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Cummings’ New BlogMy Odyssean Adventure Hasn’t Hit the Rocks
Otto English has received an exclusive leak from Boris Johnson’s top advisor on his farewell to No 10 and his smashing thoughts on smashing elites
I get up at five and meditate to gamelan music as I attune my mindset to that of a retired coal miner. In my 20 years of working for the Conservative Party, both in and out of government, I have always been determined to stay true to my ordinary, working-class roots.
After meditating, I pop on a silk Kimono and take an Oatmilk flat white and a bowl of cinnamon quinoa, before WhatsApping the Prime Minister to tell him what to do.
Looking like you don’t care takes enormous effort so choosing my outfit for the day is almost as laboured as the last four years. There’s always a camera somewhere waiting to snap a photo so I take hours picking outfits that make me look like I’ve just slept on a bench. I don’t wear a suit because I don’t want to look like ‘The Boss’ and if anyone ever suggested it, they’d get fired. I want to be anonymous and limos aren’t for me. I always walk to the office and sometimes have to circle back twice to make sure the press get the photos they need.
Brexit was more than just taking back control. It was about ridding ourselves of unelected career bureaucrats and ‘Special Advisors’ put there by vested interests.
When I get to No 10, me and my team of 50 Oxbridge SpAds get to work immediately, finding out what people are saying about us and drawing up lists of enemies.
The real establishment – the Gary Linekers and the people on Twitter who voted Remain – have always hated me. It was the same at my public school. The regulations stipulated ‘black socks’ but sometimes I’d wear ‘blue-black’ just to show them what I thought of their rules.
Smashing elites can be hard work. When Michael Gove worked for me as Education Secretary, establishment state school teachers and their classroom assistants would try to tell us we didn’t understand what we were doing. Some even suggested that they understood education better than us – because we had no experience in the field and didn’t know what we were talking about – blah blah blah. Imagine being that arrogant and refusing to listen?
Sometimes London becomes too much and we’ll slip away to stay with the in-laws at Chillingham Castle for a weekend. It’s fantastic to reconnect with ordinary people and spend a few days listening to my father-in-law talk about the quality of people’s genes.
During lockdown you got to witness first-hand the contempt of the elite and their extraordinary sense of entitlement. After I got COVID and drove 270 miles north to my parents’ house, the BBC and other establishment news channels insinuated that I had broken the rules. But it was completely untrue because I made those guidelines myself and when I investigated it, I concluded that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
As for driving to Barnard Castle to test my eyes, well that’s what we do in the north-east. It’s our traditional way of testing eyes and has been for thousands of years. Of course, Lineker doesn’t understand that, sitting there in his London mansion on his mountain of money. Down south everyone goes to opticians because they can afford the free eye tests. Get out of London Gary and see what ordinary, working-class people do.
Lunch is usually a fairly basic affair. Perhaps some tempura with beetroot, elderflower and artichoke. Sometimes I’ll shout at someone, but only if I’m not having one of my headaches.
I’m obsessed with AI. I’ve read the Wikipedia page so many times I can practically recite it. AI is the future.
We won’t need teachers or footballers or opinionated lefties at dinner parties then. Cars will drive themselves, you’ll be able to get money from ‘cashpoint machines’ and compact discs will probably be a thing of the past.
People often ask me what my long-term vision is and it’s really very simple. I want to create a Plutarchian, post-modern utopia where artificial immune systems are the norm. We urgently need DARPA, TALPIOT and other impressive sounding acronyms. This does not mean that X% of Y = the sum total of Thucydidean truth. But the confusion lies in procurement, laissez-faire and other random words.
Most ordinary working-class people grasp this. But Lineker and his army of elitists don’t want to.
It was always my plan to leave the Government in December, before the Brexit transition period ended. God didn’t stick around for the eighth day of creation, so why should I? Lee Cain is leaving too but that’s because paranoid Remoaner conspiracy theorists are trying to destroy everything we have built and even now are whispering behind our backs.
Lee and I have a huge amount in common. We have the same hairdresser, the same sense of humour and the same enormous regard for me and everything I do.
Will Brexit work? Yes. But if you think I’m wrong get back to me in 300 years and tell me otherwise.
Dinner is a light snack. Perhaps some salt aged duck and sichuan. I go to bed at nine and read about myself for an hour. Then, it’s lights out – much as it will be across the country after I have gone.
As told to Otto English