Dear Press, Don't Let Politicians Get Away with It.
We’ve all seen the situation with Dominic Cummings - is it right for the press to focus on one person? Should politicians be held under scrutiny or does focusing on one person distract from bigger issues?
For a man whose job is essentially political PR, Dominic Cummings did not do a great job when a team of journalists lambasted him for his contra-quarantine trip to Durham on the 25th of May.
Back then it was said that one man alone would be the reason why Britain would face a ‘second wave’ of coronavirus. According to public figures like Piers Morgan, Dominic Cummings had single handily undermined the efforts of an entire nation in the fight against COVID-19. I sighed and with some hesitation, I was inclined to agree.
Now, I’m not one for reality TV but there I was, mug in hand, perched on my favourite section of the sofa (the corner, obviously) and I was ready; ready for Mr Cummings confession in the midst of what had turned out to be the biggest scandal since the pandemic started. As a politics graduate, this is as close as I’m going to get to a ‘The Thick of It’ reboot - though the tone’s a little more serious.
As a man who notoriously enjoys both his privacy and controlling narratives, he had clearly felt he had to come forward (not least because his public image continued to get slated in the media which obviously looks bad for the government) but also to ‘set the record straight’. However, whilst Cummings should have recovered his eyesight by then, he was unfortunately unable to see why he needed to apologise for his actions to the public. His confession only led to more questions and soon his story extended beyond the newsroom and became the subject of my bi-weekly zoom quiz.
In the days and weeks that followed his half-sighted trip to Barnard Castle, Cummings faced an onslaught of reporters who also (ironically) seemed to ignore the 2m rule when harassing him at all hours of the day. His neighbours felt no hesitation in sharing their opinions of him and two weeks after ‘the incident’ protesters staged a ‘die-in’ outside his door. To top it all off, police reported that lockdown rule breakers were using Cummings as an excuse for their own misguided actions.
The sensationalisation of his story was inescapable and yet I asked myself, had one man really been able to cause so much damage?
The truth of the matter is that Cummings operates in an entirely different world to, say, that of someone like a celebrity figure and his actions have a much more tangible impact and influence on the average Britons day to day lives. Unlike the abhorrent hounding of public figures such as Caroline Flack (in the extremity), Meghan Markle, or even to poor old Ed Miliband that ONE TIME he ate a bacon sandwich, this was more than just a case of bad PR.
I cannot condone harassment, but public scrutiny is a different matter entirely and one which is vital to the health of British politics and society. To be completely frank, it felt like poetic justice that a man whose career is built on misinformation and sound bites should finally be subject to the social carnage he historically produced and outright benefited from.
Whilst a lot of our guidelines have relaxed since then, I think for many, his lack of apology could have been genuinely traumatic for those who were (and still are) abiding strictly by the mantra of ‘stay at home’ at all costs, even when it means a deteriorating mental health or missing a funeral. More generally for the public, there was a real sense of betrayal as someone so senior lacked the empathy to apologise and ‘get away with it’ and perhaps last of all, a feeling of resentment.
The resentment that as the public came to the realisation that ‘the elites’ really do live in a separate reality to those who cannot escape their social circumstances. Whilst resorting to populist language feels a bit cheap in this case, the use of the term couldn’t be clearer. As Maitlis pointed out earlier in the pandemic, Coronavirus is not the “great leveller”. Cummings’ actions are a case study for how privilege will protect you and you won’t have to suffer any real consequences for your actions, according to our Prime Minister.
With so much focus being spent on extrapolating the details of his trip, other issues at the time risked losing the attention they needed, such as the release of the Public Health report. It confirmed that BAME communities are disproportionately hit the worst by this pandemic. Cummings-gate felt like a case in point about the realities of living in a high-rise block versus those with privilege being able to depart to a spare farm. To those who ‘have’ as opposed to ‘have not’, this may sound petty, but to think so is to disregard the real life or death impact that clearly correlate to differences in class, race and income.
Johnson’s support for Cummings left a bad taste in the mouths of many, but I wasn’t surprised when I heard it. As he floundered in his attempts to support Cummings to the press, the public and then the MP liaison committee (who grilled him to bits), to me it simply reflected yet another cover up. Another slip up in this governments continuously mismatched approach to dealing with the coronavirus.
Ultimately, staying on Cummings’ heels does not distract from the bigger picture of what’s happening in Britain in relation to coronavirus, it magnifies it.
As ‘they say’, 24 hours is a long time in politics, and this is why we need to hold individuals accountable to their actions. Because the likelihood is that, whilst they’ll be sweating for a week or two in the public eye, they’ll probably still be back to work the next day and then stay there until the next election or referendum (heaven help us).
For example, when was the last time you heard about Theresa May or even David Cameron or Nick Clegg in the press?
The answer is never. Literally never.
In the Commons, May is usually seen enjoying the view from the backbench languishingly enjoying what has to be the golden years of her political career, knowing full well she never has to look back at the still smoking car wreck she left behind. In fairness, the same can be said for many of our previous leaders.
So yes, Cummings deserved and deserves all the media attention his story generated, because today it’s Cummings but tomorrow it is just as easily someone else. Whilst hell hath no fury like the British press, they also unfortunately suffer from short term memory loss.
Especially in the case of Cummings, accountability is crucial because as special advisor and not a minister, he benefits from hiding from public scrutiny even though he’s well known to be the PM’s right-hand man. It’s political democracy 101 – power should not go unchecked and individuals with influence should be held to account. If the press have to be the ones who provide it, and he may have to run a little faster from the cameras, I think it’s a trade-off we should all be willing to accept.
Written by Clara Martinelli
Hi, I’m Clara. I’m an International Relations and Politics graduate currently doing volunteer work in London and looking to make my corner of the world a better place one step at a time. When I’m taking a break from being existential you can find me on the sofa watching police dramas and eating stupid amounts of pasta.