Politics v law and policy – a response to Dominic Cummings

26th July 2021

Late last night, Dominic Cummings posted this tweet, with a screengrab of a tweet from me from March 2019:

As a change from my usual daily blogpost, here is my thread in response:

Happy to deal with any comments below.

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34 thoughts on “Politics v law and policy – a response to Dominic Cummings”

  1. Would I be bordering on “tinfoil hattery” to suggest that these replies and the rest of DC’s replies last night are based on “The Sovereign Individual” book? Where the elite have zero accountability and laws/taxes are paid by the “proletariat”?

  2. Cummings is unraveling before our eyes. Surely the genius Gove will now have to come out and defend his man or the intellectual integrity of Brexit falls.

  3. I have always, perhaps naively, believed that decent politicians on all sides have an agenda that goes beyond personal power. It is something to do with ensuring that the societies they represent do not get worse and even sometimes get better by addressing problems with policies designed to address them. Solutions may differ depending on assumptions, but the motivation is to do something that tries to make the society better. The Johnsonians and their past and present enablers do not seem to think that way, their only agenda is remaining in power, nothing else. I have never been able to work out what drives Cummings, other than a sort of incoherent egocentricity.

    1. That’s about it.

      He thinks he’s a supergenius, when he’s just a reply guy with a talent for messaging and data manipulation.

      Of course, there’s a hugely misogynistic streak there, which presumably explains why he’s so hiney-harmed by the fact that Carrie was able to outmanoeuvre him.

  4. If underestimating the deliberate harm Vote Leave and their fellow travellers were prepared to commit to this country is being bad at politics then count me in. If Cummings hadn’t got the bum’s rush from Downing Street he and Johnson would still be as thick as thieves, what we’re seeing from him now is the constitutional equivalent of revenge porn.

  5. DAG, you must have considered not responding. What made you do so?

    For the record, I too would have responded… The tone would have infuriated me, as would his taking a tweet out of time and context.

    But he’s an attention seeking troll and the less we pander to him the better…

    1. I responded for two reasons – for usually I would not

      First – he used one of my tweets as a screengrab and also named me for his tweet to over 100k followers. Had I not been mentioned or featured, I would not have cared – or noticed. (As it was, someone DMd it to me immediately.)

      Second – and this was also essential – I thought there was a wider point of exposition I could use the tweet for, and so it would be useful to show a worked example of how to respond to such a tweet.

      1. He also misrepresented you, by implication, as one of the Remain crowd. Now, either he hasn’t followed you closely (e.g. is using algorithms to bring up ‘evidence’ to use against prominent bloggers like you) or he hasn’t understood you, your position, or your reason for commentating.

        Either way, he’s shown himself up as a bit of a ‘schmuck’*

        [*Love that word. Should be used more often.]

      2. I understand your points but he’s so incredibly discredited now that no one takes him seriously.

        He’s a troll with a personality disorder, ie he is good at manipulating people, but demonstrably bad at policy and running anything. His staged leaking of information to some how remain relevant/have revenge, is a very unhealthy way of getting needs met. I suspect he enjoyed getting a reaction from you.

        I love your blog and your commentary is incredibly well written. I look forward to much more of it.

  6. There is a Latin proverb that runs “Deterior surdus eo nullus, qui renuit audire” (there is noone deafer than he who doesn’t want to hear). Cummings is one of them.

  7. Thanks David. The moral of the story is that Cummings is clearly very good at directing political campaigns – albeit through unscrupulous and nefarious means – but he is very bad at doing and understanding actual policy.

  8. As far as I can tell, Cummings’ idea of politics involves questions of how decisions are made; questions to which his answers seem to me naive, and sometimes downright stupid. His suggestion for example that if decision makers read Philip Tetlock’s book ‘Superforecasting’, ‘millions of lives and trillions of pounds’ could be saved. (I kid you not, it’s in the Spectator). I don’t think he has Tetlock’s endorsement for this view, though I hold Tetlock in part responsible for his animus against experts.

    The other side of the coin in that Cummings seems to have no ideas about real politics: how to deal with poverty, global warming, our education system…etc., etc.

  9. Interesting also that in making his point about “‘expert’ analysis, from 7/19” DC chooses to highlight a tweet from 3/19?

  10. Cummings is a wrecking ball & although he’s correct about governmental disfunction he’s had nothing constructive to contribute beyond its dismantling.

    His roles in Johnson’s govt, Vote Leave & earlier with Gove were the same & bottom line he’s left a trail of destruction in his wake. The failure to achieve his vision are due to the inability of lesser intellects to grasp the opportunity & now the actualité is being reinterpreted to fit.

