Has government weathered Dominic Cummings-gate? PR experts weigh in

Prime minister’s top aide ‘doesn’t give a flying f***’ about controversy, one PR boss – who predicts he will survive the furore – tells Adam Forrest

Dominic Cummings outside his London home, 25 May 2020 (EPA)

Boris Johnson and his team at No 10 may have been hoping the storm surrounding Dominic Cummings’s trip from London to Durham during lockdown was finally beginning to calm.

Yet the statement by Durham Police on Thursday – revealing the aide’s trip to Barnard Castle “might have been a minor breach” of lockdown rules – has guaranteed the storm rages on.

PR experts and political analysts are divided on whether Mr Cummings will have to go. While some believe he has weathered the worst of the controversy, others think the media coverage over next few days could still prove crucial in deciding his future.

Top PR agent Mark Borkowski does not think the police statement, the recent nose dive in the polls, or a revolt by dozens of Tory backbenchers will make any difference to the prime minister or his defiant strategist.

“I’ve taken a bet with some US journalists who are amazed by this story, and I’ve confidently predicted that Cummings isn’t going anywhere,” Mr Borkowski tells The Independent.

“There are those will thick skins, and there are those with very thick skins who can simply ignore all this. Cummings is that person. He doesn’t give a flying f***. He really doesn’t.”

Mr Borkowski adds: “At No 10 he’s deemed necessary and powerful and they just don’t want him to go. They’re looking at the polling and choosing to take a gamble. It’s undoubtedly damaging. Keir Starmer and Labour will be able to hark back to this and say ‘look at this privilege’. But No 10 will wait and move on to the next controversy.

“We’re seeing the Trump effect in communications globally – you make a mistake and you move on without saying sorry. You deliver a better story or happily generate another controversy to move away from the previous controversy.”

The PR veteran Julian Eccles, who has held communications roles for Sky, Ofcom and the FA, still thinks there is a decent chance the strategist will have to step down.

“If this intense coverage goes over the weekend, then I think his position would be again threatened very strongly,” Mr Eccles tells The Independent. “At that point, if the coverage had continued over a full week, I think he would have to consider resigning.”

He adds: "It might require new revelations. Or it could come from the steady build-up of pressure from Tory MPs getting a lot of emails. It will also depend on the extent on which the government provides other news stories to try to keep it off the front pages.”

Mr Eccles describes No 10’s desire to ride it out as “extraordinary” – pointing out that a mere government minister or humble MP would probably have been forced out after three or four days of negative front-page coverage. “I think it’s undisputable that would have happened – a resignation would have be expected.”

Phillip Blond, political strategist and director of the ResPublica think tank, thinks Mr Johnson is determined to stick by the mastermind who delivered his general election victory. But whether that plan remains sustainable next week still depend on the mood of Tory MPs, regardless of the media coverage.

“I think the prime minister is now between a rock and a hard place – if he loses Cummings he loses his authority and looks a weak leader of a majority government, he has probably made the calculation that that is worse than public outrage, which will dissipate in time.”

Mr Blond adds: “He will think, perhaps rightly, that with enough bold policy initiatives he can regain the ground he has lost [and] he can therefore withstand the headlines for as long as they last.

“However, if enough MPs move against Cummings then that’s the only force likely to force him to change direction – but we are not there yet either in the rebellion’s intensity or its scale.”

Dominic Cummings outside his London home, 25 May 2020 (EPA)

At least 45 Tory MPs have either called for Mr Cummings to go or for Mr Johnson to sack him. Yet the steady flow of backbenchers speaking out against the strategist earlier in the week appears – for now – to have dissipated.

Prior to the release of the Durham Police statement, the former director of communications David Cameron’s Craig Oliver told the BBC that Mr Johnson’s team at No 10 “think that this is dying down”.

But some believe any new revelation about his time in County Durham could still tip the scales against him. The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg suggested this weekend’s media coverage remains decisive.

She told the latest episode of The Coronavirus Newscast that the position at No 10 remains: “Keep the tin hat on, get through it, get out the other side and hope to God that it won’t be on the front page of the Sunday paper with some other detail.”