During last year’s election campaign, Dominic Cummings made clear what he thought of the accredited lobby journalists who cover Westminster politics for mainstream publications. “Wait til the glorious new government SMASHES the lobby and replaces it with truth and light,” Cummings told the Guardian at the time, following an inquiry about an unrelated story. He was promising that a victorious Johnson government would go to war with the BBC, Channel 4 News and all manner of other news outlets deemed to represent the views of the metropolitan elite and not the 52% of the country who had voted for Brexit. Root-and-branch reform of government communications was the order of the day and journalists who didn’t like it would have to deal with it.
Instead, as he leaves Downing Street, his approach to the media – often backed by the outgoing director of communications, Lee Cain – appears to be in the process of being partially unwound, their half-finished cultural revolution having often been more bark than bite. Proposals to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC licence fee, announced last December, have been kicked into the long grass. A boycott of Radio 4’s Today programme was meant to last until “they better understand the country” but was dropped after a few months. When the full scale of the coronavirus pandemic became apparent, Cain gathered journalists together and promised a more cooperative attitude to fit the times. Which is not to say that No 10’s aggressive attitude towards the media has not had an impact. Staff at the BBC’s Millbank political unit describe how Downing Street would regularly complain about tweets by BBC staff that they felt showed bias, contributing to the imposition of a new social media code of conduct at the corporation. Tony Hall’s departure as BBC director general was hastened by the realisation in January that the corporation was facing a fight for its future. His successor, Tim Davie, has already adopted a series of policy positions that have pleased the government. As one government insider observed, the threat of action against individual institutions is often more effective and faster than passing legislation. One of the ironies of Cummings’ time in Downing Street was his insistence that day-to-day press coverage doesn’t matter – only to find his position undermined by a prime minister who was nervous about increasingly negative headlines. There was fury at the inability to get ahead of looming scandals on everything from pandemic testing capacity to Marcus Rashford’s campaigns for free school meals. Cummings, whose drive to Barnard Castle became one of the most damaging news stories of Johnson’s premiership, also gained a reputation for regularly briefing stories to friendly journalists at the same time as threatening to sack junior special advisers who leaked material. It was one of the attempts by Cummings and Cain to radically reshape the relationship between the government and the media that ended up playing a key role in their downfall. Cain was a strong proponent of introducing a new daily televised press conference live from Downing Street, opening up the traditional off-camera briefings given to the political lobby. But Boris Johnson rejected Cain’s suggestion that they should appoint the BBC journalist Ellie Price to the role of on-camera spokesperson. Instead, the prime minister offered the job to the well-connected Allegra Stratton, who made clear she would not work for Cain, helping to prompt his departure. Now Stratton has emerged victorious from this particular power battle, there is a final irony: if she succeeds in attracting a large audience to the press conferences, unmediated by traditional media outlets, it could be a partial vindication for Cain and Cummings’ approach.