Let's ignore the personalities of the current political debacle for a moment. The ‘who knew what's?' and ‘who was where?' are not the really big issues of this moment, even if they will need to be resolved.
The current political crisis was going to happen at some point. It is an almost necessary event. It is the point when the neoliberal assault on government by a privileged, populist few comes face to face with the population. And the population is shocked by the revelation.
Populism has always been about an act of political deception. Those from an elite pretend to be anti-elitist to attack ideas that the democratic mainstream has decided to ignore because of their obvious practical, economic, social and ethical unacceptability and do so by playing to base instincts, claiming that common sense is on their side and if only those in power were swept from it then those who feel their opinions are ignored will get the government and country they want and deserve, which just so happens to be what those in the elite promoting these ideas think those people should have.
There is sham, fake and condescension written all over populism. If ever there was a form of politics that dismissed the interests of people more resoundingly, it has not been given an airing for a while. This is the new arrogance of those who in previous eras built the dictatorships, saying they did so for the people, without necessarily bothering to check that this was the case.
In every such case there was a reckoning. The people realised that they had been conned. Usually there was some pain involved in the process.
My suspicion is that the pain of Covid-19, coupled with the eye-opening actions of Cummings and Johnson, has given rise to that awareness amongst people that they have been conned.
The Tory Party is not the one they voted for in the past. It has culled that past.
The actions of this Party are not those of the one-nation Party many who vote for it think it to be.
The decency and honesty that is the public perception of the gentle Tory, that has been used to successfully challenge the brusque Labour candidate, is not now seen.
The idea that trickle down worked, which the Tories promulgated and which many believed and were willing to tolerate is not seen when those in power consciously play by different rules that they deny to everyone else.
These things are now being appreciated. What is left is the revelation of a leader in hock to an utterly self-interested sociopath with a loathing for almost everyone and a dedication solely to his own self interest, who treats rules and law with contempt as they are inapplicable in his case. And alongside this there is the awareness that the government is made up of people of quite extraordinarily low calibre whose sole quality is obedience.
This revelation shatters the myth of populism that was, so recently, sold. The myth was of liberation. The delivery is the opposite: it is a requirement of compliance whilst the master shall play. And that is precisely the model that those who subscribed to Cummings' populism had already had more than sufficient of.
It does not take much effort to find widespread anger about what has happened. It is not party political to say it. This anger is being expressed across the political spectrum, from the Anglican bishops onwards, to the very core of the populist cause in the flag waving Daily Mail. Cummings' contempt is being reciprocated by the bucket load.
Dies that mean the end of populism? Who knows?
Will it spell the end for Cummings? I really cannot see how not: no adviser has ever survived such a crisis before now, from Alistair Campbell inwards.
Will that mean Johnson goes? I suspect it does. He is already crumbling, as his dire media performances (and long absences) make clear. The very real possibility that he is without the ability to be prime minister is becoming daily more apparent.
And how long will this take? These things grow exponentially, faster than pandemics.
And then what? The Tories still have a thumping majority. But I doubt anyone close to Johnson would be remotely acceptable to the Party or country now. I go back to Hunt.
But more important, I suspect a very strong backlash against populism. And that puts Brexit in play. And then a new political era.
264 miles may have never have mattered so much.
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I agree with all of this but you need choices to exercise and mechanisms to execute them. Was the FTPA a happenstance or design? And what about the splitting of the Labour party? It all seems far too perfect circumstance wise to me. It does feel that there has been some sort of coup.
What I would like to see is some sort of counter-coup from within Whitehall, the security services and the more democratic elements in Parliament and the political parties.
Please do something – your country needs you. Because the real terrorist extremists are currently in the Government.
PSR,
There’s a Twitter account called @bettgunther who has been digging into the background of Cumming’s bosses, Matthew Elliot and his wife, very enlightening.
