As H.P. Lovecraft once observed: “From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
And so it is that in the week the Tory government finally made us world leaders….in death, as we took the unenviable title as the country with the highest death rates per capita in the world, our collective horror has indeed been joined by a very large measure of irony.
Never trust an unelected bureaucrat eh?
This large dose of irony has been served in the form of one unelected bureaucrat who has made a career railing against the power of, you guessed it, unelected bureaucrats. I am of course talking about Dominic Cummings, the man who has been revealed this week as our co-prime minister. Whilst many suspected he held this position from the moment Boris Johnson took office, it was confirmed for even the sceptics as he held his very own press conference at No.10. This involved him trying to wriggle out of the untenable position he’d placed himself in as a consequence of an excess of arrogance, which had led him to think he didn’t need to follow the ‘universal’ rules he himself had designed. Given the context, such an event in which an unelected bureaucrat has been afforded a platform at the heart of power in one of the world’s oldest democracies is itself without precedence. However, making it abundantly clear for those not paying attention, this was compounded by the ‘protective ring’ Mr Johnson then threw around Mr Cummings, which highlighted further that such was the importance of this unelected bureaucrat in governing our sovereign democracy, that Mr Johnson was not only willing to accept considerable damage to his own reputation and leadership, and that of the government and Tory party more generally, but was even willing to risk yet further damage to the public health strategy in place to tackle Covid19. It was already evident that Mr Cummings’ actions had eroded the clarity of the public health messaging, and his failure to apologise really did undermine it further. As ministers were unable to contradict what he had done, they had to leave open the possibility of 500+ mile round trip journeys for anyone whose ‘instinct’ told them this was the best thing for them to do…..in a lockdown. As if this wasn’t bad enough, in an attempt to deflect the criticism away from his partner in crime, the other prime minister Boris Johnson, then altered the lockdown restrictions, and thus I suspect brought about the premature death of whoever is unfortunate enough to catch the virus as a consequence of playing so fast and loose with public health strategy in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Worse still, it didn’t even work, with 59% of voters still thinking Mr Cummings should resign[1].
So just to recap; the unelected bureaucrat who gained power by railing against unelected bureaucrats, takes an unelected pivotal position in the seat of power from where he designs rules for the masses which he does not follow himself. This has the effect of diminishing the efficacy of the original public health strategy in responding to Covid, however regardless of the human cost, the strategy itself is then altered in order to distract attention away from the democratic pressure which sees a large majority of the UK population wanting this unelected bureaucrat removed from office. As examples of irony go, this would surely make Alanis Morrissette excited.
The cult of Cummings?
Now a reasonable person might expect that those who voted for Brexit might feel somewhat betrayed by such actions. Even more so if they were to discover that this unelected bureaucrat is also in possession of two other identities they claimed were the aim of their ire when voting for Brexit; the establishment and the elite. For it is hard to argue that a man who comes from a very wealthy background, whose uncle was a knight of the realm and a Lord Chief Justice of Appeal, and whose wife is the daughter of Sir Edward Humphry Tyrrel Wakefield 2nd Baronet; so literally an aristocrat, is anything other than an elite member of the establishment. It is therefore somewhat puzzling at first thought that far from rejecting this man as the epitome of all that they were voting against, a not insignificant demographic rejects the evidence before their eyes, and actually vociferously defends this unelected bureaucrat in the face of an overwhelming majority who call for his dismissal. However, it is from such an apparently illogical outcome that we can see why Boris Johnson is reluctant to get rid of Mr Cummings. For whilst his skill set clearly doesn’t include much in the way of common sense, it does include an ability to manipulate the perceptions of certain demographic groups, such that they will ignore the reality in front of their eyes, engendering an almost cultist tribalism amongst those he has managed to get his messaging hooks into.
Facebook stole our democracy
He of course honed these skills during the EU referendum, where with the help of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, he and his elite cabal centred around the multibillionaire Robert Mercer and his company Cambridge Analytica, were able to mount a widespread campaign of disinformation. To a very large extent based on untruths, the welter of false claims that were made, often utilised the concept of ‘dark advertisements’ in which a Facebook user is micro targeted with specific adverts which their profile suggests will gain traction with them, but which are destroyed once read, such that no democratic opportunity is available to counter any false claims they make[2]. Add to this the illegal use of private data and systematic campaign overspending and you see a picture emerge of the patently undemocratic measures that Mr Cummings & Co are willing to engage in to win elections. It is of course supremely ironic to trash democratic norms in the ostensible pursuit of regaining democracy, but irony is somewhat of a forte for this lot.
