Dominic cummings

The Vote Leave campaign have found their first issue to fight the Stronger In campaign with: funding from Brussels. Brexit campaigners argue those working to keep Britain ‘In’ are embarrassed by the European Union — pointing out that the Stronger In campaign frequently refers to our relationship with Europe, not the EU. They intend to maximise this fault line by trying to link the campaign straight to the EU Commission. As Guido reported last week, there is a link between Stronger In’s predecessor organisation (Interim Campaign Limited) in that Laura Sandys, the former Conservative MP for South Thanet, was named on official Companies House documents of the organisation and is now chair of the European Movement, which has received

The two major EU referendum campaigns have gone public over the last week: ‘Vote Leave, Take Control’ and ‘Britain Stronger In Europe’. Both camps have formidable campaigners at the helm: Dominic Cummings for Vote Leave and Will Straw for Stronger In. They both passionately believe in their causes and are prepared to do whatever it takes to win. Cummings is renowned for his tenure as Michael Gove’s special adviser, where he successfully took on the education ‘blob’, the Whitehall machine and some in his own party. Straw founded the Left Foot Forward blog, before working at the IPPR think tank. He also stood as the Labour candidate in Rossendale and Darwen at the last general election. Many are wondering what

Nigel Farage appears to have u-turned about backing one Brexit campaign. At the party’s recent conference in Doncaster, the Ukip leader said he would be standing ‘hand in hand’ with Arron Banks and his Leave.EU group. But on the Sunday Politics yesterday, he gave equal weighting to Vote Leave, the other Brexit effort which launched on Thursday evening out of the Business for Britain campaign group: ‘I support both of them. I listened to what Vote Leave had to say last week. They’re a Westminster based group, making business arguments. Arguing, as I’ve done in this interview, for us to be free to make our own trade deals. That is of value.

Eurosceptic Tories have a new voice to herald their cause: Nigel Lawson. The former Chancellor and Spectator editor announced in an op-ed he is becoming the president of Conservatives for Britain, a group working with the Matthew Elliott-Dominic Cummings Out campaign. Lawson explains his explains his red lines for Britain remaining in the EU and suggests the government is unlikely to achieve them: ‘I am not party to the negotiations between ministers and the EU but it is clear that now is the time for David Cameron and George Osborne to set out some red lines. My priorities would be fourfold: the end of the automatic supremacy of EU law over UK law; the ability for

Nigel Farage claimed at Ukip’s conference yesterday that all Eurosceptic groups were being brought together under the Leave.EU umbrella organisation, headed up by Ukip donor Arron Banks. However, the other Leave campaign, run by Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, was notably absent and its representatives did not appear at the conference yesterday. Elliott’s Business for Britain group, which aims to give a voice to Eurosceptic businesses, was also not mentioned as part of the umbrella group. When I asked Farage about this, he said ‘they don’t want to leave, they want to wait and see what the Prime Minister has come back with’. Banks also told Coffee House he had approached the

The new wording of the EU referendum question seems to have helped the Brexit cause. Since the Yes/No question changed to Remain/Leave, support for staying in the European Union appears to have ebbed away. According to a new ICM poll 40 per cent now say they’d vote for Britain to leave the EU, compared to 43 per cent who would vote to remain In. This three-point gap is within the usual margin of error for opinion polls, making it too close to say who is ahead. But happily for campaigners, 17 per cent said they still ‘don’t know’ how they will vote in the referendum. ICM conducted a poll based on the

Dominic Cummings is the man drafted in to put together the putative No campaign for the EU referendum. Cummings has a tendency to surprise and he has done that today with a piece that pushes the idea that the No campaign should say that there would be a second referendum if Britain votes Out. This second vote would be on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. Cummings’ thinking is that this would de-risk voting No. People would be simply rejecting the deal that David Cameron had negotiated rather than voting to leave outright. Cummings sums up the advantages of a second referendum for No thus: This approach might allow NO to

Anyone interested in the EU debate should read Dominic Cummings’ report on the focus groups he recently conducted for Business for Britain. As well as being a reminder of just how strong the anti-politics mood in the country is, they also sketch out what the challenges for the respective campaigns in any referendum will be. For Out, it’ll be showing that exit won’t cause economic disaster. The focus groups suggest that if people fear that leaving will cause jobs to be lost in large numbers, then they’ll vote to stay despite their dislike of the EU. While In’s biggest problem is that voters now spontaneously connect the EU with immigration.

Michael Gove has this afternoon replied to Labour’s questions about Dominic Cumming’s access to the Education department since finishing as a special adviser. Coffee House has got hold of the letter first. Labour became oddly fixated on whether or not Cummings was still visiting the department, rather than on his stinging criticisms of David Cameron and the Number 10 operation as ‘bumbling’ and a stumbling block for reform. So Gove’s reply to Kevin Brennan’s letter demanding more details is quite easy. He says he doesn’t know how often Cummings has visited the department. And that’s that, save for a gratuitous and teasing reference to the long-term economic plan… Here’s the

It’s a row that won’t go away, after Mr S revealed yesterday that the PM had labelled Dominic Cummings a ‘career psychopath’, Michael Gove’s former special adviser has hit back, blogging: “At the PolEx party (18/6), Cameron said that I am a ‘career psychopath’. A) No10′s first reaction was to decide not to react to my interview, then one of his friends pleaded with me to ‘leave him alone because Miliband would be even worse’ and another threatened me (incompetently). The fact that Cameron then blurts out an insult reviving the story four days later is an example of my point about the lack of focus in No10. If they can’t

There must be an election in the offing because the PM was out and about last night looking for a manifesto. He addressed Policy Exchange’s (PX) annual summer bash in Westminster College Gardens. It was a gag a minute. He cracked rotten jokes about pig semen, and claimed that he was one of the founders of PX — adding that he only sat around eating pizza while the brainboxes came up with ideas which he then stole. How the people stared. He thanked Policy Exchange for providing his government with most of its backroom brains and spinners. Comedy Dave joked the path from ‘policy wonk, to special advisor, to career psychopath’ was

It doesn’t really matter whether Dominic Cummings’ Times interview was unhelpful to Michael Gove. Labour has just been about as helpful to the Education Secretary as it possibly could be without announcing that it supports everything he does, right down to the detail of the history curriculum. Education questions this afternoon was the perfect opportunity to exploit the gift of an interview in which Gove’s trusted former adviser attacked David Cameron and the Number 10 operation. But the attack never really came. Kevin Brennan asked about Cummings’ line that he signed into government departments and Number 10 as ‘Osama bin Laden’. Gove’s reply was, as predicted, ornate and beautifully defensive.

I am beginning to think that Dominic Cummings has driven Nick Clegg round the bend. The Lib Dem leader should want this row over universal free school meals to go away; it is a massive distraction with elections only six days away. But he can’t help himself from keeping it going. So, today we have a joint Gove Laws op-ed in The Times declaring that they are not at loggerheads over the policy. This is accompanied by a news story which reveals that Clegg demanded that Gove write the piece. The piece also reveals, rather unhelpfully, that some schools are not on track to deliver the policy in time for