    I suspect your response will be viewed in a similar light but right now gaslighting to distract from failure are the order of the day. And I ​doubt a hoot will cared about the substance of the responses; it’s the gratification of attention that matters.

    Cummings should feel grateful that in some future time, entire psychiatric conferences will be devoted to brexit & its populist hoodwinking.

    That said, the definitive record of Vote Leave’s questionable antics or brexit doesn’t belong with Cummings or any of his dissembling collaborators

    1. The mindset of a Silicon Valley Tech Bro (“move fast, break stuff”) is all well and good when it’s just venture capitalist money at stake. It’s rather more serious when applied to a nation, with real people facing real consequences.

      As a civil servant, I would even go so far as to say Cummings’ proposed reforms would have made things even worse. The CS, while by no means perfect, has actually made significant efforts to diversify its management, to try and avoid insularity and group-think. Cummings’ proposals would have ripped all that out, and embedded a particular mindset all throughout the CS – A mindset he promotes but, as we are seeing, is utterly unsuited to governance and riddled with blind spots so huge, you could drive a HGV through them (if we had any spare haulier capacity, that is)

      “God, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man”

  11. If `politics’ is campaigning for an outcome or persuading the majority of voters to think your way for an election period then I think Cummings has shown himself to be good at it a couple of times. But to be effective the power obtained must be used for a policy purpose. In his case this appears to be Brexit, which on his own admission may be wrong, and widening the science base of the UK. It turns out that Brexit has already eroded that considerably. Alas an elected government that spends time thinking about policy as well as DAG is a rarity.

  12. Cummings is talking about politicking, not politics: it’s being good at tactics, but no good if your strategic thinking is rubbish, which his is.

    1. Yes. After a century of vast resources devoted to psychological manipulation (“advertising”) about all that can be said for campaigns based on resentment and other misrepresentations is that cunning should not be conflated with thought.

  13. Hmm. “charlatan – a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill”.

    Well, demonstrably you are an experienced lawyer. I can’t recall ever seeing you claiming to have any skills as a campaigner, or as a politician, any more than as an astronaut or an athlete.

    A pity he could not make whatever point he was trying to make without the gratuitous insults. I think it says more about him than it says about you.

    Perhaps he was trying to say that expertise in one field (such as political campaigning) does not necessarily translate to another (such as leading a government, or implementing policy) . “Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?”

    It is easy to be wise after the event, but what was Cummings saying at the end of March 2019 about the prospects of Theresa May getting her negotiated deal through parliament? Lest we forget, your tweet on 25 March 2019 was just four days before the original two year Article 50 deadline. Was Cummings advocating for a fourth option, of negotiating a longer extension of time to agree a different deal?

  14. Intriguing, what normal person sits up late on a Sunday night dredging up some ancient tweet in order to make some sort of riposte? Why and what motivation does he or his minders have? Some malice aforethought, but not even a good point made or scored. Why bother.

    What does last year’s pop intellectual do for a living these days, become a bought scribbler probably. Not much else, shown up as a busted flush brain-wise and gobbed off too loudly ever to be employed again. But amusing for a while on some carefully selected conference circuits.

    But still, intriguing. Why bother and cui bono. I should look out David, someone might fit you up. A Tufton St spoon perhaps.

    1. Good luck to any Tuftonite trying to recruit our esteemed host.

      They can only ever fish in the shallow end of the talent pool, elevating nonentities far beyond their level of ability.

      They would be definitively out of their depth trying to dive down and fish for DAG’s pearls of wisdom.

    2. The answer to your question is that Cummings is in fact no has been and this was no random selection of an ancient text message.
      Over three years ago Sir Ivan Rogers said that “Brexit was a revolution and all revolutions radicalise” and he is a poster child for a prophet not being listened to as what’s now dawning on more observers is the deadly serious nature of this revolution.
      In my opinion what’s going on now in the UK in terms of a total contempt for ‘the law’ by those in executive power is as serious in degree as what the National Socialists did in Germany the early 1930’s.

      As DAG noted, Cummings must have screen grabbed his text years ago and that is chilling because it shows that the great evil behind the revolution is ever watchful and mindful of those that see it for what it is and takes note of them.

      Yes Cummings is currently feuding with Johnson but fundamentally the two are allies on the same page. With the announcement today that the UK government again rejects the EU proposals on the NIP and demands a total rewrite the UK has moved fully into overt lawlessness.
      Cummings understands this and that the revolution must now act destroy the guardians of the principles of law.
      If my comment survives the irksome judgment call and is more widely read I’m sure many will think it’s hyperbolic but I’m afraid it’s not.

    3. This brings me to a comment on David’s previous blog post (“Threat to doctors…). In particular, his last sentence: “Something deeper and more disturbing is afoot.” I was struggling to construct it properly and gave up. Here it goes.

