The day Dominic Cummings broke a nation’s trust by going for a drive

I’ve always found it easier to love than to trust. You can mend a broken heart, but broken trust is more difficult to fix. Trust is the pixie dust that is sprinkled over the workings of public life. It’s what binds the Government to the governed, them to us. Without it, we’re no better than Russia.

Which brings me to the moment when my world wobbled this year. May 25.

Barnard Castle. You only have to mention those two words to bring out expressions ranging from titters of disdain to lips curled in anger. Although I’ve never met Dominic Cummings I can admire his abilities. But he screwed up on a monumental scale when he took a 250-mile trip to Durham during lockdown, then went for a long drive to test his eyesight.

Strange bloody eye test, taking a lethal weapon on to the public highway not knowing whether you can see properly. Russian roulette in a Range Rover.

He was sick and worried about who would look after his child, and many would have excused this extraordinary stuff-up if he’d shown some contrition. But that isn’t the Cummings style. He demanded we understand, and appeared not to much care if we didn’t. And he made the worst mistake of any courtier by dragging his king into the mud with him. He should have resigned, but wouldn’t. He should have been fired, but wasn’t. Boris ducked it, at least then, and left too much of his own credibility along with Mr Cummings in the car park of Barnard Castle.

And when Cummings appeared at a press conference in the rose garden of No 10, it raised more questions than it answered, not just about him but about Boris, too. I’m still angry about it. Why? Because there’s so much at stake – not just the fight against Covid but what comes after. Until that day in May most believed that the Government was doing everything it could to fight this plague; we understood that the personal strain on some ministers and officials was appalling. However, the unforgiving mirror of hindsight will also show a Government trashing our liberties, ripping up the Magna Carta, locking up the innocent, abolishing our right to family life, and often doing so without proper debate or scrutiny. Now, all of this might be necessary, in the very short term, but there are huge perils to it, perhaps even greater than Covid itself. Look around the world. Freedoms lost are so difficult to regain. And there are plenty of unfriendly forces wanting to take advantage of us.

So the Government desperately needs to keep the spirit of common cause alive in Britain. Yet Ministers this year have accused ordinary people of being irresponsible for simply wanting to go home to their families – it’s a rotten script, it should be torn up. We have all been conscripted as soldiers in this war, and we don’t need our political generals lecturing us as if we are idiots, even if some of us are.

The game of politics is rarely fair. All political careers have their cock-ups. When I was asked to become the Conservative Party’s chief of staff I asked Norman Tebbit what an earth the job meant. “Well, lad,” he said, “there comes a time in every war when those in charge of it require that somebody be taken out into the courtyard, put up against the wall, and shot. Your job is to find that body, until the time comes when you will be that body.” He predicted my chaotic future with uncanny accuracy.

Which brings me back to May 25. Political office is a privilege, never a right. That applies especially to those who aren’t elected. You serve others, not yourself. Yet for years we’ve had a growing problem with authority. The bankers who became too big and too fat to fail. The churches too busy preaching to hear the cries of their sexual victims. The universities who seem more intent on indoctrination than education. The overpaid newsreaders and celebrities who scream about the hypocrisy of politicians but carry on as if rules are meant only for others.

As Dominic Cummings himself said, “the British people hate the idea of unfairness… I think that people like me who helped to make the rules should be accountable for their actions”. But he wasn’t held accountable. And this is when trust in our leaders began to wane; the feeling of common purpose started to fade.

Boris walked into Downing Street last December promising to give people back control of their lives – not just from Brussels but also from these overbearing officials who think the secret of life lies in the small print of some footnote buried on Page 167. In his New Year’s message a year ago he punched the air and made the bold claim that he would “bring an end to division” and be “the Prime Minister for everyone”. At the end of 2020, with Brexit finally happening, Boris has a chance to find some new mood music. Sing the cause of common sense rather than conscription; start to restore the liberties that have been hacked off the trees and show that we are, indeed, all in this together. Because if we don’t feel we are, then it’s every man and woman for themselves. Suddenly our democracy descends into one unholy scramble for the nearest loo roll.

After a year of living in a cloud of confusion. It’s time for Boris to gather up that pixie dust and start sprinkling it again. Winston Churchill once said he wanted “scientists on tap, not scientists on top”. Wise words. We don’t want politicians and civil servants on top, either, paying themselves more when millions aren’t getting paid at all. They need to show they’re alongside the rest of us as we battle forth together.

So as we go into 2021 it’s time to reset, rethink and recover. When it comes to Covid, ditch those ridiculous charts hauled out at press conferences that are meant to scare us into submission; hide the mournful faces of the scientists. It’s time to move the debate on to a better future. We have a vaccine! Developed in record time. Many said it couldn’t be done but it has been, even if it will take many months to pour it into every arm in the country. We’re going to beat this.

Britain is going to win thanks to our extraordinary enterprise and innovation, coupled with co-operation from around the world. Instead of spreading gloom and the fear of death, let’s celebrate survival. Let’s make sure that those who have died from this wretched disease didn’t give their lives for nothing.

For this new dawn, the symbolism of Barnard Castle needs turning on its head. When he is allowed, Boris might want to take a little walk through the car park there. He could leave a note. “We made mistakes. We learned from them. We moved forward.”

Read more from A Day to Remember in a Year Like No Other

Robin Shattock: The day I found myself in a global race to find a cure for coronavirus

Andrew Lloyd Webber: The day the lights went out on my beloved West End

David Goodhart: The day Covid shook my faith in television news

Ed Lucas: The day the Czech Republic called China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ bluff

For more great essays on the year that was 2020, click here