Saturday 30 May 2020
Cummings against the types
I couldn’t help thinking yesterday as I listened to him that that may be the fight the whole earth is slipping into — the type against the individual.
Hugh Walpole – Vanessa (1933)
To my mind this is the Dominic Cummings battle in a nutshell. He comes across as an individual while his remarkably virulent critics are generally types. Media types, big government types, EU types, and so on.
Types fit in and well-connected types may rise as far as the froth on top. It hardly seemed to matter who was banging the anti-Cummings drum. He isn’t a type and they hate him for it.
Their hatred of the eccentric, the queer, the abnormal made them respond ecstatically to anything that allowed them to display that hatred.
Ibid
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6 comments:
That's a shrewd observation, Mr H!
We all seem to appreciate that Mr Cummings is a 'maverick', but what I like about him, is the fact that he just doesn't care a toss about anyone who tries to do him down! The BBC, Guardian, even the other failing rags like The Times and the Indy (or whatever it's called this week), are losing their hair!
D'you remember Robert Vaughan's role in 'Washington behind closed doors'?
Same sort...?
Add the FT to the establishment Groupthink. The FT used to be a paper of record now it is another outlet for lefty propaganda, embarrassingly poor propaganda at that. Those misleading graphs of the pandemic spring to mind. Shockingly inept and obviously so, unless you are part of the trumpeting group. What purpose does the FT serve these days? It doesn't even seem to cover financial news any more. The people they recruit seem not to understand it
I keep out of touch as far as is humanly possible but get the feeling that the more media denigration he suffers the better Cummings looks.
I'm not sure whether the whole issue is explicable in these terms. The "types" probably see him as a type too (Brexiteer, too clever by half, etc.).
It's actually very difficult to see what DC is like. I find his writings (so far as I have glanced at his blog) to be extremely obscure and rather vague, and although he is obviously mad keen on reform, it's not easy to see the direction of reform. If anything, he seems to value planning and efficiency and meritocratic technological solutions. I think he might be seen as a threat because that's how a lot of the current establishment liked to see themselves, but he has demonstrated that they are very poor at it. He seems to have had the time and the outsider status to maintain his youthful verve and originality, while cultivating the political clout to actually get things done.
He must be working marvels for Boris and be worth his weight in platinum, to be so protected. The alternative is that he's some random autistic bloke they have recruited who takes all the media flak and causes twitter storms, while the cabinet get on with it...
I suspect that a lot of it is about status. Cummings refuses to treat the media and other "well-connected types" with the respect that they consider themselves to be entitled to, and they hate him for it. His principal offence is lèse-majesté.
I agree with Sam Vega that it's difficult to work out what he is really like. But the impression I get is definitely of a "type", the over-confident management consultant "type" who thinks he knows everybody else's jobs better than they do but who doesn't have the practical experience to make anything work in the real world. I'd be very surprised if he actually changes anything for the better.
As for why he has been protected, the media witch-hunt changed the whole issue into a simple power struggle - a "Who governs Britain?" moment. The media tried to show that it could still end the career of anybody whom it disliked for personal or ideological reasons, and this forced the government to defend Cummings to the hilt to avoid conceding the wider principle.
Scrobs - I never saw 'Washington behind closed doors' but you are right, Cummings doesn't seem to care if anyone tries to do him down. He seems to stand apart from it all and spend his time looking in at things.
Graeme - it surprises me how the FT keeps going with its subscription approach which seems absurdly expensive when so much good content is free.
Jannie - that's a good point, the media denigration doesn't seem to work at all with many people who don't particularly rate him but seem to think he must be better than the people attacking him.
Sam - I've read some of his writing and it seems obscure and vague to me too. He seems to view himself as an outsider who is determined not to be seduced into becoming an insider because that's the problem. He doesn't appear to have many answers though, but maybe it isn't answers we need so much as a clearout.
Andrew - yes, as you say it could be a simple power struggle. Boris would respond to that because he has the majority and plenty of time to make use of it so in that sense the media entered a battle they were likely to lose.
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