Will Cummings’s accusations damage Boris Johnson?

One of Dominic Cummings’s strengths as a campaigner was his genius for a clear message – think ‘Take Back Control’ or ‘Get Brexit Done’. But the case that he was trying to make today was more complicated. He was trying to persuade people both that the Prime Minister was not up to the job and that the system has failed.

The problem for him is that these two arguments cut against each other. If, as he himself acknowledged, even a Bill Gates-style figure would have struggled to deal with the problems of the Whitehall machine then Johnson’s failings seem less important. Equally, if the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are both not up to the job – an accusation that Cummings took every opportunity to make – it is hard to think that failings during this crisis condemn the system.