Divine right of Cummings

The latest revelations about Dominic Cummings and the awarding of large public contracts to his friends, tells us little we didn’t already know about his toxic influence on public affairs during his time as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser. It tells us a lot, however, about the way the Johnson regime sees itself. Sadly, that’s also the way a lot of its supporters see it.

A company called ‘Public First’ was paid £564,393 to research public understanding of Coronavirus. The company is run by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, both former colleagues of Cummings and Michael Gove, the minister for the Cabinet Office. Gove is a long-time political ally of both Cummings and Johnson, though Gove showed himself capable of stabbing Johnson if he thinks it serves his purposes, when he declared himself a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership in Johnson’s first and unsuccessful run for it. 

Loyalty, however, isn’t a necessary requirement to work in these circles. As proved by the fact that, without much of it, Cummings, Gove and Johnson have frequently collaborated, notably in the Brexit campaign, where they achieved a success for which the country is already beginning to pay a seriously high price.

Civil servants were worried about Public First being awarded its contract, since being so close to the Johnson clique was likely to bias its findings. What’s more, there’d been no competitive tender, so no one else had been able to bid for the work. Had a Labour politician behaved this way, the press and the Tory Party would be denouncing the practices as obviously corrupt, or at least open to corruption. 

Where the revelations become really telling is when we see how Cummings replies to criticisms around these events. The High Court is carrying out a judicial review of the award. The Guardian reports that, in his submission to the court:

Cummings described Frayne and Wolf as his “friends”, but added: “Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing.” He said he “requested” civil servants hire the firm because, in his experience, it was the only company with the expertise to carry out the required focus groups urgently.

“The fact that I knew the key Public First people well was a bonus, not a problem,” he said, “as in such a high pressure environment trust is very important, as well as technical competence.”

Nothing corrupt, you see, because people like Cummings vouch for the integrity and professionalism of the company involved. If people of such stature are prepared to trust these characters, then who are we to question that judgement? Cummings, Gove, Johnson: these are all characters beyond suspicion. Their decisions aren’t corrupt and shouldn’t be questioned.

That assumption of unquestionable authority flows from the nature of these men born, as they believe, to rule. When they condescend to rule us, we should be pleased, perhaps even honoured, certainly grateful that they choose to do so. That way we don’t have to bother our heads (for women, they might say pretty little heads) about weighty matters of policy, best left to them. 

Boris Johnson, Charles I and Dominic Cummings
Regal figures, entitled to rule by their very nature,
beyond challenge by mere mortals

This kind of self-belief is by no means new. Charles I is the only King of Britain to have been executed. He too knew that he was born to rule, specifically selected by God for the throne, and therefore ruling as he chose, by divine right. He signed agreements with his opponents and then casually broke them, because he was answerable only to God, so no human authority could hold him to account. Like Johnson, Gove or Cummings, whatever he did was necessarily right, because it was he who was doing it.

But the justification for this kind of high-handed behaviour doesn’t have to be religious, as it was with Charles. Lenin was convinced that the great sweeping force of history had put him in power in what became the Soviet Union. In Hitler’s case, it was the race and its necessary striving to superhuman status. 

For Johnson, Gove and Cummings, it’s simple entitlement. These are special people. Lesser beings can only trust them, thank them for their guidance and move on. So if it was to their friends that they handed a contract without a tender, that “was a bonus, not a problem”.

It’s only cynics like me who say that if we allow government to award contracts without a tender, we’re just asking to be ripped off. A true believer in the cult of Johnson told me recently that the fact that Britain had got so much further than the rest of Europe in vaccinating its citizens against Covid, was down to the agility of a government that avoided all that tedious and unnecessary red tape to get agreements in place fast. Nothing corrupt about that, you see. It’s simply more efficient. These fine people demand trust, because “in such a high pressure environment trust is very important”.

Clearly, Johnson and his coterie feel we have no basis to try to hold them to account. And, from my friend’s comment, it’s clear that this kind of thinking permeates deep into society. Their fans are steeped in it.

That at least gives us an idea of the measure of the problem we face to free ourselves of this baneful influence…