Looked it up got this. Why is this information restricted to websites not published in mainstream media?
desmog.co.uk
A close look at the transatlantic connections of the London-based groups pushing for the most deregulated form of Brexit reveals strong ties to major US libertarian influencers. These include fossil fuel magnates the Koch brothers – known for funding climate science denial around the world – and the man who bankrolled Donald Trump’s campaign, Robert Mercer.
At the heart of this network lies a little-known power couple, Matthew and Sarah Elliott. Together, the husband and wife team connect senior members of the Leave campaign and groups pushing a libertarian free-market ideology from offices in Westminster’s Tufton Street to major US libertarian lobbyists and funders.
Collectively, the network aims to use Brexit as an opportunity to slash regulations in the UK, paving the way for a wide-ranging US-UK free-trade deal that could have disastrous consequences for the environment.
The current draft withdrawal agreement appears to try and provide some protection for the current level of environmental regulation – at least in principle. But politicians associated with this transatlantic network are lobbying hard for the draft deal to be scrapped, along with those protections.
This DeSmog UK investigation reveals the strength of the ties between Matthew and Sarah Elliott, UK lobbyists and politicians, and US groups with vested interests in fossil fuels keen to profit from deregulation.
It shows how organisations with strong ties to the Koch Brothers and Robert Mercer increased their political activities in the UK immediately before and after the Brexit referendum.
And it uncovers US libertarian spending patterns that show increased resources flowing into Europe prior to and around the time of the Brexit referendum, as pro-Brexit groups with ties to the Elliotts in the UK saw their budgets balloon.
My son 15 said he went to visit is great grandma on Eid, he said it was fun but could not go in because of covid 19. So he and his siblings and mother waved to her and their uncle at the living room window. While it is very good he could do that but i thought it was incredibly sad for him and his siblings. Yet Cummings and Co get a free pass. What about people who could not see their love ones as they died. Yet this govt ignores all that.
Taken together, this blog and John Crace’s column in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/24/no-dignity-no-future-boris-forsakes-leadership-to-protect-cummings), provide a superb commentary and analysis of the utterly appalling behaviour – and thus character – or Johnson and Cummings (and Johnson in particular). They’ve utterly undermined the Covid-19 ‘lock-down’ policy, as well as compromising and undermining in advance any further guidance/rules that may be required if/when the second wave of the virus arrives. In short, a government with no moral standing that very few people have any reason to trust (and plenty of us were struggling with that already).
As far as the impact on Cummings/Johnson’s version of populism goes, as you say, ‘Who Knows?’ But there’s no doubt that the ‘brand’ is severly undermined, that’s for sure. And given we’re not going to escape Covid-19 for some while yet there’s no way that acting as if this is all part of a pre-Covid news cycle (ignore it for 48 hours and it’ll be superceded by another news story) is going to work. And yet, I see no way Johnson is going to throw Cummings under a bus, or vice versa. And so, a government of very little talent, with a lazy, egotistical leader, who was relying on a workaholic, sociopathic chief of staff to deliver a new order syle Brexit, are left to deal with the greatest public health challenge the country has faced for centuries and the impact this is having – and will have for years – not just on the economy but almost every aspect of public policy. God help us all!
Maybe….
But no advisor has ever survived before….
Populism maybe not, Dom’s career most likely for the forseeable future.
Not a legal expert here, but I think there could technically be a case for Dominic Cummings to be prosecuted for Malfeasance in Office.
As an appointed Senior Advisor to the PM; he is technically in an official governmental position, of sorts.
The travelling part to Durham really is inconsequential, what matters is he has wilfully acted dishonestly & (on the face of it) has lied by omission; with the express intent to misinform & mislead other Government officials (MPs & Ministers) relating to his whereabouts.
Aka Deception.
This has had the effect of further undermining public confidence in Parliament & the Government itself, because all those MPs & Ministers who supported him now have egg on their respective faces.
One thinks there may also be a prima facie case for the offence of Contempt of Parliament as well, because he may have misled or obstructed MPs by aforesaid actions, or lack thereof.
Either way he’s getting scalped, despite having no hair.
