“I’m telling you – this is absolute genius,” declares top political spin doctor Hugh Primm of former Tory advisor Dominic Cummings’ recent testimony to a Commons Select Committee on the current government’s failings during the Coronavirus crisis. “Believe me, Boris Johnson is going to be over the moon with this – it is far more than he could have expected! Dom has really come through for him again!” His words caused confusion amongst the ranks of political commentators lined up to analyse Cummings’ testimony. “This is a disaster for the government – Cummings has laid bare their complete lack of preparation, compassion and competence during the pandemic,” opines Jim Diddle. Parliamentary Correspondent for the Daily Norks. “It is such a savage indictment of the Prime Minister – describing him as ‘unfit for office’ – that Johnson could be forced to resign! I’d hardly describe that as ‘coming through’ for him!” Primm, however, contends that the press are failing to see the bigger picture and completely misunderstanding public perceptions of the players involved in the unfolding drama. “Look – with stuff getting back to normal, Boris knows that he is going to come under greater scrutiny for his handling of the pandemic and much of the goodwill which sustains him in office will dissipate. So he’s pre-empting any enquiries by discrediting criticisms in advance by having them presented by Dominic Cummings, a man universally despised by the public, knowing that they will be disinclined to believe him and instead be more sympathetic toward what they perceive as a wronged Boris,” he explains. “Clearly, he’s a fucking genius! Dom is cast as the disgruntled ex-employee motivated by bitterness to try and cast aspersions over an honourable man! Absolutely brilliant in terms of political spin!”

Primm points to the way in which the right-wing press are covering the claims, characterising Cummings as being motivated purely by revenge, as proof that his theory is correct and that Cummings’ and Johnson’s plan to insulate the Prime Minister from criticism and culpability over the handling of Covid. While some political commentators agree with Primm that Cummings’ testimony might not be as damaging for Johnson as the Prime Minister’s opponent might hope, they disagree that Cummings’ claims are part of a brilliant PR plan. “The fact is that Cummings’ testimony is always weakened by the fact that he wasn’t just some innocent bystander in the crisis – he was at the centre of it,” points out Gerald Hopplewell, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Hammersmith School of Interpretive Dance. “He was the Prime Minister’s senior policy adviser – if, as he claims, Boris Johnson is ‘unfit for office’, then isn’t he also responsible for this by failing to provide the best policy advice? It is all too easy to see Cummings as a hypocrite, criticising others for making decisions he himself was involved in.” Nonetheless, despite the potential for damage inherent in Cummings’ claims, Hopplewell suspects that Johnson will emerge from the controversy relatively unscathed. “Although for many of us the spectacle of Cummings versus Johnson might seem like Chelsea versus Arsenal, in that we wish they could both lose, Johnson is more like Liverpool,” he muses. “No matter how shittily they play, how deluded their ambitions seem or entitled their fans are, they always seem to come up smelling of roses – even when they are toiling in mid-table mediocrity, the media still drool over them and offer up constant excuses.”

All of which begs the question: just what will it take to discredit Boris Johnson? “The fact is that the political landscape has changed and with it public expectations of what constitutes acceptable conduct in public office,” Hopplewell claims. “Back in the eighties, if you recall, one of Mrs Thatcher’s most valued cronies, Cecil Parkinson, was forced to resign when it became known that he had gotten his secretary pregnant. Would that happen today? Probably not. I mean, just look at the moral degenerate currently in residence at Number Ten, who can’t even tell you how many children he has by various women.” The Thatcher government, he notes, had been elected, in part, upon a moral agenda, emphasising good old ‘Victorian Values’, (although one might argue that wealthy authority figures knocking up the help was the very epitome of ‘Victorian Values’). “This, after all, was the era of moral panics over ‘Video Nasties’ corrupting our children, ‘Satanic’ child abuse rings and school children being insidiously indoctrinated with homosexuality by their teachers,” says the academic. “So Parkinson who, ironically, had been one of the architects of this particular strategy, really had no choice but to go. Particularly as much of the print press (which was still where most people got their news) were squarely behind Thatcher’s moral crusade.”

Since the fall of Thatcher, he notes, public opinion on issues of personal morality have changed, the role of the church as a moral arbiter declined further, attitudes toward homosexuality relaxed, the whole concept of marriage as an ideal form of relationship waned. “Political parties have based their campaigns less and less upon moral issues – even when they did touch on morals, it had far more to do with the ‘morality’ of claiming benefits and a resurrection of the idea of the ‘undeserving poor’, rather than personal conduct,” Hopplewell says. “On top of all that, the print media made an even more decisive lurch to the right, but not the right of ‘conservative values’, but rather the right of libertarianism, where personal freedom trumped traditional concepts of morality and sexual conduct.” Consequently, what might have been seen previously as ‘scandalous’ behaviour, be it sexual misconduct, financial irregularity or even bullying, has become accepted as the ‘norm’ and will no longer be enough, on its own, to bar someone from public office.

“All of which means that certain politicians now seem ‘scandal proof’, with nothing they do being enough to outrage a clear majority of voters,” he argues. “To be honest, I really don’t know what might be enough to irreparably damage Johnson now – clearly being a fornicator, a marriage cheat, having dodgy financial arrangements or even being responsible for tens of thousands of avoidable deaths through his incompetence isn’t enough to discredit him. Perhaps if it was revealed that he was a cannibal – luring young children into Number Ten in order to bake them in pies, it might cost him votes. But I’m pretty sure that even then the media would find a way to spin it in his favour and the public would just shrug and say ‘Oh, it’s only Boris – he’s such a character, isn’t he?’.”