Boris Johnson the 'people’s politician' risks squandering his common touch in standing by Dominic Cummings

Say what you like about Boris Johnson, he is not what you would call a “misfit” or a “weirdo”.

Unlike his non-conformist chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who once touted for such ‘oddballs’ to join No 10, the Prime Minister is as conventional as any of the 20 Old Etonians who have ended up in Downing Street.

A little eccentric, perhaps, with his love of the Iliad and aversion to Mason Pearson products, but as his old Balliol philosophy don Jonathan Barnes put it: “Definitely a good egg.”

Indeed chief among the reasons the Oxford graduate turned Telegraph journalist proved so successful in his predictable pivot to politics was his inherent likeability.

While you might not agree with Mr Johnson’s views on Brexit or even the burka, he has always been the kind of public figure people can imagine having a pint with.

Unlike his predecessor, Theresa the Maybot, a large part of his appeal is that he is human. He has made so many mistakes in his personal life most people stopped counting long ago. 

As his hero Winston Churchill put it, his success has been his ability to go from failure to failure, without a loss of enthusiasm. He’s been fired, twice divorced, fathered illegitimate children, suspended from a zip wire, knifed by Michael Gove - the list is endless, yet still he was elected to the highest office in the land. 

Voters were willing to overlook the lengthy rap sheet last December because they felt that despite his privileged Bullingdon Club background, he understood what made Britain tick.

The electorate wanted someone who could get Brexit done and consign that undoubted crackpot Jeremy Corbyn to the history books and only Boris fitted the bill.

Yet in standing by uncommon Mr Cummings, a PM who has always prided himself in being a “people’s politician” risks completely squandering his common touch.

It is extraordinary that a politician with Mr Johnson’s unique understanding of what it means to be British could have been so reckless with the public’s trust.

Far from being a Westminster ‘bubble’ story, news of Mr Cummings’ behaviour during lockdown has gone well beyond SW1A and the Twittersphere.

Disgust at the double standards on display is being expressed at the breakfast table, on the WhatsApp groups and over garden fences the length and breadth of the land. 

Perhaps, had we not all been confined to our homes for the last two months, with nothing better to do than absorb every single snippet of news, then Mr Cummings might have got away with it.

But people feel what he has done has a direct bearing on the lives they have been living in lockdown. This sorry saga hasn’t just reignited an ideological war between Brexit and remainers, as Downing Street might have you believe. People aren’t seeing it as a debate between left and right, but right and wrong.

One newly-elected Red Wall Tory could not have assessed the damage more starkly when he said on Monday: “My constituents are furious. They all saw Boris as someone who understood ordinary people but that’s disappeared overnight.

“Now they are saying he is just another stereotypical self-serving Tory who says it’s one rule for us and another for the rest of them.

“Popularity comes and goes, but if you lose the public’s trust, it’s so difficult to get it back.”

What makes Mr Johnson’s dilemma even more frustrating for those who know him well is the lack of faith he has demonstrated in his own abilities by keeping Mr Cummings on.

“He says he owes it all to Cummings,” says one senior Tory source. “But the country didn’t vote for Cummings, they voted for Boris.”

Mr Johnson twice won London against all the odds without Mr Cummings’ help. As the Brussels correspondent of this newspaper, he was writing about EU federalism before Mr Cummings even began impersonating Robespierre at Oxford. Had Mr Johnson not agreed to front up Vote Leave, Brexit might not have even won the referendum. Many will question why Mr Johnson isn’t putting more trust in the political antennae that has made him one of the most extraordinary political performers in a generation.  

For all his imperfections, as someone who has always wanted to build things - in contrast to Mr Cummings’ desire to tear them apart - the PM has exemplified aspirational Middle England.

Having told the electorate to use “good old fashioned common sense”, Mr Johnson has unwisely gone against the better judgement of those he was elected to serve. 

Some have suggested he hasn’t fully recovered from coronavirus and isn’t thinking straight. 

He certainly seems unable to imagine life without his tempestuous sidekick, yet he overlooks one thing vital to effective Cabinet government. 

How can his machine work when one of the biggest cogs in it spends much of his time clogging up the works by insulting the very ministers and MPs upon which the whole show depends? Cummings has turned toxic and now it is poisoning the PM’s future.