Interesting speculation from Craig Murray as to the possible reason for Mr Cummings and his family’s ‘flight’ to Durham.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/05/why-barnard-castle/?fbclid=IwAR0kWIc0C1YUCONMs7gGL99el6LuVz_sRIDGjxQCnfegRQLdV_yrbfJUdOc
The principal defence that can be mounted in support of Dominic Cummings is that he did not break the rules. The argument is that careful reading of the rules show that they allowed for this exception, in just such a case as infection affecting childcare. This is the basis of the government, and pro-government media defence. It is supported by the appeal to the intuition of parents around the country. There are two difficulties with this defence.
First, the strength of the lockdown, initiated at short notice, and draconian in its effects, was that as public policy it was almost entirely based on the simplicity of the rules. It was clear and unambiguous. Stay at home. Period. The difficulty for the Cummings defence is that it complicates the supposed obvious simplicity of the rules that were used to persuade the public to accept a tough lockdown. They weren’t simple rules after all. It was best if you were a Philadelphia lawyer. Who knew? Unfortunately, all the people round the country who had precisely the same problem as Cummings and did not drive hundreds of miles to fix it, because they had not read the small print, and followed the simple message which they naively believed was the vital core of the policy: stay at home. They now discover that whatever that decision to follow the Government’s simple instructions cost them, the sacrifice was entirely needless.
Next time, and there will be a next time the government is looking for fulsome public support, I am sure the public will be much more circumspect or even cynical about interpreting the meaning of Government instructions; but I am not entirely sure, in all circumstances, that such an outcome will be in the best interests of the government, public policy, or even the public interest.
Second, the fact that the rules were not as people generally had understood; and it is very difficult in the midst of the furore over the issue, to claim now that they were generally understood, for clealry many people are both astonished and taken-aback by the ‘Cummings defence’; even if that defence is well-founded on a technicality, it follows immediately that this also reflects very badly on the Government’s ability to deliver its message, or execute its policy, if it fails so badly to explain it, that few people actually understood what the government had proposed. This merely turns a scandal over equity of treatment, into a public relations disaster that reflects badly on the competence of the government, even to explain its own policy: the very essence of politics. Take you pick.
There is a third problem with the defence. In Mr Cummings position, clearly at the centre of Government policy formation (at least that is not disputed), there is a special requirement that falls on him as a member of this select circle. It was best expressed by Caesar in justifying his divorce of his second wife, Pompeia: “Caesar’s Wife must be above suspicion”. This places a higher standard of scrupulousness on those who make policy, over those who are merely required to follow policy they had no hand in forming. Perhaps, however this is just too lofty an expectation to make of this particular collection of people.
There is one good thing that has come out of this unfortunate sequence of events. We now know who is the organ-grinder.
Indeed
And thanks, as usual
The eminent judge Lord Sumption was on BBC Radio Scotland news late afternoon today, giving credence to Cumming’s interpretation of the legal technicalities. Unfortunately the tens of millions of British citizens who received the letter the Prime Minister sent to every household on the Lockdown did not have ready access to legal opinion on the technicalities, or indeed ever resort to it.
When the PM wrote to everyone with a “personal signed” letter, which delivered its message in short, punchy sentences, it had this single sentence standing-out on its own, in the middle of the latter:
“That is why we are giving one simple instruction – you must [‘must’ in bold] stay at home”.
The letter closed with another declamatory instruction; just after the PM referred to the “great British spirit” he closed his peroration with a flourish (again with emphasis in bold): “That is why, at this moment of national emergency, I urge you please to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives”.
Reflecting on such a unique letter from the PM, many people would no doubt feel it was not in the spirit of fighting a national emergency, and making a genuine contribution to the struggle, to close read the rules, and look for any loopholes.
