70 Facts About Dominic Cummings

1.

Dominic Mckenzie Cummings was born on 25 November 1971 and is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until Cummings resigned on 13 November 2020.

2.

From 2015 to 2016, Cummings was director of Vote Leave, an organisation which successfully executed the 2016 referendum campaign for Britain's exit from the European Union.

3.

Dominic Cummings had a contentious relationship with Chancellor Sajid Javid which culminated in Javid's resignation in February 2020 after he refused to comply with Dominic Cummings's request to dismiss his special advisers.

4.

Durham police said that they did not consider an offence was committed when Dominic Cummings travelled from London to Durham and that a minor breach might have occurred in travelling from there to Barnard Castle.

5.

Since leaving Downing Street in November 2020, Dominic Cummings has criticised the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Johnson's leadership on several occasions.

6.

Dominic Cummings worked for a group attempting to set up an airline connecting Samara in southern Russia to Vienna in Austria which George Parker of the Financial Times said was "spectacularly unsuccessful".

7.

From 1999 to 2002, Dominic Cummings was campaign director at Business for Sterling, the campaign against the UK joining the euro.

8.

Dominic Cummings then became Director of Strategy for Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith for eight months in 2002, aiming to modernise the Conservative Party.

9.

Dominic Cummings soon left in frustration at the introduction of what he saw as half-measures, labelling Duncan Smith "incompetent".

10.

Dominic Cummings directed the group, and was described by Andrew Pierce in The Times as "a youthful, mercurial figure who has brought together a diverse coalition including Bob Geldof and the Labour MP Frank Field to oppose the single currency".

11.

Dominic Cummings was a key figure in North East Says No the successful campaign against a North-East Regional Assembly in 2004.

12.

In 2006, while in a position of what Andrew Neil called "overall responsibility" for the website of The Spectator, Dominic Cummings republished a controversial cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban.

13.

Dominic Cummings worked for Conservative politician Michael Gove in various roles in opposition and government from 2007 to 2014.

14.

Dominic Cummings's appointment was initially blocked by Andy Coulson from 2010 until January 2011.

15.

Dominic Cummings was later appointed in February 2011 after Coulson's resignation.

16.

Dominic Cummings was known in the DfE for his blunt style and "not suffering fools gladly"; he and Michael Gove railed against the "blob", the informal alliance of senior civil servants and teachers who, in their opinion, sought to frustrate attempts at reform.

17.

Dominic Cummings said that this referred to the Conservative party conference, not government business.

18.

In 2014, Dominic Cummings left his job as a special adviser and noted that he might endeavour to open a free school.

19.

Dominic Cummings had previously worked for the New Schools Network charity that advises free schools, as a volunteer from June 2009 and then as a paid freelancer from July to December 2010.

20.

Dominic Cummings became campaign director of Vote Leave upon the creation of the organisation in October 2015.

21.

Board member of Vote Leave Bernard Jenkin tried to remove Dominic Cummings and merge Vote Leave with the other campaign, Leave.

22.

Dominic Cummings was praised alongside Elliott as being one of the masterminds of the campaign.

23.

Dominic Cummings advised Babylon Health on its communications strategy and senior recruitment up to September 2018.

24.

On 24 July 2019, Dominic Cummings was appointed as a senior adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and was described as the de facto Chief of Staff.

25.

Dominic Cummings had previously described such subsidies as "absurd", complaining that some of them were handed out to "very rich landowners to do stupid things".

26.

Will O'Shea, a data specialist appointed through Dominic Cummings's scheme, was dismissed in July 2020 after calling for police to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters with live ammunition.

27.

Dominic Cummings added that "one senior Tory who thought about applying to be Beeb chair" told him that calls for the BBC's "cultural re-education", which many assumed came from Cummings, actually came from Munira Mirza, director of the Number 10 Policy Unit.

28.

The dismissal occurred during preparations for suspending parliament, which Dominic Cummings had planned and which would limit the time in which MPs could block a no-deal Brexit.

29.

Former attorney general Dominic Cummings Grieve said that the cabinet secretary should hold an inquiry and that "it was wrong of the police to get involved".

30.

The hearing was scheduled for December 2020 at which Dominic Cummings was due to give evidence, but in November 2020 a "five-figure" financial settlement of the claim was agreed.

31.

Javid "voiced anger" to Johnson over the dismissal of Khan and Dominic Cummings faced the prospect of a probe by a governmental ethics watchdog following the dismissal.

32.

In March 2020, it was reported in The Sunday Times that during a private engagement the previous month, Dominic Cummings had said that the government's strategy towards COVID-19 was "herd immunity, protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad".

33.

On 27 March 2020 Dominic Cummings received a phone call at work from his wife to say that she was feeling ill.

34.

Dominic Cummings said he travelled to Durham that night to stay at a house on his parents' farmland, near to their house and that of his sister, 264 miles from his usual residence in London.

35.

