Michael Walker Novara Media has posted a presentation on YouTube examining a Daily Mail survey: “Brits Say Dominic Cummings Is LYING.” The initial comments focus on Cummings direct statement on why he broke lockdown rules, this “was received with most Brits not believing a word he said, according to a recent poll published in the Daily Mail.” The Daily Mail had conducted a poll on reaction to the Cummings press conference and Walker outlined the questions asked and the percentages from respondents; it did not look good for Cummings.
The pollsters asked: “Do you believe Dominic Cummings had to drive to Durham to get childcare help?” Result – True 25% , but only 40% of Tory Voters, False: 61% with just 47% of Tories. Walker said they had tried to portray this “as just bitter Remainers, bitter Corbynites criticizing Dominic Cummings – everyone in the country, all demographics, all political persuasions, they think he’s lying; they don’t think he had to go to Durham to get childcare help.” Another question: “Feared protesters would attack his London home? …a key justification for why he had to go.” Response – True 23% with 36% of Tory Voters, False: 59% and 49% among Tories. It gets worse: “Drove to Barnard Castle to check eyesight before driving back to London?” Result – True 8% and only 15% of Tories, False: 78% and 66% of Tories. “Left the car and sat on a bench at Barnet Castle because he felt sick?” Result – True 16% , 28% of Tories,, False: 66%, 54% of Tories.
Walker relayed that: “There was a general question: Is he telling the truth or not? …Yes 17%, No 66%.” It seems most people who watched Dominic Cummings read out his statement to journalists in a live TV presentation in the garden at number ten worked out that he was telling Porkies! Walker exclaimed, “How did he call it this wrong?” Dalia Gebrial focused on, “The polling which is just kind of showing that I think people are becoming really aware of two things; first of all that Gaslighting is at the absolute heart of this Government’s strategy when dealing with Coronavirus, they keep making explicit errors and then going back and saying we never did that what you saw you didn’t ever see it, what you experienced was something that you never experienced.” She gave the Care Home deaths as an example.
Gebrial then went on to a point about how “the Government were so shockingly out of touch,” an impression reinforced by watching the questioning of the Liaison Committee. She talked about how an MP had to explain to Boris Johnson how people who had ‘Leave to Remain’ could not access Government funds because of the no recourse to public funds law. She was concerned that Johnson didn’t understand that that exists, it was part of the hostile environment ramped up by Theresa May. The Tories vote through so many policies that seem ill thought through without looking at the ramifications under ordinary circumstances, but the situation becomes a lot worse when there is a crisis like the one caused by this virus. It certainly seems that many of the extreme challenges the Tories are facing right now have been greatly exacerbated by austerity cuts and other reckless policies. The most arresting thing that she said was about viewing this through a “Failed State Lens.” ….Are we there yet?
It was the revelations of Owen Jones that provided an interesting insight into the psyche of Dominic Cummings which give us a strong hint as to how he might react if Johnson ever mustered the gonads to fire him. I am not entirely convinced that Dominic Cummings does not suffer from a mental health issue – namely bipolar disorder. Why do I think this is the case? His behaviour during highs when he was a key player in the tragic planning of successful campaigns is in stark contrast to his reclusive retreat into the bunker on his father’s farm and the two years missing from the work history laid out on his CV. Do we just recognize Cummings on the zenith of his high points, when things are going exceptionally well as he earned the fearful respect of his subordinates and was being hailed as a sinister genius? Do we not also need to acknowledge that there were business ventures that tanked during his time in Moscow and strange, unexplained multi-year removals from all normal social contact?
Jones said, “In terms of Dominic Cummings in the rose garden they obviously have a strategy lets try and at least attempt to dissect the internal workings of their minds. What he was trying to do in that particular dramatic moment was bog us down in the granular details and because obviously objectively he broke the rules everything else is noise. I think a lot of this is hubris” he mentioned the TV drama and “his attempt to win a referendum in which the odds were overwhelmingly that remain would win almost every single newspaper commentator in the country thought remain were going to win whichever side they backed this was someone who was seen as a the architect of a Conservative majority… if we are going to be perfectly honest very few people thought would be an 80 seat majority” Owen Jones’s commented that “I think he’s just drunk on his own hubris.” He then talked of a striking quote in the Financial Times where a friend of Dominic Cummings was quoted as saying, ‘He doesn’t care what happens to the Tories, he’s not a Conservative… he has no political attachment… the quote said… he didn’t care if they sank below the Greeks’…”
Jones continued, “I think a lot of it is his own affronted ego it’s the fact that Boris Johnson himself is so reliant because he is so week, reliant on this one adviser that he has allowed Dominic Cummings to essentially to id imakine Dominic Cummings called any rational Prime Minister would say don’t do that, it will obviously make things worse, but Dominic Cummings himself, his hurt ego meant that he almost… his sense of hubris, the sense that he is the architect of this against all odds victory, the evidence that point to that right away just pure ego mania on his part, is I think we’re going to mention it the fact that in that press conference, he declared that he had predicted a pandemic, that a Pandemic could happen… he did that last year What we’ve discovered since is that he edited his blogs on the first day he came back from Durham, to insert that in those Blogs.”
