Dominic Cummings

Early life

Cummings was born in Durham on 25 November 1971. His father, Robert, now a farmer, had a varied career, primarily as an oil rig project manager for Laing, the construction firm. His mother, Morag, became a teacher and behavioural specialist after private schooling and university. Sir John Laws, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, was his maternal uncle.

After attending state primary school, he was privately educated at Durham School and later attended Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied under Norman Stone, graduating in 1994 with a First in Ancient and Modern History. One of his former tutors has described him to the New Statesman as "fizzing with ideas, unconvinced by any received set of views about anything". He was "something like a Robespierre – someone determined to bring down things that don’t work." Also in his youth, he worked at Klute, a nightclub owned by his uncle in Durham.

After graduating, Cummings moved to Russia and lived there until 1997. He shared a flat with the later Brexit-supporting economist Liam Halligan.

He 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".

Political career

From 1999 to 2002, Cummings was campaign director at Business for Sterling, the campaign against the UK joining the euro. He then became Director of Strategy for Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith for eight months in 2002, aiming to modernise the Conservative Party (of which he was not a member). He soon left in frustration at the introduction of what he saw as half-measures, labelling Duncan Smith "incompetent".

The New Frontiers Foundation, a free-market libertarian and Eurosceptic think tank which grew out of Business For Sterling, was founded by Cummings in December 2003, with James Frayne as its co-founder. 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". The Foundation published articles and papers which argued against the United Kingdom having 'ever-closer union' with the European Union at the cost of defence links with the United States. It also argued for the abolition of all trade tariffs, reform of the United Nations, research into hypersonic bombers, the creation of a research body to fund high-risk scientific projects, reform of the British civil service, and the abolition of the BBC as a public service broadcaster. The Foundation argued that the BBC was the "mortal enemy" of Conservatives, saying: "There are three structural things that the right needs to happen in terms of communications. 1) the undermining of the BBC's credibility; 2) the creation of a Fox News equivalent / talk radio shows / bloggers etc to shift the centre of gravity; 3) the end of the ban on TV political advertising". The Foundation closed in March 2005.

Cummings was a key figure in North East Says No (NESNO) the successful campaign against a North-East Regional Assembly in 2004. Populist tactics used in this referendum were later seen as a precursor to ones used by Cummings during the Brexit referendum; for example, Cummings argued against the Assembly on the basis of increased money for the NHS, and toured the region with a huge prop white elephant. After the campaign, Cummings moved to his father's farm in County Durham.

In 2006, while in a position of what Andrew Neil called "overall responsibility" for the website of The Spectator, Cummings republished a controversial cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban. This was the first time the cartoon had been published by any British news organisation and was removed after interventions from the publisher of The Spectator.

Special Adviser to Michael Gove (2007–2014)

Cummings worked for Conservative politician Michael Gove in various roles in opposition and government from 2007 to 2014. From February 2011 to January 2014, he was special adviser (spad) and Chief of Staff to Gove at the Department for Education (DfE). His appointment was initially blocked by Andy Coulson from 2010 until January 2011. Cummings was later appointed in February 2011 after Coulson's resignation. In this capacity, Cummings wrote a 237-page essay titled "Some thoughts on education and political priorities", about transforming Britain into a "meritocratic technopolis"; the essay was described by Guardian journalist Patrick Wintour as "either mad, bad or brilliant – and probably a bit of all three".

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. Cummings was also outspoken regarding other senior politicians, describing Nick Clegg's proposals on free school meals as "Dreamed up on the back of a cigarette packet", and David Davis as "thick as mince" and "lazy as a toad". Patrick Wintour described the Cummings–Gove working relationship: "Gove, polite to a fault, would often feign ignorance of his adviser's methods, but knew full well the dark arts that Cummings deployed to get his master's way". In 2014, Prime Minister David Cameron, at a Policy Exchange speech in 2014 mentioned a "career psychopath", which was interpreted by several media outlets as a reference to Cummings, although the two had never met.