Dominic Cummings stated that the lockdown regulations allowed journeys to facilitate child care as necessary journeys and he believed that this trip was therefore allowed.

36.

Dominic Cummings said he was too ill to go to the hospital but his wife went by ambulance and he collected them by car the next day, but did not get out of the car.

37.

Dominic Cummings continued that he drove the family to the town of Barnard Castle to assess whether he was well enough to drive, as his wife was concerned that the disease had affected his eyesight.

38.

Dominic Cummings said they then returned to London the next day.

39.

Dominic Cummings's statement was met with scepticism from the media and the public.

40.

Dominic Cummings said they were not there and were already in London and had not returned to Durham.

41.

Dominic Cummings denied these allegations, and Downing Street said it would not waste time answering such allegations from "campaigning newspapers".

42.

That same day, Dominic Cummings held a press conference to give his reasoning for his actions, stating: "There is no regulation covering the situation I found myself in".

43.

Dominic Cummings said that amongst these mistakes there were three apparent breaches of the advice or rules.

44.

In July 2021, The Guardian reported that Dominic Cummings had personally contacted Paul Stephenson, a former colleague from Vote Leave, to invite his company, Hanbury Strategy, to work for the government during its pandemic response.

45.

Dominic Cummings responded by saying that he had not threatened to resign over Cain's resignation, and pointed out that he had said in a January 2020 blog post that he planned to make himself "largely redundant" by the end of the year and that his position on that had not changed.

46.

Dominic Cummings was photographed leaving Number 10 with a storage box.

47.

On 26 May 2021 Dominic Cummings gave seven hours of testimony to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee and Science and Technology Committee on the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

48.

Dominic Cummings apologised for officials, including himself, falling "disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect", and said that the "government failed".

49.

Boris Johnson faced criticism, with Dominic Cummings saying that there were "thousands" of people better suited to run the country than him, and that he was not a "fit and proper person" to get the UK through the pandemic.

50.

Dominic Cummings said that he heard Johnson say he would rather see "bodies pile high" than take the country into a third lockdown, which Johnson denies.

51.

Dominic Cummings said that Johnson did not take advice and did not involve or ask the cabinet.

52.

On 20 July 2021 the BBC broadcast an hour-long programme of Dominic Cummings being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg.

53.

Dominic Cummings presented his perspective on events during his time at the Vote Leave campaign and during his appointment as Boris Johnson's chief aide, and commented disparagingly on the competency of government and Johnson in particular.

54.

On 7 January 2022 Dominic Cummings said that a drinks event took place in the garden of 10 Downing Street on 20 May 2020, when certain COVID-19 restrictions were still in place.

55.

Dominic Cummings rejected claims that a photo taken five days earlier, showing him with Johnson and his wife, along with several other people with wine glasses and bottles, showed evidence of an after-work party, and said it was common practice at the time for meetings to be held in the garden.

56.

Dominic Cummings has described his political views as "not Tory, libertarian, 'populist' or anything else".

57.

At an Ogilvy conference in 2017, Dominic Cummings stated his belief that the EU, rather than solving issues, was fuelling radicalism and extremism due to a perceived lack of control over issues such as economy and immigration:.

58.

Dominic Cummings has frequently criticised what he sees as a London-centred political system that failed to countenance the UK's voting to leave the European Union.

59.

Dominic Cummings criticised New Labour's attempt at re-balancing inherent structural deficiencies within the British economy following de-industrialisation with a system of tax credits.

60.

Dominic Cummings has said he has never been a member of a political party.

61.

Dominic Cummings came second in a list by LBC of the 'Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives of 2019'.

62.

Dominic Cummings has criticised former United States President Donald Trump for having "demonstrated no interest in actually controlling the government" and his inability to "execute at scale and speed", and has encouraged the Republican Party to nominate an alternative to Trump as their candidate for the 2024 US presidential election.

63.

Dominic Cummings has cited Curtis Yarvin, Andrew Sullivan and David Shor, amongst others, as "people I have found interesting" in US politics.

64.

In December 2011, Dominic Cummings married Mary Wakefield, the sister of his friend Jack Wakefield, former director of the Firtash Foundation.

65.

Dominic Cummings is the daughter of Sir Humphry Wakefield, 2nd Baronet, of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland.

66.

Dominic Cummings's mother is Katherine Wakefield, nee Baring, elder daughter of Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale.

67.

Dominic Cummings is reportedly an admirer of Otto von Bismarck, Richard Feynman, Sun Tzu, and US fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd.

68.

Dominic Cummings was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2019 Channel 4 drama Brexit: The Uncivil War.

69.

In September 2022, Dominic Cummings was portrayed by Simon Paisley Day in Michael Winterbottom's miniseries This England.

70.

In February 2023, Dominic Cummings was portrayed by Chris Porter in "DOM: The Play" at The Other Palace Theatre, London, and then again in April at Theatre Royal, Windsor.