Despite making his favouritism for Rishi fairly obvious while briefing against Boris during Partygate, Dominic Cummings doesn’t seem that optimistic about the Tories’ chances at the next election. Speaking on a podcast yesterday, Dom argued it was reasonable for the public to blame the Tories for the current mess the country’s in, however:

“If you had a top-notch campaign team working in No. 10 now, then you could definitely knock Keir Starmer very far off course. You could break his whole decision-making system, you could shake up the game, you’d definitely have a good shot at shaking the whole thing up enough you make it competitive for sure. And then if you can make it competitive then the best team has got a chance of winning.” 

He observes, however, that the current government appears content to lose nicely rather than win via unconventional methods, which have been proved to rile up the sensibilities of Home County Tories and the north London media. Clearly based on the outcome of the summer 2022 leadership race, rumours that Cummings was secretly advising Rishi Sunak weren’t true – or at least his advice wasn’t heeded…