How Dominic Cummings is taking advantage of the powers of incumbency

There have been some glaring errors but the prime minister’s key aide knows how to use the machinery of government, writes Sean O'Grady

Cummings knows propaganda works best when a few simple ideas are endlessly repeated (PA)

Classic Dom” is the sarcastic catchphrase that mocks the supposed political gifts of the prime minister’s Svengali and chief adviser, Dominic Cummings. Thus, most recently, when Mr Cummings briefed that the Brexit talks would collapse within days, there was a sudden breakthrough at the summit with Leo Varadkar.

Other examples would include the botched first prorogation of parliament, dismissed as unlawful and void by the Supreme Court, and timed handily, as it happens, to distract attention from a disastrous Labour conference; and expelling 21 MPs from the parliamentary Conservative Party for voting for the Benn Act, thus eliminating the Tories’ majority in the Commons and creating a band of enemies with nothing to lose.

Still, in the bigger scheme of things, the Cummings strategy, Machiavellian or not, has succeeded in pitching the prime minister as the champion of the people against some elite establishment, including parliament itself, the courts, parts of the media and opposition parties. This lays the framework for the much-canvassed people versus parliament/establishment general election in late November.