Take back control? Cummings scandal reveals crisis of accountability

The sight of an unelected official giving a solo press conference about their private conduct in the 10 Downing Street Rose Garden was bizarre.

Still, how else was Dominic Cummings to be questioned? He is not a minister who can be quizzed as part of the day to day business in the Commons.

Alongside questions surrounding Cumming’s breach of lockdown the awkward press conference on Monday evening also illustrated a deeper issue; namely that Cummings now occupies an unprecedented position in British politics where he wields a great deal of power while not being subject to the scrutiny of parliament. That he and Boris seem to have a particular disdain for the norms of accountability and scrutiny merely compounds a fundamental structural issue – that the UK constitution is struggling more than ever to contain the growing presidentialisation of its politics along the American model.

In the British system, the Prime Minister is, traditionally, understood to be first among equals within the cabinet. The monarch’s ministers are also legislators with political legitimacy and standing not dependent on the PM, by virtue of their election. By contrast American cabinet members serve much more at the discretion of the president. Not being legislators, and with often limited standing outside their office, they have little ability to push back politically as a powerful British minister might by threatening to resign and make trouble on the backbenches. In crude terms one might see it as the difference between rule by a committee of party legislators, and rule by an elected monarch and their advisers.

What makes Cummings so anomalous that he occupies what is essentially an American-style position. He is a powerful political appointee whose position is dependent on the goodwill of the country’s leader. However, while the American political system has ways to scrutinise and keep these figures in check, their appointment has to be approved by Congress which can also summon them while conducting its own enquiries as things stand the British system does not have such firmly established powers.

A parliamentary committee could summon Cummings but even this is not much of a sanction. The Liason Committee, which Prime Ministers report in front of, is due to question Boris Johnson for the first time tomorrow. The committee’s chair, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkins, has allocated only 20 minutes to question Boris on Cummings plus three other coronavirus related matters, and has excluded two Conservative MPs expected to ask Boris tough questions.

Admittedly, powerful but resented advisers have been a feature of politics for some time. Harold Wilson’s powerful private secretary Marcia Falkender was much resented, and disagreements with Margret Thatcher’s Chief Economic Adviser Sir Alan Waters pushed Nigel Lawson to resign as Chancellor. This feature expanded under New Labour with not only an unusually powerful and high-profile favourite, Alastair Campbell, but also with the proliferation of Special Advisers (SPADs).

Yet, as an adviser Cummings represents a new peak in terms of the breadth and depth of his influence. The Prime Minister depends on him to an extraordinary degree.

Ultimately advisers are supposed to be subordinate, and part of their value is that they can be easily disposed of if they become troublesome. The problems arise when this ceases to be the case, as it now seems to have with Cummings following the frankly unbelievable spectacle of Cabinet ministers publicly torching their credibility by tweeting defences they surely cannot believe of a man quite a few of them dislike, simply because for some reason Boris feels unable to let go of him.

It shows that the Boris cabinet is unusually weak. Following purges and resignations it is a mix of the modestly talented, the obedient, the scandal ridden, and a few rising stars who are not yet powers in their own right. They serve, as in an American cabinet, very much at the pleasure of Boris or Cummings.

Finally, as in a presidential system, personal popular appeal to the electorate has become an increasingly important part of a Prime Minister’s qualifications. Prime Ministers have always been able to stamp a party in their image if they are successful enough, and even appeal over the heads of parliament to the people in the form of an election. Boris, following the purge of dissident MP and his Brexit election triumph, is unchallengeable, for now.

He has an 80 seat majority and he is not temperamentally inclined to see himself accountable, especially after his great victory. A large part of his parliamentary party owe their places in the Commons to him, so they dependent upon him and disinclined to challenge.

The current state of affairs is far from ideal or acceptable. Our political system, in the absence of a written constitution, allows the government of the day to exercise theoretically dictatorial power – as the current crisis shows. The main mechanisms to limit these powers and assure accountable government are supposed to be be parliamentary scrutiny, intra-party politics, and, quite frankly, good character on the part of office holders. There is little prospect of it having an effect

The Cummings Brexit slogan was “Take back control.” Under the British system it is Boris and his chief aide who have close to complete control.