Addendom

A quick follow-up, because I've read a few things and, specifically, listened to the latest episode of the New Statesman podcast, where Stephen Bush highlighted a part of the testimony I hadn't noticed:

...I said, “Because this whole system is chaos. This building is chaos. You know perfectly well from having worked with me that I can get great teams together and manage them, but you are more frightened of me having the power to stop the chaos than you are of the chaos”... The Prime Minister, which I think says a lot, laughed and said, “You’re right: I am more frightened of you having the power to stop the chaos than I am of the chaos. Chaos isn’t that bad. Chaos means that everyone has to look to me to see who is in charge.”

I've said previously that Cummings' description of anything that he personally does always seems to have a very "and everyone clapped" quality to it, but this is next level. Matt Christman once said that Aaron Sorkin has done more damage to America's political imagination than anyone since D.W. Griffith, but I think maybe we underrate the influence of dark prestige TV bollocks over here. There's none of the campness of e.g. a House of Cards any more, it's all gritty Littlefinger bollocks.