[davidjay]

Johnson does appear to be taking Napoleon's maxim about lucky generals to heart, while forgetting that Napoleon also liked it if they were good at their jobs.

Why should that worry him? He certainly isn't good at his.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Old Dom's still playing Jack Regan "what do you mean rules?" line on Twitter.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More savvy wisdom from Dom the other day. He doesn't mention who these journos are, funnily enough, but people BTL have run with "What about Laura K, eh?" Laura K wasn't at all silent on Hancock.

Coming next week from Dom- a tweet that just says "cui bono, eh?"

[kreuzberger]

Laura K wasn't at all silent on Hancock.

I beg to differ. They shat the bed on Friday morning, merely alluding to "unsubstantiated allegations" in the S*n, the poster boys of their newspaper review. There was zero attempt to follow up on the story or its implications.

The Maid of Milngavie was nowhere to be seen.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She does that with Tories generally. Doesn't mean she was batting for Hancock, who's had a couple of favourable leaks v Johnson and Sunak.

[kreuzberger]

I am not suggesting individual allegiances, more a closing of the ranks. Nothing to see here, knowing full well that Murdoch wouldn't have run the story without bomb-proof legal backing.

[AOB]

I thought the main asset of Cummings was his ability to read the public. Why does he think anything he says will affect Johnson or the rest of them? Most people would stare at you blankly if you asked them if they remembered Boris proroguing Parliament and lying to the Queen just 20 months ago. Nothing Cummings has said thus far is a surprise anyway. A futile attempt at minimising. We already know Boris and the rest are cunts. You're a cunt too,
do you not see this Dommy? Nothing you say will change that. Minimising makes your own standing worse. You'd know that if you were half as intelligent as you're inexplicably made out to be by some.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep. There was an audience for sticking it to Johnson and Hancock but not so much for the "put Raab, Gove and Sunak" in charge. And even fewer for "Dom does David Brent doing game theory".

I think it's unsurprising that he hasn't yet toppled the government.

[Crabcakes]

Cummings’ main - if not only - asset isn’t being some sort of genius, or knowing the public better than they do, or being able to understand a book on political tactics by reading the dust jacket. It’s that he’s willing to lie, cheat and ignore the rules. Works fine when the rules you bend are “enforced” by a toothless regulator, and you’re backed by secret millions, and then latterly your boss is the PM and tells everyone to cover your lies. Works a lot less well when your lies are laughable to all as opposed to playing to the prejudices of many, or you think you’re tech savvy enough to edit your own blog’s timeline undetected, or even more latterly when you now have no power or influence because your former boss doesn’t need you to become the boss anymore but his wife doesn’t like you and he’d rather keep her happy than you.

[Youngian]

Won’t be the end of the world if Cummings’s black arts don’t shift the dial on Johnson’s polling. We might see the back of Dom for a period.

[davidjay]

Won’t be the end of the world if Cummings’s black arts don’t shift the dial on Johnson’s polling. We might see the back of Dom for a period.

This is him gone for good. He'll be back working in Moscow before long.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'll take that deal. Dom breaks "Boris" puts a true believer in charge, and that'll be worse.

[AOB]

I bought into the notion that Cummings could read public mood. It's clearly not true.

If he hadn't been such a cunt previously then his words may have carried weight.

We had him pegged on here years ago.

He had a thread to himself. We were ahead of the game. An unpleasant man talking about his unpleasant former colleagues. That's all that's left.

[Andy McDandy]

You know the sort of journalist who by blind luck breaks a massive story, then dines out on it for the rest of their life? Or indeed any profession, where an unlikely hit promotes someone beyond their talents? Like Liz Hurley for example.

That's Cummings.

[Bones McCoy]

Won’t be the end of the world if Cummings’s black arts don’t shift the dial on Johnson’s polling. We might see the back of Dom for a period.

This is him gone for good. He'll be back working in Moscow before long.

Unlikely: Moscow knows the price of failure.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More from Barnard Castle's answer to David Brent.

[Youngian]

Cummings’s criticisms of Brussels are plain weird. Don’t think the EU figured highly in his world view before he was forced to slot Brexit into his thinking.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good point well made here.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Tubby Isaacs]