The ‘rules’ were enclosed with the PM’s letter, but the sentence to which I draw attention, is not linked directly to them. It is a Government instruction: in bold. It was, of course, open to the PM to attach to the ‘imperative instruction’ sentence a direct link to the rules; and specifically to mention that there could be extenuating exceptions to the rules, in general or specific terms: but he didn’t do so. Why? I do not know, but perhaps it was believed that it may diminish the simplicity, clarity and imperative nature of the instruction, and might have undermined the declaratory and persuasive force of the Government “instruction”; which was repeated in daily briefings: that the lockdown is an instruction – stay at home. Whatever the intention, the effect appears to be that most people did not close read the rules, looking for loopholes; and it is perhaps just as well they didn’t.
Most people in Britain quite obviously took the “instruction” as if it was a decree, and in the spirit of the command, an obligation that did not require preliminary scrutiny of the rules by a QC, in case they may want the convenience of an easy way out. Most people wanted to fight the virus, and make their contribution to the common public goal to defeat the virus. Nit-picking the rules was for self-interested nit-pickers.
Mr Cummings also referred to the difficulties he was in, almost suggesting that in the middle of all his problems, with both he and the PM ill; his wife ill, and with a small son these factors all affected his judgement of the moment. Fair enough, if that is what he meant: but it cuts two ways. Mutatis, mutandis the same applied to everyone else, when the lockdown was announced and the PM’s letter arrived. It all happened suddenly, the prospects of lockdown were alarming, it was confusing, everyone wanted to do what was best; and what was best was not to act like a Philadelphia lawyer over the small print – but carry out the Government’s bald instructions as closely as possible, even to the point of personal scarficie – for the common good.
If only they had known they should have poured over the “rules” with a fine tooth-comb. Lord Sumption, if I understood his opinion, was that the rules leaked badly, from a drafting perspective. The opportunity to challenge their efficacy is not hard to find. Perhaps this implies that they were never intended to be rigorous law. Perhaps the circumstances of a national crisis is that the lawyers stand to one side, before they ruin everything. It all relies on universal acceptance; and universal acceptance relies on equity. Indeed for the drafters of the rules, perhaps a higher calling still should be expected; to be like Caesar’s wife: above suspicion.
No doubt there were a large number of opportunities for all to exploit the flaws in the rules. It is just as well most people didn’t take them.
All that, I submit is the problem with Mr Cummings’ defence.
I think there is a widely held view, especially amongst lawyers, that Sumption is making a complete fool of himself in retirement
The worst part of Cummings self-justifying performance and his supporters pointing out that he hadn’t broken the letter of the law is the gaslighting affect it has on all the people who now feel they have not been clever enough, felt their circumstances not exceptional enough and now suffer guilt thinking they too could have gone to help a loved one instead of following the spirit of the law and staying at home.
My thoughts exactly, for what they are worth.
I have a hunch, not much evidence, that Cummings is the agent of the powerful funders of the Tory party. They would not let an individual who might work against their interests, run loose.
We still have not had the report on Russian role in the elections.
By purging the party of decent men and women like Dominic Grieve and Sarah Wollaston, they don’t have many alternatives to replace Johnson. When there is an inquiry into the corvid 19 crisis. the lack of preparation will be seem to have happened while Hunt was Secretary of State for Health. So I am a bit sceptical about his chances to follow Johnson although he was the runner up in the leadership poll.
I hope you’re right about Johnson and Cummings but I fear that they will survive another day. They are not going to relinquish power without a fight and I’m convinced they will survive past the end of June. Their supporters want a no deal Brexit. As for Hunt, Good heavens, he’s even more dangerous than the present lot. This humiliation of our country has a long way to run yet.
Remember it’s the Tories who keep power, not their leaders
They’re ruthless in their pursuit of power
I watched a Tory MP on the BBC’s news channel yesterday, probably yesterday, I don’t remember his name but he had all the mannerisms of a grandee. Anyway he really laid into Cummings, the more he went on the more rant like it became. In short he said that Cummings does not care for parliament, democracy and processes. The BBC cut him off by going to an urgent piece about Prince William.
It struck me at the time that he seemed more unhappy about the rest of the party being out of the loop than by the contempt shown by Cummings.
The Tory Party probably has the most effective PR machine of any ‘democratic’ government – both in terms of its internal structure (having learned from Alastair Campbell & New Labour) and influence over the majority of the MSM (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-media-is-the-most-right-wing-in-europe-yougov-finds-a6859266.html).
