Forget Cumberbatch, See What Brexit Manipulator Really Thinks of You

Dominic-Cummings being grilled by the Commons Treasury Committee

Benedict Cumberbatch, who we are familiar with playing self-proclaimed “high-functioning sociopath” Sherlock Holmes on BBC, is about to portray one of the shadiest people in British politics, in Brexit: The Uncivil War, due to be screened on Channel 4 on Monday.

I say “in British politics”, but that needs clarification. Rather than an elected MP, Dominic Cummings was special adviser to Michael Gove when Gove — a rather Machiavellian back-stabber himself — was Secretary of State for Education and trying to propel his way to the top.

To those who knew him at all — primarily political hacks — Cummings was a shady Gollum-like figure who happily wallowed in the filth of Westminster to do Gove’s dastardly bidding, while Gove attempted to affect a look of amiable benevolence — as opposed to grasping malevolence. With limited success.

And so, it was no great surprise when the Vote Leave campaign took shape, in the run up to the referendum on membership of the EU, that Gove’s old hench-manipulator would become the shady Machiavellian campaign director.

Since the EU referendum, we have found out a great deal more than was known at the time about the goings on in the pro-Brexit camps. Illegal breaching of spending limits, dodgy dealings with dodgier people, and the misuse of data to manipulate the…