Dominic Cummings

Dominic Cummings delivered a Pharos Lecture in Oxford this week on why western regimes are in crisis. Here is an edited transcript of his speech: The old political parties, the old Whitehall institutions, the old media, the old universities, the old courts constitute a political regime. This regime has become cancerous. The cancer has metastasised and the cancer is attacking everything healthy in the country; all the healthy institutions and healthy impulses are the target of Whitehall. If you imagine our ancestors who built our civilisation over generations, looking at a sample of recent years, what would they see?

Dominic Cummings has released the following statement on his website: The Prime Minister’s new Director of Communications Jack Doyle, at the PM’s request, has made a number of false accusations to the media. 1. Re Dyson. I do have some WhatsApp messages between the PM/Dyson forwarded to me by the PM. I have not found the ones that were leaked to Laura Kuenssberg on my phone nor am I aware of being sent them last year. I was not directly or indirectly a or the source for the BBC/Kuenssberg story on the PM/Dyson texts. Yesterday some No. 10 officials told me that No.

Spectator contributors were asked: Which moment from history seems most significant or interesting? Here is Dominic Cummings’s answer: In the early morning of 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union’s Air Defence Force was on duty, monitoring his country’s satellite system, when the siren sounded. His computer indicated that the US had just launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles, and protocol required him to notify superiors immediately. Soviet strategy was to ‘launch on warning’, and many in Moscow believed Ronald Reagan was planning a first strike.  But Petrov had a gut feeling this was a false alarm. Five missiles seemed too few, and the system itself was new.

This is a transcript of Dominic Cummings' statement: Around midnight on Thursday, the twenty sixth of March, I spoke to the prime minister. He told me that he tested positive for Covid. We discussed the national emergency arrangements for No.10, given his isolation and what I would do in No. 10 the next day. The next morning, I went to work as usual. I was in a succession of meetings about this emergency. I suddenly got a call from my wife who was at home looking after our four year old child. She told me she suddenly felt badly ill. She'd vomited and felt like she might pass out. And there'll be nobody to look after our child. None of our usual childcare options were available. They were alone in the house. After very briefly telling some officials in No.

Dear Vote Leave supporters, Let’s honour the referendum result and get Brexit done so the country can move on. Days after the 2016 referendum, I emailed all of you to say thanks for your heroic efforts.  I also said — keep an eye on my blog, if Brexit is in danger then I will send up a ‘bat signal’ here. Here we go… All of you who helped Vote Leave win should ask yourself: what should I do, and not do, to ensure we leave in the best way possible? This is my answer to this question… Boris fought for Leave in 2016. I worked with him closely in the referendum. I know how committed he was.

Watching SW1 these days reminds me of that scene in Citizen Kane when Boss Jim Gettys confronts Orson Welles (Kane): Gettys: ‘You’re making a bigger fool of yourself than I thought you would Mr Kane…With anybody else I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you, only you’re gonna need more than one lesson — and you’re gonna get more than one lesson.’ Kane: ‘… I’m gonna send you to Sing Sing Gettys, Siiinngg Siiiiinnnnngggggg…’ These guys didn’t learn from the 2004 referendum (on a North East regional assembly) before 2016.

Most of Westminster has suffered a psychological and operational implosion because of the referendum. Many MPs, hacks and charlatan-pundits on both sides have responded to the result by retreating to psychologically appealing parallel worlds rather than face reality. A subset of the ERG, for example, welcomed the December agreement on the Irish backstop that actually spelled doom for their central ideas about how the negotiations were being conducted. This is the same group now ranting about Chequers — which was programmed by the December agreement, as are the imminent further surrenders in the autumn on Free Movement and everything else!

Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings has been warned he could find himself in contempt of parliament for refusing to appear before a select committee on fake news. Here is an edited version of his response to Damian Collins, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chair: You talk of ‘contempt of Parliament’. You seem unaware that most of the country feels contempt for Parliament and this contempt is growing. You have failed miserably over Brexit. You have not even bothered to educate yourselves on the basics of ‘what the Single Market is’, as Ivan Rogers explained in detail yesterday.

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 fortnight ago I wrote a blog on the issue of exit plans and a possible second referendum. According to various media reports, Boris liked the idea and has told people so. I thought it would be interesting to see some numbers so asked ICM to consider it. Attached here are the results. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/NRsOr/index.html"] Unsurprisingly, they show that 1) the public supports a second referendum, and 2) the prospect of one makes the idea of voting No in the first vote less scary and therefore may increase the chances of No winning the first vote. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/mlPHy/index.

Simon Jenkins has written a bizarre piece in the Evening Standard. As well as answering that, I’ll explain a few others things about it. Unfortunately, he has completely misunderstood the basics of the universal free school meals fiasco. He writes: ‘Gove decided, by a deal with Nick Clegg, that running every school meant insisting every child have a “proper meal”. The order went out over Christmas. Gove would be first to admit he has never run a whelk stall and was surprised to discover that schools were having trouble becoming Jamie Oliver academies overnight… Comrade Stalin himself would have warmed to the tears of gratitude.’ Where to start?!