Grieve’s attempt to politically assassinate Cummings

Dominic Grieve’s successful ‘humble address’ motion, to force disclosure of WhatsApp and other digital messages sent by Boris Johnson, is a naked attempt to politically assassinate Dominic Cummings.

Because Grieve and his rebel Tory allies believe if he can show that the prime minister’s senior adviser was plotting to suspend parliament for reasons other than those admitted in court and in the Commons by Johnson and his colleagues – namely to keep no-deal Brexit as an option rather than the more respectable motive of preparing a Queen’s Speech – then Johnson will be so embarrassed that he will sack Cummings.

This offensive against Cummings rests on three assumptions, all of them questionable.

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First that the government will comply with the motion, even though sources in Number 10 say they are more than happy to defy convention and precedent by refusing to publish the messages.