However this particular story plays out in the longer term, there will be relief in Matthew Parker Street that it has happened in the very early stages of its administration. There will of course be other crises over the course of the next 4+ years but right now it’s about spinning the narrative in any way necessary to neutralise immediate negative opinion. The actual handling of the disease itself will be a controversial issue over a longer period, especially if Robert Skidelsky’s analysis is correct – https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/governments-cannot-admit-covid19-herd-immunity-objective-by-robert-skidelsky-2020-05. But, as has been noted, Brexit will soon start to eat into front page coverage, and here the Tories are in more familiar territory and better able to control the public agenda.
Just one more comment re. Cummings himself. From all that any outsider can string together he has a well-documented ideological agenda which would appeal to certain elements in any right-wing political party. With Johnson he clearly found a willing disciple who fortuitously (for Cummings) becomes PM. It’s not unlike how Milton Friedman’s ideas found fertile ground with Thatcher’s ambitions for the UK. Apologies if this link has already been posted but it does set out clearly what’s at the core of his ‘plan’, in which some ideas are not entirely without merit. It kind of has the ‘feel’ of Wilson’s 1963 ‘white heat of technology speech’ but without any underlying sense of democracy, humanity or social accountability: DOMINIC CUMMINGS’ Billion-Dollar Brainchild –
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/20/dominic-cummings-billion-dollar-brainchild.
Gotta’ stop rambling on. But there’s a lot more behind this story than suggested by the headlines, which makes it so intriguing for political junkies. And, as posted above by Peter Smith, I too have long suspected the ‘invisible hand’ of Matthew Elliot and cronies in Tufton Street, which is a hot-bed of anti-democratic, sociopathic, reactionary think-tanks. It’s no coincidence that many residents feature on Molly Scott Cato’s list of ‘The Bad Boys of Brexit’ – https://badboysofbrexit.com/the-complete-list-of-bad-boys.
You are right about Hunt Rod (and Richard has mentioned this too) – the unblinking, slightly robotic Bambi faced assassin at the heart of the NHS – he would smile and look like your favourite uncle all the way through this sort of stuff. Always so polite, gently intoned etc. Yes – I can see that happening.
The thing is the Tories have only been in office since December, it’s very early in their rule. The FTPA protects them (remember how May hid so obdurately behind it), there’s lots of time for people to forget about now when (if) the good times roll again. And lots of time for the Labour party to mess it all up again as well.
Boris and Co will put a brave face on it because God only knows what is happening behind the scenes – debacles like this take our attention away from other stuff even if (as Crace suggests) satire has now become the reality of this Government’s conduct.
I still believe in the concept of ‘the cunning of unreason’ – that the Tories actually know what they are doing because they are extremists. Being made to look silly and incompetent is their equivalent of donning a suicide vest and it is worth the sacrifice in order to get to Neo-liberal nirvana. Johnson and Cummings are just the latest tools of Tory power lust.
Incidentally I was watching the film ‘Children of Men’ last night and reflected that in the dystopian future it depicts – disease (some form of infertility) and extreme immigration measures in use – were closer to reality than I was comfortable with and I had to stop watching.
I stress, I am not condoning or liking Hunt
I just think he will be who the Tories will turn to
A Major style figure ….
My thoughts on the matter:
If Mr Cummings trips North were ‘justifiable’ then he, his wife and No. 10 should – when things first came to light a month ago – have said so, explained, apologised, and dealt with the fallout. But they didn’t – they tried to hide what he had done – which means they thought that what the Cummings family had done was unacceptable, and should be concealed. But the light shone on it at the end of last week, so:
Saturday – Mr Cummings should have resigned. He didn’t.
So Sunday – Mr Johnson should have sacked him. He didn’t.
So today – Mr Johnson should resign.
