Mooted return of Dominic Cummings shows Rishi Sunak is running out of ideas: Jayne Dowle

According to the Sunday Times, Mr Cummings and Mr Sunak held talks in Richmond, the prime minister’s North Yorkshire constituency, in July last year. Mr Cummings had previously had a meeting in London in December 2022 with Mr Sunak and Liam Booth-Smith, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the report added.

Number 10 insists that any get-together was just “a broad discussion about politics and campaigning, no job was offered”. However, rumours swirl that Rishi Sunak has offered Mr Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief aide and the architect of the Brexit ‘Leave’ campaign, a controversial secret deal to help him win the election.

One un-named MP is insisting that Mr Cummings should have “no place in political life”, especially with memories of his recent appearance at the Covid enquiry so fresh with foul language and fulmination.

Whatever is going on, there is never any smoke in Downing Street without fire. Even a watered-down version of bringing back Mr Cummings - who famously bent the government’s own lockdown rules with his two-hour drive to Specsavers in Barnard Castle, County Durham, to “test his eyesight” at the height of pandemic restrictions - seems a potentially calamitous move for a man who vowed to conduct British politics with decency and integrity after years of chaos and calumny.

No wonder backbench MPs are furious. How does their leader think that hooking up with such a schismatic and unaccountable figure might play out on the campaign trail? To embrace Mr Cummings would be a huge gamble of the part of Mr Sunak, who perhaps hopes that the arch supporter of Brexit might touch a chord with British voters who would still vote Leave.

This could, to be fair, and some serious crossing of Prime Ministerial fingers, chime also with one of the “five priorities” devised at Chequers in December by Tory election director Isaac Levido, against which Mr Sunak vowed to be judged – stopping the boats. Along with cutting inflation, debt and NHS waiting lists, and boosting economic growth, dealing with illegal immigration, a key tenet of the Brexit Leave campaign, is still a serious political issue.

Would the public be convinced however, that Mr Cummings is the man to advise the Conservative leader on such a controversial matter, given his subsequent record during the pandemic?

And then there’s the inescapable fact that although the relationship famously ended in acrimony, he was also chief advisor to Boris Johnson, whose government will always be held responsible for thousands of Covid-related deaths. The pressure put on NHS services is still ringing in the New Year four years after the pandemic took hold.

However, to focus on the figure of Mr Cummings himself is actually to miss the point. Whatever role he ends up playing - or not - in the Conservative Party’s General Election campaign, the fact that his advice is considered even necessary points to a serious hole at the heart of Mr Sunak’s political machine.

Are there really no elected MPs who might, given their hands-on, grassroots relationships with their constituents, be better-placed to offer the Conservative leader insight into what ordinary people really care about?

Clearly, there are – 350 of them on the blue side at the last count. Alienating his own MPs is suicidal at this juncture, and suggests a serious lack of communication between the Number 10 and the House of Commons.

In addition, is it right and democratic that the Prime Minister can be allowed to make – or potentially make – such close appointments with such seeming disregard for proper political process? Or is the case that after years of shambolic administrations, there are no longer any rules at the heart of government?

As a nation, we have already had no say whatsoever about the re-emergence of former Prime Minister David Cameron. Let’s not forget, he scarpered from Number 10 when Brexit didn’t go his way and set the ball rolling for Boris Johnson and all that came after that. What kind of judgement is the famously-cautious Mr Sunak exercising here?

If he really is so worried about the forthcoming General Election, why does he not see that re-appointing or even informally consulting shamed former political insiders is hardly the way to bring respect from voters?

Apologies for the all the questions, but there are so many things about Mr Sunak’s start to this momentous political year that require answers. We may not receive these, or trust them when they come, but if we are to hold our political leaders to account, we must continue to ask.