Classic Dom: Downing Street’s very own Prince Andrew. Show how much respect you have for the public and the media by turning up 30 minutes late for your own gig. There again, start as you mean to go on. Because Dominic Cummings’ press conference in the Downing Street Rose Garden was all about his own exceptionalism. How the rules applied differently to him than to the little people. On Sunday we had Boris Johnson, the understudy prime minister, try and fail to convince the country that there had been nothing untoward about Cummings’ trip to Durham. A midnight flit that had been so normal that Downing Street had spent the best part of six weeks trying to cover it up. Now we were to get the full story – or what approximated to it – from the person who is really running the country. And what we were treated to was an hour-long confused ramble that was disguised as the martyrdom of St Dom. A man who had only ever acted in the best interests of his family and the country. A man more sinned against than sinning. “Hi there,” he said, when he eventually turned up after a half-hour row with his wife over whether he really needed to change out of his hoodie and put on a shirt. “Sorry I’m late.” He wasn’t of course. Dom is never sorry about anything, but that was the closest we were going to get to any form of apology for having driven 260 miles to Durham to self-isolate on his parents’ estate, when the rest of the country were obeying the letter of the law, that he had helped write, by staying at home. Much of what Dom had to say made little sense. His wife had initially been ill, but he had broken with his own health guidelines by going into work the following day. He had then decided to exploit a loophole involving young children that had never been intended to apply to families in his position and drive to Durham. And no, he hadn’t bothered to get any medical advice or tell Boris what he was planning on doing. Because he was the Special One – the real prime minister – so there was no need. Indeed he might only have told Boris where he was a week later and by then they were both so ill that they conveniently forgot about the conversation until the Guardian and the Mirror rudely reminded them. That was just the start though. His car had had a full tank of petrol – nice touch – and his son who couldn’t last a 30-minute drive to Barnard Castle without stopping for a pee had proved iron-bladdered for the entire six-hour journey north. Once in Durham, both Dom and his wife Mary had been ill with coronavirus. They had only broken lockdown once by nipping out to the local hospital because their son was unwell, and had self-isolated for the full 14 days. Then on the 15th day, St Dom had risen again. And although, he was still feeling shit he felt ready to go back to London to start running the country again. There was just one small problem. His vision was playing up. So the obvious way to see if he was safe to drive was to pack his family into the car and take a 30-mile journey to Barnard Castle. Not sure if that’s quite in the DVLA guidelines. There they had stopped and sat by the river for a bit – their entire conversation had been focused on the state of his eyesight – before heading off back to Durham for a walk in his private bluebell wood. All this was said in a state of barely repressed anger. This statement was costing Dom dear. Classic Dom never explains and never apologises. And even though not a word of apology escaped his lips, you could sense that this whole exercise felt uncomfortably close to one. Just having to appear in front of journalists for whom he felt nothing but contempt and pretend to be Mr Polite Nice Guy was a humiliation he couldn’t bear. Once the questions started, the mask began to crack. He was just doing what anyone else would have done in the same exceptional circumstances. Except they hadn’t been doing that. People in far more testing situations without the comfort of a second home 260 miles away had obeyed the guidelines. Because they were mugs. The proles who weren’t able to think for themselves. If he had a fault, it was that he was just too loving and law-abiding a father. Regrets, he had a few. But then again, too few to mention. Time and again he was asked to apologise and every time he refused. Anything but that. Everything was totally above board, which is why he and his wife had both written stories in the Spectator that they knew to be misleading. Perhaps he and Mary had both been so delirious, it had slipped their minds to point out they hadn’t been in London. Then he went full-on Trump. Everything that had been written about him was completely Fake News. Apart from everything in the Guardian and the Mirror, which he had as good as corroborated. Had he thought of offering his resignation? A dismissive shrug. Who was he going to offer it to? Himself? There was no point in offering it to Boris because why would you ask your understudy? Just remember who worked for whom here. It ended in a standoff. If Dom had imagined this press conference would clear the air, then he had misjudged the mood of the nation just as he had by pleading for his own exceptionalism. There was also a deep irony that a man whose entire political reputation had been founded on the simplicity of his messaging was now pleading for his career on the basis that life was complicated. He even concluded by saying there was no point in answering some questions because the answers could be more confusing. So the journos could get lost. There was to be no redemption for Laughing Boy. His presser may have satisfied a few of the Boris faithful, but the majority of the country could only see a man who had chosen to break the rules and had – worse still – put the nation’s health at risk by effectively telling everyone they could interpret the rules however they wanted. Not that Dom would have cared that much. What would have hurt the most was that he had been seen for who he really was. A man who can turn any hint of regret into a giant “fuck you”. • This article was amended on 25 May 2020. An earlier version had misnamed Barnard Castle as Castle Barnard on second reference.