An interesting take on this published by Al Jazeera by an academic at the University of Bath. He suggests that by concentrating our anger on Cummings & Johnson we risk losing sight of the bigger picture: that there is systemic rottenness in our politics. Getting rid of these two will actually change nothing while the endemic corruption embedded in class, privilege and so on continues unreformed. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/british-scandal-sleight-hand-story-200524115826695.html
Martin Rowson went to the heart of it. I have edited the content to suit this family-oriented august-organ. If the fatberg loses Cummings it’s game over.
Starts
Interesting psychology in No 10’s reckless defence of Mr Jizz, where most of the cabinet are having their remaining credibility sandblasted to dust by being forced publicly to declare they live for Big Baldy. It’s not just indicative of how “Boris” gets his kicks: it’s the …*getting away* with the lie (lied to give him time to escape from the fall out from the previous lie) wherein lies the real high, the ecstatic buzz that led him to become a Soviet sleeper agent in the first place.
But there’s more, & even creepier stuff going on. Spunky is a genuinely vile person, arrogant, contemptuous of others & a sneering bully. The true horror is how the pitiful condition of the Tory Party means the cabinet have all the marks of text book abuse victims, hopelessly declaring love for their abuser while he laughs as he takes his belt to them……. a foul mash-up of The Mayor of Casterbridge & Stalin’s politburo.
Worse still, it strikes at the very heart of everything that’s wrong with Britain’s polity: a truly corrupt …media/plutocrat/political class have collapsed into Tiberianism, their titular emperor a lazy fat clown with no discernible talent except ruthless selfishness, leaving the country to be run by terrified eunuchs & a preening and cruel court favourite who treats the country &… …it’s people simply as playthings for his amusement. Expendability hardly starts to describe us in these wa..kers’ minds.
This is the stage, in the movies, when the Praetorian guard step in and a bloodbath ensues in the palace. Don’t hold your breath though. And don’t expect… …Professor Wa..kjam to be thrown to the wolves the way the fatberg has previously instinctively jettisoned colleagues, friends, wives & children to lubricate his getaway. As the point of him being Emperor is simply to be applauded by a giggling nation each time he trips over his c,,ck, & the job sort of requires just a bit of politics & shit, he needs Count Spunkula to do the nerdy stuff. Losing him would, for our Prime Monster, be as unthinkable as chopping his own c…ck off. And that’s not going to happen until you hear the sound of machine gun fire from St James’ Park.
Ends
The main point about Cumming’s situation is that instead of getting child care locally in London which he and and his wife are wealthy enough to arrange, he chose to go to grandparents who are 70+ and in the vulnerable category for Covid-19. The distance they travelled is a factor but not the critical one unless they stopped at service stations (video cameras need to be checked by relevent police forces). For a party that is used to having nannies and quite willing to send their children to barbaric boarding schools at a tender age their excuse is iust not enough. Tories don’t believe in the nanny state but they love to have nannies when it suits them – why not for heavens sake in this instance?
The Tories made a huge mistake making Boris their leader,he is a liar and an incompetent oaf,who was never in a million years fit to be a Prime Minister. What were they thinking? The chickens are certainly coming home to roost.
Those who voted for him who were blinded by the friendly baffoon facade, who could do no harm….so they put him in charge…and look what happens…no doubt some will still stand by him. You can fool some of the people all of the time.
Hunt
Javid
Hammond
May
Osborne
Cameron
Add your own extras
Macbeth only had Banquo’s ghost to contend with.
How many knives can one back take?
I’m sure Michael Gove will also be sharpening his knife (again), James from Durham. Hope you’re staying close to home this weather and not, for example, planning any trips to Westminster (or Teesdale)…
As T S Eliot said “I had no idea Johnson had undone so many”
You haven’t seen the appointment of directors to Idox, the day yer man went back to work?
I really do hate how Europe stole the word “Populism” and redefined it.
https://harpers.org/archive/2020/05/how-the-anti-populists-stopped-bernie-sanders/
[…] speculated that not only will this bring down Dom, Boris or both, but would kill of populism, https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/05/25/has-cummings-killed-populism-in-the-uk/ […]