Dominic Cummings

Dominic Cummings believes that’s what’s needed is strong ‘flexible, adaptive and empirical’ leadership and the mastery of technology in order to control uncertainty.

A recent spate of departures at the top level of the British civil service is more than a matter of personnel change. It’s the result of a worrying shift in thinking within the government.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that many of those in power believe themselves to be above the law. That jeopardises liberty in a far more profound way than being instructed to wear a face mask.

Dominic Cummings has remarkably conventional views about the shortcomings of the civil service. His challenge will be to make in-roads on those shortcomings where others have failed and to make himself an ally rather than an enemy of the civil service.