'No faith in our leaders': lockdown diaries reveal anger over Cummings

The Westminster village often gets over-excited about news that, frankly, passes the ordinary voter by. What happens there can seem to have little relevance to people’s lives. But, according to BritainThinks’ coronavirus diaries, the Dominic Cummings story unearthed by the Guardian/Mirror investigation is different.

Our diarists, 50 people from all walks of life, are keeping weekly accounts of their lives in lockdown. They were clear that this news from Westminster matters. Entries from last weekend were dominated by Cummings, the chief adviser to Boris Johnson, and his trip to Durham.

The mood is febrile. We’ve been asking people to sum up their feelings in a word or two. Back at the start, nine weeks ago, the diarists were “worried”. They then grew “bored” and “frustrated” as lockdown wore on.

As the government message, at first so unifying, became bewilderingly unclear, many declared themselves “confused”.

Now they are quite simply angry. This anger has been bubbling under the surface for a while. At a difficult time, many have judged and been judged by neighbours and friends as they have grappled with “doing the right thing”.

Everyone has a tale to tell about someone getting it wrong. It hits home hard because everyone also has a tale to tell of self-sacrifice, of hardship, even heartbreak. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. Many feel their lives are out of control.

Cummings and, indirectly, Johnson have become lightning rods for those feelings, fuelling indignation about people who don’t or won’t play by the rules.

In polling last week, 71% of respondents agreed “there is one rule for them [the government] and another rule for everyone else”. This fury about being played by an elite when at your most powerless and vulnerable is, ironically, felt most strongly by the very people to whom Cummings’ brilliant “take back control” Brexit message had appealed most.

The implications for the government’s reputation have the potential to be far-reaching. Here’s a flavour of the diaries:

“Dominic Cummings’ actions make a mockery of all those people, most of them much less privileged than he is, who have suffered during isolation.”

“Oh, the hypocrisy of politicians. They make the rules, then undermine them and make them useless.”

“It’s one rule for the nation but Cummings can do what he wants.”

“I now have no faith in our leaders. They are playing games with politics, playing with us.”

“Joe Public would never get the backing from on high that Dominic Cummings has had. Joe Public would be fined.”

“It makes me so angry … surely the government’s top adviser can arrange his own food and childcare in London without travelling from the country’s main virus hotspot to another region.”

“I’m so upset at Cummings blatantly breaking the lock down rules – and at the senior Conservatives lining up to defend him.”

“BoJo – what is he doing standing by DC and his Tour of Britain, while the rest of us stayed home?”

“I think at the beginning they seemed quite impressive and I had a lot of faith in them. I thought they were different. But now they’ve made a huge amount of errors. Just like the others.”

Deborah Mattinson is founder director of the research and strategy consultancy BritainThinks