Dominic cummings

Dominic Cummings has set the cat among the pigeons this afternoon by leaking a Parliamentary report into fake news ahead of its official publication on Sunday. The Vote Leave official alleges that the report 'knowingly/incompetently makes false claims' on supposed misuses of data during the referendum campaign. Expect further reaction to this over the weekend. However, the part of the blog that has got people talking in Westminster most avidly today relates to his comments on calls for a second referendum. Following increased chatter in recent weeks from Remain-ers over the need for a second vote on Brexit – whether on the terms of the final deal or leaving the EU full stop – Cummings has warned these campaigns to be careful what they wish for.

Politics is gambling for high stakes with other people’s money… Politics is a job that can be compared with navigation in uncharted waters. One has no idea how the weather or the currents will be or what storms one is in for. In politics, there is the added fact that one is largely dependent on the decisions of others, decisions on which one was counting and which then do not materialise; one’s actions are never completely one’s own. And if the friends on whose support one is relying change their minds, which is something that one cannot vouch for, the whole plan miscarries… One’s enemies one can count on – but one’s friends!’ Bismarck.

A few weeks ago I discovered that while he should have been focused on the fight of his life during the referendum campaign, David Cameron was instead obsessing over whether or not his justice secretary, Michael Gove, had had an affair with my husband, Dom Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave. The story was in the Mail on Sunday, who eked it out across two consecutive issues. On week one it kept Dom and Michael’s names under wraps (for ethical reasons, it said) but revealed the source of the thrilling bit of gossip to be an aide of Cameron’s called Gavin Williamson (now Chief Whip). Williamson had, said the MoS, dashed into No. 10 ‘in the heat of the bitter EU campaign’ to deliver news of the fling to the PM.

On Thursday last week, as the baby and I were moving in our usual slow circles around the house, from changing station to feeding station to the place of dreaded midday nap, my husband, Dom, called to say he and all his colleagues were coming over. Dom is employed by Vote Leave, the group campaigning for us to get out of the European Union. He’d been hard at work, he said, sharing his concerns about Turkey with the media, when water had begun to gush from the ceiling. Was this a desperate move by No. 10, intent on sabotage? Nope, said Dom, but we can’t stay here so I’ve invited everyone home. Ten minutes later Brexit was in the kitchen.

Popcorn at the ready! Today Vote Leave's Dominic Cummings has been hauled before the Treasury committee to answer questions on 'the economic and financial costs and benefits of UK's EU membership'. To begin this, Cummings -- who has been described by former colleagues as a Tory Che Guevara -- was grilled by the committee's chair Andrew Tyrie. The tone was set from the start: DC: “I’ve got another meeting at four, so I’ll have to be out of here before that.” AT: “I don’t think you’ve got the hang of these proceedings. We ask the questions and you stay and answer them.” DC: “I’m just telling you when I’ll be leaving.” AT: “In that case you’ll be recalled.” DC: “Fine by me.

Oh dear. Thanks to today's technological advances, it's never been easier to stay in touch with contacts. However, one member of the British Polling Council discovered today that this is not always a good thing. Vote Leave's Dominic Cummings complained to the BPC about the Confederation of British Industry's EU survey, which was conducted by YouGov. After receiving the email complaint, staff discussed his claims, but failed to notice that Cummings was cc'd into the conversation. In the email, Nick Moon wrote that 'at first glance the odious Cummings might be onto something' before admitting that the 'survey looks pretty dodgy'.

We might not know what deal David Cameron will bring back from his renegotiation with Europe but now we know what the two campaigns will look like. Their leading lights went head-to-head at the Spectator debate this evening and it was a fascinating insight into how they plan to fight. Dominic Cummings, the co-director of the Vote Leave campaign, argued that a vote to leave the EU would force a rethink of the entire European project, Britain would gain £20 billion to invest and we'd have ‘far more influence around the world’ thanks to the opportunity for Britain to finally represent itself on global bodies.

