The Great Self-made Disrupter

As a dutiful citizen I devoted some time yesterday to reading the Guardian’s ‘long read’ about the Thoughts of the Philosopher King Dominic Cummings. The Prime Minister's serially brained right-hand man clearly deserves a long read. But I wondered, it has to be said, whether this Oxford history graduate had somehow missed out on doing a PPE, and in his rejection made a virtue of his more obscure learning. It seems he is fond of citing all the names in intellectual history to bolster his present dominion over all he surveys. Thucydides (that’s Thucky did e’s where I cum from) through Hume, Descartes, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Smith, Darwin, Hayek, Joe Bloggs, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, Mrs Gubbins — they all get a mention in this great man’s synthesis of world thought. This no doubt gives him the  insolent authority to slouch around No. 10 dressed with the sartorial elegance of Jimmy Saville,* a person whose proximity is accepted in the PM’s residence like an honoured, beneficent presence, bestowing his generosity on the unfortunates who without him couldn’t wheel their own trolley. The splashing around of his gravitas reminds me of American generals with their breasts splattered in medals, some of which will have been earned merely for assiduously flicking the switch off at lights out at West Point. The important lesson that Dominic has to learn here is that like Steve Bannon, supplicating a boss with a massive ego can be a short lived experience. When the shit hits the fan, the Svengali will be the first to feel the heat. And like Rasputin one has to be constantly on guard against those who are right behind you. I would like to think it’s only a matter of time. The only thing working against my optimism is Johnson’s sheer laziness. And in some regards I wouldn’t accuse Trump of being lazy.
 
*I do not imply here anything more than a reference to ‘sartorial style.’