Cummings on Brexit Doubts, Boris Coup and a New Political Party (Maybe)

Guido presents the highlights from Dom’s primetime BBC 2 interview with Laura Kuenssberg last night. The overwhelming consensus from the punditry is he came across as a smug narcissist:

• Tom Newton-Dunn: “Cummings’ narcissism craft-fully exposed. Suspect he will deeply regret doing it.”
• Harry Cole: “Feels like Pizza Express Woking levels of “was this a good idea, guys”?”
• Julia Hartley-Brewer: “Dominic Cummings thinks he’s done an explosive interview that will rock the Establishment à la Princess Diana with Martin Bashir, when actually it’s closer to Prince Andrew on Newsnight… He’ll regret this in the morning.”
• Jonathan Reilley: “Dominic Cummings spends best part of ten minutes explaining how he has undue influence over the PM. Then spends ten minutes complaining that Carrie Johnson has undue influence over the PM.”
• Chris Hope: “Dominic Cummings will surely regret this interview.”
• Tim Montgomerie: “Dom Cummings has an ego even bigger than his blogposts.”
• David Quantic: “Dominic Cummings is like a bass player who thinks people will prefer his solo records to the singer’s.”

Then again, we know what Dom thinks of political commentators’ opinions…

Interview highlight timestamp guide:

00:00 – On Boris

00:12 – On his reputation

00:19 – On saving the queen

00:43 – On Boris’s “real boss”

00:58 – On delaying lockdown

01:24 – On Brexit

01:41 – On ‘£350 million a week’

01:54 – On the 2016 leadership election

02:43 – On tactics like prorogation

03:10 – On MPs like the ERG

03:15 – On Carrie

03:31 – On forcing Boris out

04:22 – On the potential of a new party

04:53 – On the last time he spoke with Boris

* This article was originally published by Guido Fawkes

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