In 2012, a senior female civil servant was awarded a payout of £25,000 in a bullying case against Cummings and a senior member of Michael Gove's team, when Cummings was a special adviser at the Department for Education.

During his time as an official working for Gove, Cummings received a warning from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for use of private Gmail accounts to deal with government business, saying it should be 'actively discouraged'. The ICO uncovered an email from Cummings in which he said: "i will not answer any further emails to my official DfE account or from conservatives.com – i will only answer things that come from Gmail accounts from people who I know who they are" [sic]. Cummings said that this referred to the Conservative Party conference, not government business.

Campaign to leave the European Union (2015–2019)

Cummings became campaign director of Vote Leave upon the creation of the organisation in October 2015. As the leading strategist of the campaign he was credited with creating the Vote Leave slogan, "Take back control" and the claim that Brexit could allow an extra £350 million a week to be spent on the NHS. His campaign strategy was summarised as: "Do talk about immigration"; "Do talk about business"; "Don’t make the referendum final"; "Do keep mentioning the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the over-reach of the European Union's Court of Justice". Board member of Vote Leave Bernard Jenkin tried to remove Cummings and merge Vote Leave with the other campaign, Leave.EU. Cummings and Vote Leave CEO Matthew Elliott left the board in February 2016 following reported infighting. The June 2016 referendum resulted in a 51.9% vote to leave the European Union. Cummings was praised alongside Elliott as being one of the masterminds of the campaign.

He advised Babylon Health on its communications strategy and senior recruitment up to September 2018. The Labour Party opposition spokesman Jon Ashworth said the links between Cummings, the health secretary and Babylon were "increasingly murky and highly irresponsible".

In March 2019, the Commons Select Committee of Privileges recommended the House issue an admonishment for contempt of Parliament after Cummings failed to appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into claims of false news creation during the referendum campaign. The resolution admonishing him was passed by resolution of the House of Commons on 2 April 2019.

In July 2017, the lawyer and political commentator David Allen Green asked Cummings via Twitter: "Is there anything which could now happen (or not happen) which would make you now wish Leave had not won the referendum result?" Cummings replied: "Lots! I said before REF was dumb idea, other things should have been tried 1st."

Chief Adviser to Boris Johnson (2019–2020)

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

On his appointment, The Guardian reported that at a conference in 2017 Cummings had argued that: "People think, and by the way I think most people are right: 'The Tory party is run by people who basically don't care about people like me'"; and that "Tory MPs largely do not care about these poorer people. They don't care about the NHS. And the public has kind of cottoned on to that".

The Daily Telegraph reported on Cummings's past rivalry with Nigel Farage from the 2016 referendum campaign, and quoted Farage as saying that: "He has never liked me. He can't stand the ERG. I can't see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit".

Cummings was accused by Layla Moran of hypocrisy when, not long after his appointment, it was reported that a farm that he co-owns had received €250,000 (£235,000) in EU farming subsidies. Cummings had previously described such subsidies as "absurd", complaining that some of them were handed out to "very rich landowners to do stupid things".

In November 2019, a whistleblower raised questions about Cummings's interactions during his years in Russia; The Sunday Times reported that Whitehall was keeping certain government business from Cummings.

As is customary, Cummings temporarily resigned his role when Parliament dissolved for the 2019 general election, along with most special advisers, but was briefly reinstated to assist the government following widespread flooding.

According to Politico, Cummings played a role in the Conservative Party's victory in the election, after having passed the party's running of the election campaign to Isaac Levido. After the election, Cummings called for people interested in working in government to contact him through a private Gmail address. In a blog post, he said he wanted to recruit data scientists, software developers and economists to help improve the performance of government, making his own role "within a year largely redundant". The recruitment drive was reported to have resulted in several appointments on short-term contracts, including Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, Professor Vernon Gibson and, briefly, Andrew Sabisky. Sabisky resigned in February 2020 following complaints about his previously expressed views on race, intelligence and eugenics. Will O'Shea, a data specialist appointed through Cummings's scheme, was dismissed in July 2020 after calling for police to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters with live ammunition.

