While Team Rishi spent the entire leadership race last year insisting they were keeping their distance from Dominic Cummings – Rishi claimed he hadn’t seen the man since he quit in 2020 – this eyebrow-raising picture has been doing the rounds in SW1 WhatsApps in recent days. It shows Cummings himself clapping away merrily at the wedding reception of… Liam Booth-Smith and Olivia Oates. Booth-Smith ran Rishi’s campaign, and is now his Chief of Staff.

The wedding reception was held just weeks before Rishi entered Downing Street last October. Number 10 insisted he’d have “no role” in Rishi’s government and was not involved in his leadership bid. Close enough to get a wedding invite from the most senior aide in Downing Street though…

Hugo Keith KC summarising Dominic Cummings’ descriptions of ministers during Covid:

“You called ministers ‘useless fuckpigs’, ‘morons’, ‘cunts’ in emails and WhatsApps to your professional colleagues”.

Sky News is having to apologise about every 30 seconds for the “rather fruity” language on display in lockdown-era WhatsApp messages during former Mirror chicken Lee Cain’s inquiry session today, like Cummings complaining that Boris was “back to jaws mode wank“. Full and frank conversations…

The Sky presenter keeps cutting in to say “we have no control over the language” and “we may be experiencing quite a lot of this today“. Foul language…

Dominic Cummings has created a Twitter list of “SW1-NPCs“. An NPC, or Non-Player Character, is a computer game term for a character that can’t be controlled by the human player, which means that they are governed by lines of code and will respond to events in a set way without any ability for autonomous thought. The term is now used to refer to people who provide half-brained, automatic, and predictable opinions on complex issues. More than a few names spring to mind…

Cummings explains that the New York Times, BBC, and Guardian are the worst for online disinformation and the easiest way to spot an NPC these days is when they say things like “I’m leaving Twitter” but never do.

There are 17 names on Cummings’ list so far: Adam Boulton, Alexander Clarkson, Rafael Behr, Jolyon Maugham, Rafael Behr, Marina Hyde, George Parker, Jonathan Portes, Alex Thomas, Tom Bradby, Stephen Bush, Pippa Crerar, Adam Wagner, Phillips P. O’Brien, Iain Martin, Dan Hodges, Camilla Tominey, Sam Freedman. Harsh…

As the Privileges Committee finally released Boris Johnson’s 50-page written evidence submission, Guido was struck by one claim from the Committee. In their press release, they state “Mr Johnson’s written submission contains no new documentary evidence”. Sources close to Johnson categorically refute this. Guido is happy to take a look at the evidence and let co-conspirators be the judge.
The dossier includes previously unpublished WhatsApp messages sent on the evening of December 7, 2021. On page 37, the dossier includes a text from a senior adviser to Boris saying, ““I think you can say ‘I’ve been assured there was no party and no rules were broken’”. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

Page 36 of the submission includes a WhatsApp message from Boris, asking his team “is there a way we could get the truth about this party out there?”. It hardly looks like a cover up. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

There were further testimonies included on page 42 of the dossier. This includes a witness saying “it is my honest belief that Mr Johnson did not deliberately or negligently mislead the House” and another testifying that multiple civil servants assured Boris that rules were followed. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

Boris makes further defences in his dossier. He criticises the Committee’s fourth report for selectively quoting a witness – omitting the claim that Boris didn’t drink and “was the most sensible person there”. Boris also doesn’t hold back from blasting “the discredited” Dominic Cummings:

“It is no secret that Dominic Cummings bears an animus towards me, having publicly stated on multiple occasions that he wanted to do everything that he could to remove me “from power”. He cannot be treated as a credible witness”.

The Committee needs to explain why they kept back from publishing evidence that supported the central contention that Boris was advised by officials that all was compliant...

Since stepping back from front-line politics, Dominic Cummings has had time to get on with the important things in life. Like worrying about the possibility of thermo-nuclear war breaking out as a consequence of an escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Something he is concerned enough to tweet about frequently. Dom’s detractors point out this is also a Kremlin talking point.

Guido doesn’t think Dom is a patsy for Putin, he’s just genuinely worried about the risk of a nuclear war. As a result, Guido hears Dom has told friends he has bought an island retreat on Lindisfarne – chosen for its prime location in the context of a nuclear apocalypse, in the sense that it is far outside the likely fallout zone following an atomic blast over London.  Always look on the bright side…

Guido’s own calculations back up Dom’s. Although nuclear fallout is difficult to predict – and often dependent on a range of factors – going by the radius from the Bikini Atoll test, which spread around 450 kilometres, Dom’s Holy Island retreat would be well clear of any burn zones and just about free from fallout. Guido prefers to stay on his own Insula Sacra…

Hat-tip: Nukemap by Alex Wellerstein