Dominic Cummings was in my Uni posse of ‘wastrels’ – I can’t believe they let him so close to power

Arrogant, provocative and awkward is how Lebby Eyres remembers the man who once had the ear of the prime minister during one of the biggest crises the country has ever faced. So not much has changed since the student days of the ‘rambler-in-chief’ then...

Dominic Cummings when he was campaign director at Business for Sterling in 2001 ( David Levenson/Getty)

When Dominic Cummings became Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in the summer of 2019, I was horrified. Having known him well at Oxford University where I was studying classics and he was studying ancient and modern history in the early 1990s, I could not quite believe that anyone would allow him so close to the corridors of power. And anyone who listened to his evidence at the Covid inquiry yesterday will fully understand why.

The inquiry is no laughing matter. Yet I did allow myself a wry smile when Hugo Keith KC opened his line of questioning by apologising for the coarse language we were about to hear, listing some of the insults Cummings levelled at cabinet ministers: “Useless f***pigs, morons, c***s.”

It took me straight back to the days when Dom was part of my circle at Exeter College. Once a loner who would often be seen on the Freshers’ staircase wearing an outre silver bomber jacket, he was taken under the wing by a mutual friend, a fellow historian.