This was certainly a strange insight into a very strange mind. Jones explained, “The reason he did that, he made this clear in the press conference is he was so angry at being, by the Sunday Times incidentally, for being accused of being the key promoter of ‘Herd Immunity’ including a strategy of protect the economy let all the people die which is how the Sunday Times sources summed it up. But he felt he had to actually amend his blogs in a completely dishonest way to make it look like not only did he not push herd immunity, he was the only guy who knew this was going to happen, he was one of the only people in the country who thought this was going to happen. Now that was a lie, that was completely dishonest and is an example of why we can’t trust anything that he says. But it is testament to his own burnt ego, so I think there’s three things a bruised ego of someone who genuinely thinks he’s an evil mastermind after he relishes being seen as an evil mastermind and someone who thinks well I can, I’m essentially a magician.”
Walker has more poll numbers, “Also contained in that Daily Mail poll was the figure that 65% of the public believe that the conduct of Dom Cum would make people less likely to follow the lockdown rules and we’ve already got some anecdotal evidence to prove that so let’s get up a tweet from a London Anaesthetist someone working in the NHS a Doctor” Walker reads his tweet, “I’ve now had 3 people tell me in the last 24 hours that they have broken lockdown citing Dominic Cummings as justification. His resignation is genuinely required as an urgent and powerful public health intervention; people are flouting the rules because he did without consequence,” Walker adds, “that’s from the Medical profession.” What I am curious to know is, does this fit into the Government’s herd immunity strategy whereby people defying the lockdown provides a useful scapegoat for the Tories to blame for a new spike in cases that they know is an obvious consequence of their mistakes.
Walker contininues, “We can also get someone who is from law enforcement, …so this London police officer also phoned LBC to tell his experience when he approaches members of the public who are breaking lockdown since this whole Dominic Cummings row, let’s have a listen to that now” The Officer says. “Well a good half a dozen people I spoke to today when I have said to them why do you say lockdown is over and they say oh well Government can do what they want ans as a police officer I don’t know what to respond back to them…. We don’t speak for the Government e just enforce the rules and I don’t know what the answer I’m meant to give back is.” LBC responds, “You are saying you have come across people who have used what has happened over the last weekend as an excuse not to follow the lockdown rules?” the oducer cincludes, “There are three people who have said that to me today. … if Dominic Cummings can do what he wants then we should be able to too…” This major attitude shift should come as no surprise.
There are serious ramifications for the Tories fi they hang onto Dominic Cummings as people will no longer feel obligated to abide by the lockdown rules. How much does this play into the Tory agenda of turning the epidemic on and off like a tap until we meet that magic objective of herd immunity that the Tories have never really abandoned? It does make it harder to blame the public for the second surge based on their rule breaking if their own Chief Adviser was the one instigating that rule breaking trend. It seems that Cummings had his statement meticulously carefully drafted by a lawyer as it does not match his regular writing style. Available as a video produced by the Financial Times this offers an interesting perspective, “Dominic Cummings’s statement: a guided tour.” The FT’s David Allen Green argues, “how to read the real meaning behind a ‘lawyered’ statement, and how careful phrasing can be used to cover up.”
As we assess the realistic potential for Cummings to present evidence as a Whistleblower to expose the details of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election we cannot discount the personality and psychological characteristics that drive Dominic Cummings. While he is capable of revelling in his role functioning in the shadows rather than basking in the limelight, his status as a genius Machiavellian manipulator in ultimate supreme control of the UK Tory Government feeds into his massive ego. To fire him is to rob him of that power and prestige and there must be something significant to take its place. I do not think he will settle for the standard deal offered to most errant functionaries, leave now, but come back later would be too great of a compromise as he realixes this is a key time to make radical changes that he will be hoping to direct.
Being forced out, a Tory betrayal would release Cummings from the contract of secrecy that stifles so many warped individuals of his ilk. Blowing the whistle would not entail the tortured confessions of a broken man, but rather the arrogant ramblings of a master manipulator who desperately wants to boastfully elaborate on his ingenious escapades and be publicly admired as a man of superior intellect. Even if he risked jail this adulation of his prowess would be no meagre consolation prize; it offers a greater adrenaline rush than his shadow leadership role under Johnson. This situation presents such an unusual; perspective that it may well catch the Tory Party seriously off guard. Tories fully understand financial motivations, power and greatly increased self-esteem to be had with an elevation to the titled elite; these are all known quantities, but Dominic Cummings seeks a very different style of public gratification.
Just like the warped serial killer who is itching to tell how he was able to commit his ghastly crimes; Cummings is ready to fess up for fame and notoriety alone. Right now perhaps not all Tories fully understand that risk. Disbelieving Tories will be lulled into a false sense of security believing Cummings will not take the huge risk of betraying them, but this presents a serious weakness that Cummings will readily exploit. As a potential Whistleblower he could provide the vital evidence necessary to support a full investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, but this Tory Government would be stripped of all legitimacy and forced from office without delay. We must seize this unique opportunity as it may represent the last chance to rescue our democracy. Only massive public pressure will keep this in the media and force the Government to risk their grip on power. DO NOT MOVE ON…