      I think the something deeper is the combination of three, interrelated, forces.

      1. The Murdoch, Kock brothers, Mount Pellerin crusade which peddles lies to advance a pro-domo agenda for the 0.01 per cent. In a democracy, the success of such an agenda requires getting the vote of the median voter. As the income/wealth gap between the 50 and 0.01 per grows larger the size of the lies grows.
      2. Putin’s project to undermine Western democracy, as described in Tim Snyder’s “The Road to Unfreedom.” There is money available for willing foot soldiers.
      3. The ability to monetise influencing through the Internet. This requires maintaining the flow of clicks/attention by all means, however low.

      I think Cummings tweet and a big part of his recent noise (as well as Kate Shemirani’s rants) falls under 3 (remember he now sells his thoughts on substack). I doubt anybody is willing to pay much for his services otherwise after his performance in government.

      And I guess there are mutual feedbacks between 1 and 3 and 2 and 3.

  15. The intrinsic assumption in his childish tweet accusing others of being bad at politics is that he is, of course, a master political tactician. Cummings. The man who was apparently comprehensively outflanked by Carrie Symmonds.

    However, intrigued by your blanket statement that you would not support a rejoin effort, in the context of his accusation of lack of foresight. Do you mean that you can’t foresee any benefit to the UK ever being an EU member state, or just that as things stand today you think we’re better off close but no cigar?

  16. It is interesting to consider the motivation for the tweet. It could be considered a core vote strategy – after all, no matter what doubts could his supporters harbour if he sticks it to the Remainers?

    Clearly to be good at politics is to be good at engendering hatred of perceived opponents.

    The more interesting aspect of his choice to attack you (as a perceived enemy within) is the continuing failure of Brexit to make inroads into educated opinion.

    Other areas of intellectual opposition have been emasculated or eliminated. The new BBC capo. The university and civil service reforms.

    Just think how that must irk him. Shame.

  17. Re your 12th tweet “The Government did something mad anyway”, in early 2016 Cummings seems to have anticipated this as a possible outcome as he is quoted then as stating “No-one in their right mind would begin a legally defined two-year maximum period to conduct negotiations before they actually knew, roughly speaking, what this process was going to yield.” (Economist, 21 January 2016).

    As have explained on previous posts on this blog, including 26 December 2020, MPs were “overawed” by the Vote Leave campaign slogan “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead” for the purposes of section 3 of the Treason Felony Act 1848 when they voted to trigger the UK’s Article 50 notice and subsequently up until the general election in 2019.

    Brexit is perhaps best understood as a fraud perpetuated on the constitution by the key individuals behind the Vote Leave campaign, Johnson, Gove and Cummings.

    https://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/content/all-out-war-(pt-v)-the-irrepressible-rise-of-the-father-of-lies

  18. Cummings’ VoteLeave made many manifesto promises which were never feasible, such as ‘take back control of the border [in Ireland]’, ‘give the NHS the £350m which the EU take every week’ and ‘we will negotiate the terms of a deal before we start any legal process to leave’ and made some claims which were simply downright lies, intended to scare voters, such as ‘Turkey ARE joining the EU’ and ‘EU rules delay building schools and hospitals – and add millions to the cost’.
    Cummings. Nobody else.
    And no amount of blog re-writing will lessen the historical lies, as they are revealed to even the most credulous acolyte.

  19. Long ago speaking to (his) worried Likud Party faithful the late Ariel Sharon then the Israeli PM told them not to worry about the (then) ongoing peace talks, “its just talk” he said, “meanwhile we get on ensuring the facts on the ground”.
    In 1984 George Orwell describes a dystopia whose characteristic is that there is no absolute truth, no absolute right and wrong, but instead the ‘truth’ is whatever the government says it is, that is the fact on the ground that everyone must deal with.

    This blog is a small but vital part of what is essentially a death fight to save a liberal-democratic civilisation in the UK, but the problem is that the UK has already moved into a post truth world and Cummings understands this very well and framing the ‘facts’ he wants the UK to believe.

  20. For so many of us who highlighted the disadvantages of Brexit, to ridicule from Cummings and Co, his public denouement offers little satisfaction. He and Johnson stand as testament that lying, cheating will get you everything that you want.

  21. I’ve read Cummings’ Tweet maybe a dozen times now, and I remain at a loss as to its point.

    Is he implying that Brexit has in face proven to be a great success; that his opinions are vindicated; and that the naysayers are proven to be wrong?

    Because if he is, he has a very short memory.

    In the interview he gave LK just last week, he is on record as saying that anyone who is sure that Brexit is definitely a good thing would

    have to have a screw loose”.

    That doesn’t sit very well with his apparent braying about getting one over on the likes of DAG about Brexit, in my reading…

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