Dominic Cummings has made a terrible mistake. I don’t mean going to Durham, or Barnard Castle. Which may have been mistakes, but they are very minor compared to the real mistake he has made.
The real mistake he has made is that he trusted the chattering classes, and their pet scientists, on the Covid-19 and the lockdown. If Cummings really was the strategic genius he’s supposed to be he’d realise that he’s made an almost fatal miscalculation in trying to please the quasi-religious lunatics who hate him and want him dead. When you’re Mr Brexit you can’t ever placate them. They are your enemy and you have to take that seriously. To them you are Trump, and public enemy number one, and you have a target on your back. To think that you can walk among them, attend meetings with them, talk to their deluded scientists, and think you’ll bring them around, is the sort of stupidity that you were brought in to eradicate. You have become part of the problem you were supposed to be the solution to.
The recent letter from Michel Barnier makes it clear that the Brexit betrayal never went away. It is on, big time. The long extension offered by the EU (the precursor to the eventual overturning, or the eventual soft, soft Brexit) has been approved by the deep state, and the only people in the way are Cummings and Johnson. Get rid of them, and we are back to the compliant, wet Tory party of old, which does what the Deep State tells it to.
If Cummings and Johnson can’t see that they are the targets then the Conservative party is too stupid to survive, and shouldn’t survive. The recent declaration of war by the BBC, in the form of Emily Maitlis’s unprecedented Newsnight editorialising, where she didn’t even hide behind the BBC’s usual pretend objectivity, made this clear. How much more notice do these deluded amateurs need? The government thought they had a temporary truce with the BBC, and the rest of the UK’s leftist media. Did they not understand that a temporary truce between enemies means that the enemy will attack you if you let your guard down?
If the extraordinary media pile-on doesn’t convince Cummings, maybe the naked hostility shown towards him and his family by his Islington neighbours will. I mean, how naïve do you have to be to live in the very heart of enemy territory when you’re the devil incarnate to them? Did he think it’s 1992 and it’s all cool as long as we change the music and hand around some drugs? This is a showdown. A battle for who runs Britain. And Cummings, the super genius who’s supposed to be playing seven-dimensional chess by the fantasists on the internet who think he’s a character from a novel, is living right amongst them, like a comedy honky trying to jive-talk in Harlem. We thought we had Hari Seldon, we got Gene Wilder.
If Cummings had even half a brain he should realise by now the folly of what he was trying to do. He now has two, and only two, paths open to him. The abasement path, or the Daenerys path. The first path is folly. It just leads, sooner or later to annihilation. You will be trodden into the dirt. There is no middle-way compromise, no sitting-on-the-fence path. That just leads to a slower version of the first result. You die or you fight.
Here is the other way. This is the path Cummings must take:
He must eviscerate the lockdown left, and stomp on their bones. At the same time he must crush the BBC. The Maitlis episode means it is the perfect time to do it. No mercy. Burn the left’s house down. Throw the BBC to the wolves. And Channel 4 and Sky News and ITV. Serve notice to social media that it has to cease its censorship. Release the grip on the country that the priestly class has.
Of course he and Johnson can’t do it alone. The Cabinet must be instructed to grow a backbone, and to back Boris or get out. But this is where the unlikeliness of Cummings and Johnson choosing the second way becomes apparent. If they were serious, they would have already got the Cabinet to grow a pair, and would have immediately started a systematic dismantling of the left’s infiltration of all forms of power in the early days of their administration. Instead the government went immediately soft, as Conservative governments always do. Cummings’s main aim after Brexit was not to muzzle the left and free the country, but to set up a super-brain academic institute called ARPA, an idea that you’d expect from Howard Stark, not from the man who is supposed to be the scourge of the left.
The Conservatives will try, as usual, to chart a course for the non-existent middle way, and so this fake conservative administration will, as usual, end in failure, and once again betray the country.
18 thoughts on “Dominic Cummings’ real failure”
Cummings’ fatal mistake was not reading Neil Ferguson’s CV before recruiting him.
Why was a serial exaggerator appointed not only to guide the government, but to lead them?
This pathetic buck passing, coupled with dreadful oversight has exposed Cummings and the government to be simply out of their depth.
They talked a good Brexit fight when they could set the agenda, but now they have a real job to do, they have shown themselves to be flat-footed and incompetent.
Hector,
I’ve read your piece twice now and my one conclusion is: Can I have some of your optimism tablets please? I can’t get any anywhere.
Yeah needs to decide whose sides he’s on, ‘elite’ / bureaucratic state / globalists or ‘populists’ i.e. civil society: nation state as primary object of political loyalty, which is what Leave was supposed to be about.
Calls to mind excellent speech on these themes by Roger Scruton delivered to a Polish audience;
“What the liberals condemn as populism is really the attempt to retain old and inherited sentiments of identity and belonging. And what the people condemn as elitism is really the enlightenment conception of a universal and borderless political order, in which conflicts supposedly vanish because their cause – which is the competitive network of national loyalties – has been swept away.”
https://www.roger-scruton.com/articles/614-can-europe-learn-from-communism
When it comes to dealing with the left the Danerys option is the only option to take. The failure to do so repeatedly over the years is why we are in the appalling state we are in.
I’m sure Dom has a couple of dragons lined up. That both he and Boris had the virus at the same time definitely created a gap that the enemies of Brexit made use of. Boris is still recovering and is clearly not near 100% yet so it will be tricky for a few more weeks.
If stories about David Frost start appearing, it will confirm there is an attempted deep state conspiracy underway
Once the corona winter bug has died out, DC et al need to “start(ed) a systematic dismantling of the left’s infiltration of all forms of power“.