Similar behaviour won them the 2019 election, with a widespread disinformation campaign orchestrated by Cummings et al which was almost void of any positive messaging about what programme of government the Tories would pursue if victorious, beyond “Get Brexit Done’. Instead, both the formal campaign and the opaque online campaign focused almost entirely on creating a negative portrayal of the opposition, with the online Facebook campaign seeing scores of fake grassroots campaigns able to make completely false claims about the opposition, but which were unable to be challenged formally as they were so numerous and one step removed from the formal campaign.
Beyond the almost exclusive focus on this manipulative and deceitful messaging, is the second element of their strategy, which is identifying the demographic most suitable for their tactics. Then in areas of low opposition majorities, focusing lots of resources on swinging these marginal voters, safe in the knowledge that the smear campaign directed against the opposition will keep the Tory faithful onboard, even if they’re not particularly comfortable with the direction of travel, whilst simultaneously the negative narrative works to create disaffection amongst those who are unlikely to vote Tory. In an age when voter turnout is historically low, targeting very precise groups in specific marginal locations can be just enough to push your side across the line. This is especially so when multiplied at the national level.
The Cumming(s) Storm?
Nonetheless, considering that Dominic Cummings’ speciality seems to be centred around messaging/campaigning, and yet we aren’t due a general election for at least four years, the question is rightly asked; why is Boris Johnson prepared to take such a hit now to protect Mr Cummings? I think the answer is that the Boris Johnson Brexiteer administration has a very high expectation of a coming storm at the end of this year when a no-deal Brexit will have to be pushed across the line, come what may. Mr Cummings and his dark arts I imagine are seen as an essential component of the strategy to maintain power and keep that core demographic onboard during the predictable upheaval that will ensue. Peddling in falsehoods, engendering division, avoiding scrutiny and generally diverting attention from criticism has been so essential to the success of this cabal so far, they’re hardly going to give up the chief architect of this strategy six months or so before the next, possibly most damaging chapter of their project.
The last few months have already given us a snapshot of their Orwellian gaslighting strategies in which they attempt to rewrite history; such as the claim made by Boris Johnson in PMQs that they had not advised hospitals to discharge Covid infected elderly people back to care homes, when they had done exactly just that, as was evidenced by their own official advice from the time. Or that they had put a protective ring around care homes from the very beginning, a statement which was met with incredulity by the nations’ care homes. This gaslighting strategy is paired simultaneously with attacks on the media, who are denigrated as biased, if ironically they are not biased, and dare to actually tell the truth. In yet another nod to the God of irony, during Mr Cummings press conference, he accused the public of being misled by stories in the media, yet not only was he there, pretty much confirming they were all true, the one media report which was indeed completely out of the ball park was the article written by his wife about their period in ‘London lockdown’. The #mediascum which quickly sprang up to intimidate those who dared to report the truth regarding Mr Cummings’ sojourn to Durham is one such example of this tactic.
Where’s my fridge?
What is abundantly clear is the contempt in which this elite group hold democratic norms. After all, Dominic Cummings was literally found in contempt of parliament for failing to appear before a select committee investigating fake news[3]. Add to this the proroguing of parliament, the constant attempts of the prime minister to hide from scrutiny, be that in parliament or in the media (remember fridge-gate?), and the farce which have become the daily press conferences, in which journalists are refused to ask searching questions, and if they do manage it are fobbed off with bluster and non-answers.
All these undemocratic actions point to a government which sees the democratic norms of the country as not only an inconvenience, but worse, as they’re an opportunity to be held to account, they’re seen as a dangerous threat, as scrutiny of their actions will reveal their administration is essentially just a PR/messaging project largely based on untruths – and taking us out of the EU with no-deal. That’s why their 2019 manifesto was pretty much empty of any plan for government. As it was Mr Cummings and his dark arts which got them into power despite being void of a plan for government, they are therefore extremely reluctant to be without Mr Cummings over the coming months.
Stop the ride I want to get off
For how long this charade can continue I suspect will be determined by the severity of what I fear will be an inevitable second wave of Covid. If death rates increase significantly or even just stubbornly refuse to fall, this will continue to have a catastrophic impact on the economy. If this happens whilst our European neighbours are slowly getting back to normal, the contrast between the UK as a seeming Covid basket case within Europe may be too much to bear, even for the relatively spineless backbench Tories. On the other hand, if we have passed the peak and we can slowly start getting back to ‘normal’, I suspect as per this article, Mr Cummings and his dark ways will be in our lives for a long time yet to come.
[1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2020/05/26/3fb8f/2
[2] https://www.joe.co.uk/news/brexit-facebook-adverts-192164
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/27/commons-report-rules-dominic-cummings-in-contempt-of-parliament
From the Outside Looking In 