Reflection on the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic

On 26 May 2021 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 in the United Kingdom. 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". Criticising government leadership, Cummings said that Health Secretary Matt Hancock should have been fired for lying, and that frontline workers and civil servants were "lions led by donkeys". Boris Johnson faced criticism, with Cummings saying that there were "thousands" of people better suited to run the country than he, and that he was not a "fit and proper person" to get the UK through the pandemic.

On the calling of lockdowns, Cummings said that Johnson had disagreed with the first national lockdown, and was against the "circuit breaker" lockdown in autumn 2020 for economic reasons. 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. Cummings also said that Johnson did not take advice and did not involve or ask the cabinet.

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

New political party

In May 2024, Cummings was reportedly preparing for a new political party that might replace the Conservative Party if the latter were to fall apart after the 2024 general election. However, in December 2024 Cummings met Farage to discuss the way Britain is governed. In 2025 he dropped calls for the creation of a start-up party to replace the Tories and in a blog post in March talked up Reform UK.

Political views

Cummings has described his political views as "not Tory (Conservative), libertarian, 'populist' or anything else". In January 2016, five months prior to the 2016 European Union referendum in the United Kingdom, Cummings said:

Extremists are on the rise in Europe and are being fuelled unfortunately by the Euro project and by the centralisation of power in Brussels. It is increasingly important that Britain offers an example of civilised, democratic, liberal self-government.

At an Ogilvy conference in 2017, 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:

For me ... the worst-case scenario for Europe is a return to 1930s-style protectionism and extremism. And to me the EU project, the Eurozone project, are driving the growth of extremism. The single most important reason, really, for why I wanted to get out of the EU is I think that it will drain the poison of a lot of political debates ... UKIP and Nigel Farage would be finished. Once there's democratic control of immigration policy, immigration will go back to being a second- or third-order issue.

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. He has expressed his dismay that many voters' concerns, particularly in Northern England and the Midlands, have been ignored by both the Conservatives and Labour and 'taken for granted'. He criticised New Labour's attempt at re-balancing inherent structural deficiencies within the British economy following de-industrialisation with a system of tax credits.

Cummings has said he has never been a member of a political party. He came second in a list by LBC of the "Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives of 2019". Although frequently portrayed as on the right of the political spectrum, he has expressed dismay for the European Research Group led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, describing the group as "useful idiots" for the argument to remain in the EU and that they "should be treated like a metastasising tumour and excised from the UK body politic." He sought to isolate Nigel Farage from the official Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, believing his presence to not be helpful in winning over undecided voters.

Personal life

In December 2011, Cummings married Mary Wakefield, the sister of his friend Jack Wakefield, former director of the Firtash Foundation. Mary Wakefield has worked at the weekly magazine The Spectator for decades, since Boris Johnson was editor, and is now commissioning editor. She is the daughter of Sir Humphry Wakefield, 2nd Baronet, of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. Her mother is Katherine Wakefield, née Baring, elder daughter of Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale.

In 2016, they had a son, (Alexander) Cedd (named after an Anglo-Saxon saint).

Cummings is reportedly fascinated by Otto von Bismarck, Richard Feynman, Sun Tzu, and US fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. Journalist Owen Bennett wrote that Cummings "is a Russophile, speaks Russian, and is passionately interested in Dostoyevsky", while Patrick Wintour in The Guardian reported that "Anna Karenina, maths and Bismarck are his three obsessions."

In popular culture

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

In the 2020 revival of Spitting Image, Cummings's puppet was portrayed "as a creepy alien with a pulsating head who drools at the prospect of eating Johnson's baby". He was voiced by Daniel Barker.

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

In February 2023, 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 and at the Assembly Rooms at the Edinburgh Fringe 2023.