How should Labour respond to Dominic Cummings’s departure?

Keir Starmer hasn’t said anything about the ructions in No 10: John Rentoul looks at the reasons

Exiting, stage right (or possibly left): Dominic Cummings (Getty)

So far Keir Starmer has allowed the Conservative government to tear itself apart without providing any commentary from the opposition. On Wednesday, the incendiary report that Boris Johnson was “poised” to make Lee Cain, Dominic Cummings’s lieutenant, Downing Street chief of staff provoked Tory civil war, with Tory MPs and Carrie Symonds, the prime minister’s fiancee, piling in to stop the appointment. 

Starmer ignored it at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), raising worthy subjects such as armed forces charities and wasteful spending on PR consultants. 

Instead of being confirmed as chief of staff, however, Cain that evening announced his resignation. This time the Labour Party did say something, putting out a three-sentence statement: “On the day the UK became the first country in Europe to report 50,000 coronavirus deaths and the public endure another lockdown, Boris Johnson’s government is fighting like rats in a sack over who gets what job. It is precisely this lack of focus and rank incompetence that has held Britain back. The public deserve better than this incompetent and divided Conservative government.”