeping him in place come the next election. You are probably right that he will survive.
Well I go along with what you report – but the best form of ‘defence’ is always been ‘attack’ – and that is what he does! Our problem is that ‘Boris’ is hardly ‘Cromwell’ being far too ‘liberal’!
No. The problem is that Boris Johnson is an adulterous lying cheating scumbag who needs Dominic Cummings because he is too lazy and erratic to be the Prime Minister. Because he needs Cummings to tell him what to do he has no intention of doing what is quite clearly the only correct course of action, which is to either insist on his resignation or else sack him. This asinine duplicitous safeguarding rationale is insulting and deeply offensive. He and his wife have broken the rules. End of. However he will not be sacked, will not resign, and everyone will forget about it.
Those in ‘glass houses – should not throw stones!’
What are you talking about Peter Beattie?
Brian G. If you don’t know, it’s not up to me to explain ‘charactor assasination’!
Boris may well have a place for you in his team of special advisers if you can’t tell the difference between character assassination and acting without responsibility and integrity.
I had always looked on the Cummings/Johnson relationship as more Rasputin/Tsar Nicholas….. In order to be a hero, Cummings should have said words to the effect of “I have done a foolish thing and I shouldn’t have. I am really and truly sorry and I beg for the nation’s forgiveness.” That’s what a REAL man would have done, straight away. Cummings is just a rat.
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