The Johnson-Cummings scandal is pathetic to behold. Shame their colleagues didn’t listen to the advice they asked me to give them

I warned the government that the special adviser might become a problem in the crisis, not least because he had alienated so many inside the civil service machine

There are two questions I am becoming increasingly tired of being asked when doing TV and radio interviews on the Johnson-Cummings scandal.

First, if you had done what Dominic Cummings did, what would Tony Blair have done?

Second, putting aside your own long-held views about Boris Johnson, if you were still in Downing Street now, what would you advise?

Both questions are hypothetical. Neither would ever arise.

On the first, I wouldn’t have done it. End of story. Not in “three hundred thousand, thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand” years, as Priti Patel might put it.

If I force myself to speculate that I had lost all judgement and professional standards, and I had suggested to my family that we break the government guidelines and head north when the whole country was being advised to stay home, I know for sure my partner Fiona would have said: “Are you mad?”

I am sure one of my kids, certainly once they were six or seven maybe, would have said: “Shouldn’t you ask Tony?” Another would have said: “What if someone sees us?” Even as kids, they had more political and media nous – or that “common sense” thing Johnson likes to talk about – and more than Cummings seems to have.

If I had called Tony and said: “Listen, I’ve got these special circumstances, because I don’t have any friends to help us out, so do you think it’s a problem if I go north to self-isolate, and if anyone sees me, we can use Clause M in the Coronavirus Bill?”

“That clause is about safeguarding children at risk of abuse and women at risk of domestic violence, Alastair.”

“Yeah, Tony, I know, but come on, I do a lot for you. If I did get spotted at hospitals, castles or in a wood, you’d defend me, right?”

I can hear his voice as I even type those words. “Ali? Have you taken leave of your f***ing senses? Go and have a lie down. Call me later. Thank the kids for getting you to call.”

Families matter in public life. They are – or should be – the people who will always say what they think, safe in the knowledge that their views are not going to be used against you.

As minister after minister tweeted out their pathetic cut and paste support for Cummings – “loving dad, didn’t break guidelines, move on” – I couldn’t help thinking, do none of them have a wife, husband, mother, father, son or daughter who says to them: “What the hell are you playing at? Have you any idea how wrong this is? Have you any idea how ridiculous you are making yourselves look? Have you any idea what my friends are saying?”

As Michael Gove talked of the times he too had gone for a drive to test his eyesight, as Matt “this is not advice, this is an instruction” Hancock tried to pretend Cummings had acted within the guidelines, and as Johnson himself flannelled and blathered his way through that excruciating press conference, held in the hope a few spin-not-science-led lockdown easing measures would take attention from Durham Dom, do none of them have within their families someone who will just say: “Stop. Stop now. Stop before I lose any respect I ever had for you.”

Shameless means without shame. They have none. Literally, none.

Now the Telegraph reports that six cabinet ministers have “told colleagues” that they think Cummings should go. Have they told Johnson, is the point? Have they told Cummings? To his face? Or is the truth that they have said to their pals on the paper: “Oh, I agree it’s terrible, but you know, collective responsibility, best we try and change things from the inside, let’s have lunch when things are back to normal.” I hate it when Piers Morgan states something that captures the truth about these Tories – that’s my job – but “spineless, pathetic toads” was 100 per cent spot on.

On the second question I mentioned at the start, it doesn’t arise, partly because Johnson wouldn’t have me near the place, and especially because there is no point trying to give advice to someone who thinks they don’t need it.

At the start of this crisis, as some ministers and senior civil servants know, I did offer advice, and indeed was asked to take a look at some of the internal crisis management papers I wrote during the Kosovo conflict, the foot and mouth epidemic and post-9/11, to see whether any of them could be adapted to today. Partly as a result, I wrote a 20-point crisis guide, and a 10-point crisis comms guide, and shared it as requested with some in government, ministers included, while being advised they didn’t want Johnson and Cummings to know. I was trying to be helpful.

We were quite a way into the crisis before I started to say publicly what others, like Piers Morgan, had been saying for some time – that these people were screwing it up big time, and seriously endangering many lives and livelihoods.

While I’m at it, I also warned them that Dominic Cummings might become a problem in the crisis, not least because he had alienated so many inside the civil service machine, and I later reflected some of those concerns in a piece for The Article, after the Sunday Times reported he had made some dismissive comments about old people and the pursuit of herd immunity.

On 23 March, more than two months ago, I wrote: “The problem for Cummings and Johnson is that they have so much form on issues of trust and truth. Their attitude has always been that if the lie helps you win, whether making up stories to further your career as a journalist in Brussels, or in a campaign to change the course of history, you go for it, because by the time people spot the lie, it will have served its purpose and the world will have moved on.

“Johnson knew exactly who and what he was hiring in bringing Cummings to the heart of power. It is his judgement, not Cummings’, that should be the focus of inquiry and scrutiny.

“A graduate in ancient and modern history, Cummings sees himself as a man of science. That scientists who have devoted their lives to studying epidemiology should know more than he does is not something he seems to grasp. Anyone who has time to read his long, rambling blogs will know of his broad contempt for the civil service, the Cobra process and crisis protocols.

Cummings’s attitude – enabled, tolerated and indulged by Gove and by Johnson – is that Dom knows best. Johnson owes him, not least for the snappy slogans that helped him win the referendum, get rid of two prime ministers, and install himself in their stead. He owes him for a strategy that helped defeat Jeremy Corbyn.

“But Johnson, not Cummings, is the prime minister. Sometimes it feels like it is Johnson doing Cummings’ bidding, not the other way round. That is fine, up to a point, when the argument is about whether you use this slogan or that, appoint this minister or that. It most certainly is not fine when you are talking about a global pandemic in which millions of lives are at stake and the word of leaders is an important lever not just in decision-making, but also in getting the public to change its behaviour. Should we really be surprised that someone who has done so much to undermine institutions, deride expertise, embrace populist slogans and take such a flexible approach to truth struggles to get everyone to follow when he tells them to stay at home?

“He still has the backing of the prime minister and he still has friends and allies in the media. I am not calling for Cummings’ head (NB: this was then, not now!). In a crisis, the prime minister should be able to call on whatever support and advice he needs. But I am suggesting he winds his neck in, and understands that while he may be an expert in three-word slogans and using data to drive message in a campaign, these are not the skills required to deal with the challenge that now confronts his boss, the country and the world.”

I hate saying I told you so, but, as I did last night to one of the ministers who told me how much he valued my advice... I told you so. Maybe now start listening to some of the other advice, most of it available on my blog, under “Rants, Rambles and Ruminations”. The trouble is, they don’t know how. They don’t do strategy, leadership or teamwork. They don’t do “whatever it takes”. They just do “Let’s save Dom for Boris”. Pathetic, utterly pathetic, to behold.