Boris Johnson thinks woman-baiting macho politics can swing an election with barely a third of the vote

Inside Westminster: Cummings’s mantra is to get it done ‘by any means necessary’. If that means stoking anti-politics and a battle with parliament or the Supreme Court, then the ends justify the means

Normally, when a backroom political adviser goes front of house and steals the show it ends in tears. It happened to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s communications director, in the fall-out from the Iraq War.

Many at Westminster think the same fate will befall Dominic Cummings, the man they regard as the “evil genius” behind Boris Johnson’s divisive and intemperate language in the Commons this week, and Johnson’s “do or die” strategy to leave the EU on 31 October.

But so far, Cummings has defied the rule that advisers should be seen but not heard. When Labour MP Karl Turner confronted him about death threats he had received, Cummings told him: “Get Brexit done.” Speaking at a book launch, the former Vote Leave campaign director said it was “not surprising that some people are angry” about the Brexit delay, and found it “odd” that the MPs who caused the impasse were surprised by it. (No concession to MPs’ right to exercise their judgement to prevent an act of economic self-harm).