What does Dominic Cummings do now? Life after leaving Boris Johnson’s Downing Street
Dominic Cummings was last seen at Downing Street in November 2020, clutching a carboard box as he exited “for good” after splits inside No 10 over his role as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
After sequestering himself away on Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, Mr Cummings is back in the spotlight, justifying his “nebulous” role at Downing Street and calling the Government “complacent” as he gave evidence at the Covid-19 inquiry on Tuesday.
What has he been up to since the final showdown at Downing Street? Here’s what you need to know.
Why did he leave?
Mr Cummings left his role as Mr Johnson’s senior adviser on 14 November, 2020, making claims about a fractious power struggle involving the blocked the promotion of Lee Cain, one of Mr Cumming’s allies and the former Downing Street and Vote Leave communications chief. The internal battles also reportedly involved the prime minister’s then-fiancée, Carrie Symonds.
Though the former prime minister stood by him, Mr Cummings struggled to come back from his 260-mile drive from his home in London to his parents’ land in County Durham, during the first national Covid lockdown ordered in March 2020.
He stated he made the journey to facilitate childcare after his wife started showing Covid symptoms.
However, an April jaunt to Barnard Castle made him the subject of many a meme after he said the trip was to test his eyesight.
In an interview with BBC’s former political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Cummings said that during the trip, he had been trying to work out “Do I feel OK driving?”.
“I thought it was the right thing to do but I was trapped in only telling part of the story. Obviously I am extremely sorry about the way the whole thing worked out… I know that my misjudgment caused huge trouble,” he said.
What did he do next?
In February 2023, Mr Cummings launched Siwah Ltd. Companies House states he is the sole director of the organisation, which is registered at an address in Durham, north-east England. Mr Cummings’s previous firm, Dynamic Maps, was a tech consultancy.
He has also made extensive use of a Substack newsletter that spills the beans on the government and features posts on AI and developments in science. Mr Cummings has said he will deliver information on the pandemic and his time in Downing Street for free via the newsletter, but that more “recondite stuff on the media, Westminster, ‘inside No 10’, how did we get Brexit done in 2019, the 2019 election etc” will only be available to subscribers – paying £10 a month.
In 2021, the substack piqued the ire of Whitehall watchdog Lord Pickles, chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), who claimed it breached government rules on commercial undertakings.
Writing to Michael Gove, Lord Pickles claimed Mr Cummings had offered “various services for payment via a blog hosted on Substack – the blog for which he is also receiving subscription payments”.
“Mr Cummings has failed to seek the committee’s advice on this commercial undertaking, nor has the committee received the courtesy of a reply to our letter requesting an explanation,” he wrote.
“Failure to seek and await advice before taking up work is a breach of the covernment’s rules.”
Under the Business Appointment Rules, former senior advisers and ministers must seek advice from Acoba before taking up new roles for two years after leaving office.
Will he return to politics?
In an 18,000-word blog post on his Substack in August 2023, Mr Cummings soft-launched the creation of a new political party, with the initial name of “The Startup Party”.
In the post for subscribers to his blog, he summarised the failings of all political parties, but took particular aim at the Conservatives, saying it was “time to build up a start up to replace the rotten Tories and win in 2028”.
The former head of the Vote Leave campaign said he believed Rishi Sunak would lose the next election – and the subsequent “failures” of Labour Party leader Keir Starmer would leave open a “huge opportunity” for someone to take power in 2028.
He stated that his next steps were a recruitment process, a plan to raise £1m and launch the venture by Christmas.
Among his potential policies, Mr Cummings said he would be “tougher” on crime, security and immigration and pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