This should begin with the open disclosure of the names of all Common Purpose ‘Graduates’ and the positions they hold in quangos, local authorities, school boards of governors and the BBC.
Should they be found to have been ‘recruited’ by other CP graduates, they should be forced to re-apply for their positions.
I agree entirely including that Boris doesn’t have the backbone to take on the left-wing establishment. Blair was not shy about putting his placemen into key positions, something that we are still living with including the Blairite Supreme Court. Boris and Cummings need to be equally as bold.
During the lockdown fiasco, the biggest surprise for me was when the membership of SAGE was published; it is entirely academics and government employees. That implies there are no clever people in the private sector who have anything to contribute. I find that difficult to believe. If I wanted to build a bridge I wouldn’t consult a teacher of bridge building theory, I’d consult someone with 20+ years experience in bridge building. It wouldn’t be hard to rebalance SAGE by asking companies to volunteer their chief techncial officers to join. One CTO from some key industries such as telecoms, oil, banking, defence, etc. Maybe we could then avoid a repeat of untested models and code being used to influence government policy. In the private sector things like revenue loss or telecoms networks falling over tend to focus the mind on having good code.
PD, I fear it’s already too late – CP infestations are so widespread and entrenched that only total destruction and rebuilding will eradicate them. Or am I thinking of termites?
Either require drastic measures.
High expectations lead to major disappointments. Maybe the issue is that expectations should not have been so high in the first place?
Cummings is merely a staffer — all he can do is advise. It has long been clear that Boris Johnson’s only key principle is that he should be at the top of the greasy pole. The Conservative Party has long been more associated with social class & social aspirations than with any clear guiding principles. The Great British Public is deeply divided on many topics — Brexit squeaked through, and Johnson’s healthy parliamentary majority is based on a minority of the votes cast. Major power centers in the UK — bankers, lawyers, media, academia, bureaucracy, NHS, unions — will defend their current privileges to the bitter end. Effecting change in that environment would be a monstrous challenge, even if the British people were united in demanding change.
Yes, it would have been more impressive if Cummings had looked at the early data from the Diamond Princess and recommended protecting the old & infirm while the rest of the UK took advantage of the Lock Downs elsewhere to build business by carrying on working. Hector is right — Cummings blew his big chance. But we have to accept that even if Cummings had made the smart recommendation, it would almost certainly have been rejected by the Political Class.
In case it was ever in doubt, the ‘lockdown’ decision and all the bull that’s followed it has shown that Boris and Dom are just as much part of the ‘priestly class’ as the rest of them. They can hardly squash the BBC, when it’s been so useful to their smokescreen for the last two plus months – and still is. We are short of a political party – Nigel, such as he was, seems to have decided questioning the lockdown has no mileage and he’s best off running up and down the channel in a rubber boat
Exactly, .2010 was a God given opportunity for an Inferno of Quangos, Gov’t depts etc more so with Labour’s note “There’s no money left” and Cameron/Osborne did nothing
CV-19 has provided a second opportunity. What does Gov’t propose? More green crap, cycle lanes, HS2, higher taxes etc. Pathetic
Labour, MSM etc seem more concerned Cummings hasn’t prostrated himself and trotted out “I regret blah and I apologise to anyone who may be offended”
As for Tory MPs’ naivety, not new. They persist in giving in to Left and doing whatever with our money hoping that will placate them, but it never does. Stupidly never learn blackmailers always come back for more
Boris Johnson [Correctly] cuts off BBC Kussenburk asking Cummings questions to experts during coronavirus briefing
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws8oEQVmUcY
Nick spot on
– Nick Ferrari reveals the true cost of the coronavirus crisis & why the UK needs to get back to work
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upJr0__cwxA
As is Nigel
– The French Navy are still escorting boats into British waters. Watch how they are trying to cover it up
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8DTcaQHenQ
@Martin S
+1
A lot of these comments suggest that Cummings and Johnson are somehow to blame for the poor performance of our bureaucracy during this epidemic.
It seems to me that the Bureaucracy – AKA the Swamp, or the Blob – are well served by performing badly and placing the blame on the government. It is very easy to make your boss look bad by feeding him duff information and then misinterpreting his instructions. People should consider where the real blame might lie…
I really do wonder if Cummings has been “elevated” by both the right and the left way way beyond his actual abilities. Yeah, he’s a smart cookie, I just think people expect something from him that he just doesn’t have the ability to carry out (or possibly he just can’t be arsed).
We’ll see, but I think we’re all waiting for a big fat nothing burger after Brexit is finalised next month.
Have some optimism tablets:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yecXl/1/
Cases are down sharply. More areas are case free for a week or more. Compare with 11 days ago:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/YIgji/2/
Changes over the past 7 days:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MXlOW/1/
compared with 11 days ago:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jMm3A/1/
GB wide map of cases over past 7 days
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jUER6/1/
NeverReady: “I really do wonder if Cummings has been “elevated” by both the right and the left way way beyond his actual abilities.”
Political advisers tend to become hate figures and are probably evelated beyond what they deserve in the minds of both supporters and enemies. I’m also thinking of Alastair Campbell and Karl Rove.
Good article on Spiked
The media story about Dominic Cummings has collapsed
The 180-degree turn that Boris made by ditching Oxford for Imperial was the moment all the wheels fell off Johnson’s homemade bus. The reason for this needs to be finessed: who or what forced his podgy, closet-liberal hand? Or did no one? It seems that the Cummings cranium was the perfect hammer for the Brexit nail, but we’re now seeing that Boris’s gang has been out-thought and outplayed by an unseen force. The proof will be in the pudding: if that EU extension is asked for, it’s game over for UK plc. Once and for all.
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