The two major EU referendum campaigns have gone public over the last week: ‘Vote Leave, Take Control’ and ‘Britain Stronger In Europe’. Both camps have formidable campaigners at the helm: Dominic Cummings for Vote Leave and Will Straw for Stronger In. They both passionately believe in their causes and are prepared to do whatever it takes to win. Cummings is renowned for his tenure as Michael Gove’s special adviser, where he successfully took on the education ‘blob’, the Whitehall machine and some in his own party. Straw founded the Left Foot Forward blog, before working at the IPPR think tank. He also stood as the Labour candidate in Rossendale and Darwen at the last general election.

Nigel Farage appears to have u-turned about backing one Brexit campaign. At the party’s recent conference in Doncaster, the Ukip leader said he would be standing ‘hand in hand’ with Arron Banks and his Leave.EU group. But on the Sunday Politics yesterday, he gave equal weighting to Vote Leave, the other Brexit effort which launched on Thursday evening out of the Business for Britain campaign group: ‘I support both of them. I listened to what Vote Leave had to say last week. They're a Westminster based group, making business arguments. Arguing, as I've done in this interview, for us to be free to make our own trade deals. That is of value. ‘Leave.EU is an entirely different thing, aiming at a completely different audience.

Eurosceptic Tories have a new voice to herald their cause: Nigel Lawson. The former Chancellor and Spectator editor announced in an op-ed he is becoming the president of Conservatives for Britain, a group working with the Matthew Elliott-Dominic Cummings Out campaign. Lawson explains his explains his red lines for Britain remaining in the EU and suggests the government is unlikely to achieve them: ‘I am not party to the negotiations between ministers and the EU but it is clear that now is the time for David Cameron and George Osborne to set out some red lines.

Nigel Farage claimed at Ukip’s conference yesterday that all Eurosceptic groups were being brought together under the Leave.EU umbrella organisation, headed up by Ukip donor Arron Banks. However, the other Leave campaign, run by Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, was notably absent and its representatives did not appear at the conference yesterday. Elliott’s Business for Britain group, which aims to give a voice to Eurosceptic businesses, was also not mentioned as part of the umbrella group. When I asked Farage about this, he said ‘they don’t want to leave, they want to wait and see what the Prime Minister has come back with’.

The new wording of the EU referendum question seems to have helped the Brexit cause. Since the Yes/No question changed to Remain/Leave, support for staying in the European Union appears to have ebbed away. According to a new ICM poll 40 per cent now say they'd vote for Britain to leave the EU, compared to 43 per cent who would vote to remain In. This three-point gap is within the usual margin of error for opinion polls, making it too close to say who is ahead. But happily for campaigners, 17 per cent said they still ‘don’t know’ how they will vote in the referendum. ICM conducted a poll based on the old wording two weeks again, in which 46 per cent said they would vote to remain in the EU, compared to 35 per cent who support leaving.

Dominic Cummings is the man drafted in to put together the putative No campaign for the EU referendum. Cummings has a tendency to surprise and he has done that today with a piece that pushes the idea that the No campaign should say that there would be a second referendum if Britain votes Out. This second vote would be on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. Cummings’ thinking is that this would de-risk voting No. People would be simply rejecting the deal that David Cameron had negotiated rather than voting to leave outright. Cummings sums up the advantages of a second referendum for No thus: This approach might allow NO to dodge its biggest problem – the idea that a NO vote is a vote to leave in one jump and is therefore a leap in the dark.

Anyone interested in the EU debate should read Dominic Cummings' report on the focus groups he recently conducted for Business for Britain. As well as being a reminder of just how strong the anti-politics mood in the country is, they also sketch out what the challenges for the respective campaigns in any referendum will be. For Out, it'll be showing that exit won't cause economic disaster. The focus groups suggest that if people fear that leaving will cause jobs to be lost in large numbers, then they'll vote to stay despite their dislike of the EU. While In's biggest problem is that voters now spontaneously connect the EU with immigration.