Why is Dominic Cummings still in a job? - Lesley Riddoch

Should he stay or should he go? Despite Boris Johnson’s extraordinary, reality-defying performance last night, that’s still the only question in British politics and will be until Dominic Cummings resigns. This much is obvious.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson with his senior aide Dominic Cummings in Downing Street

Why then is the Prime Minister’s chief adviser still in post this morning, when a similar breach of Covid lockdown rules by the Scottish CMO Catherine Calderwood resulted in her resignation?

Put simply, because Cummings cock and bull story about his desperate quest for childcare (which everyone knows he didn’t get in Durham) was accepted lock, stock and barrel by a craven Prime Minister who has destroyed his failing credibility by crassly stupid answers and an evident wild desperation to keep his deeply flawed adviser at all costs.

“I think [Mr Cummings] followed the instincts of every parent and I do not mark him down for that. In every respect he has acted responsibly, legally and with integrity.”

Really. If England’s political and chattering classes, who energetically supported his election, cannot force Mr Johnson to rethink this insult to our collective intelligence, then where is democracy?

The Commons is now in recess with no PMQs for a week, so maybe the Prime Minister thinks the “fuss” will blow over. That won’t happen.

The Cummings saga began as a clear case of double standards – it has now been fuelled by Mr Johnson’s unbelievable non sequiturs and evasion into an existential crisis for the Prime Minister. No matter how many hapless ministers are forced onto TV to quibble over details and try to focus on the forthcoming end of lockdown, it’s clear to everyone but the Prime Minister that he and Mr Cummings have jointly stepped beyond the pale. As Channel 4’s outraged Gary Gibbons put it during last night’s news briefing, Mr Johnson says Mr Cummings followed his instincts while the rest of us were following the rules – and that’s all right.

Such a provocation should bring Britain’s sluggish democracy alive. We are all witnesses to an elected elite that behave as if rules don’t apply to them, with an unapologetic air that almost encourages the public to disregard its shattered rules too. Or it would, if the electorate ever really expected a Tory British government to play fair in the first place.

That now is the $64,000 question. Do they? Do the voters who put the Tories into power (and very few live north of the Border) really care if government advisers break the rules? That’s what the Golden Boys are trying to calculate today. Actually, they think not, and the horror is, they could be right.

Could there be a sneaking admiration among supporters of Brexit and critics of the “nanny state” that these powerful men feel able to duck and weave, abuse the perks of great office and act without the slightest concession to those irritating moral constraints that apply to the rest of us? Is that what some people consider strong leadership to be – the ability to take decisions that cost lives, without losing a night’s sleep? Mr Cummings has long behaved as if he knows that he’s probably the most hated person in Britain. And evidently doesn’t care. Does that look to some like a leadership quality? Clearly, voters across the world are backing strong men and uncaring patricians over bleeding heart liberals and whiny socialists.

Is that what’s happening here?

Not in Scotland, where the possession of a moral compass is a prerequisite for those seeking to govern. Even when there are legitimate questions about how well its directions are observed, one thing’s clear. Nicola Sturgeon’s authority would be badly damaged by proven allegations of lies and double standards by an adviser.

But what about Mr Johnson? Does the PM’s endorsement of a rule-breaking employee damage his authority in the same way? If it did, the righteous fury of bereaved citizens who obeyed lockdown rules should be enough to blow Mr Cummings’ short-lived political career into Kingdom Come. But will that happen?

Can a government continue to operate, caught in the headlights like this, on the back foot, sounding defensive, looking weak and selfish? Well, actually yes. This one can. It lives in those headlights – yet seems to survive.

Think about the damning revelations that have dented support for the PM, but failed to sink him. The missing nine weeks, the failure to chair Cobra meetings, the jocular claim to have shaken hands with everyone in a Covid ward, the failure to sack housing minister Robert Jenrick after a 400-mile round trip to his second home, contrasting with the lightning-fast sacking of outspoken scientist Neil Ferguson.

Do as I say, not as I do.

The Conservatives have raised doublethink to a veritable artform over a decade and been re-elected, with overwhelming support south of the Border. So the question must be asked. Does it matter if Mr Johnson clings to a cynical rule-breaker now?

Let’s face it. The essence of Conservatism has always been one rule for you, one rule for me.

Essentially, the English voting public has been trained into accepting double standards from toffs, spivs and speculators for so long that it’s not clear this transgression will produce a reaction. Perhaps, in the land of the unregulated, cut-throat marketplace, the Old Etonian wide boy really is king.

Why else did Labour decide not to follow the SNP and Lib Dems in calling for Mr Cummings’ resignation? Instead they want an inquiry, which Mr Johnson hasn’t the slightest intention of conceding. Why has Keir Starmer pulled his punches - again?

The big question, though, is how English public opinion reacts. For the good of humanity, and the democratic health of this country, let’s hope it overcomes tribal Brexit divisions and rises up to demand that Mr Cummings is sacked.

But if it doesn’t, if he and Mr Johnson are able to brazen this out, what can Scots conclude? Either Boris Johnson is totally impervious to public opinion or public opinion, south of the border, is dangerously impervious to blatant abuses of power perpetrated by the Office of No10.

Which is it? The future of Mr Johnson and the Union depend on the answer.