If Cummings stays in post, we’ll know who’s really in charge

Here’s the nub of Boris Johnson’s Dominic Cummings problem: ‘It’s one rule for Dominic Cummings and one rule for the rest of us.’ That’s what the anonymous member of the public who dobbed him in to the cops told the Guardian. The words could have come out of Cummings’ own mouth for they are the standard cry of populist punterhood whenever a politician or celebrity is exposed as a hypocrite or gets special treatment. Cummings understands popular anger at elites better than almost anyone in Westminster. He built a Brexit strategy and election campaign on it, both of which kindled public contempt for privileged Remainers using their wealth and connections to frustrate a democratic decision. Cummings took the party of the One-Rulers and made it a party for The Rest of Us.

The revelation that he decamped to Durham in the middle of lockdown cuts through for just this reason.