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News Archive

Expert comment - Cummings central to the Johnson project

26 May 2020

expert comment

Dr Mark Shanahan, Head of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading comments on the ongoing story regarding Dominic Cummings' trip to the North East of England:

"Cummings is integral to the Johnson project - providing, along with Gove, the ideological heft in support of the Prime Minister's showmanship. For all Johnson has described himself as a 'One Nation Tory', he's rather more the populist king of a small, but powerful right wing cabal currently in control of government.

"That control was emphasised yesterday by giving more than an hour of Downing Street prime time to an unelected political official who used that time largely to drive a wedge between the entitled few and the locked-down many. Those many have been contacting their MPs in droves; MPs elected on a platform of levelling up the country.

"The Cummings affair has done little for that agenda other than to expose the chasm between the Number 10 elite, lawyered-up and seemingly above the law, and a party just beginning to feel the pressure of an electorate waking up to the fact that 'just getting things done' isn't quite as chummy a place as it might be. 

"While the opposition remains quite a distance behind the government, Johnson's real threat may be from his own party. In being in thrall to a bright but reckless disruptor, he has weakened his authority - at a time when the country needs the surest hand on the tiller to navigate through this nightmare pandemic."

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