> I've viewed and read an interminable number of interviews with Cummings.

The statements you have made don't really line up with the interviews I've listened to.

The context around the events and what his involvement was and was not, is important.

You are leaving out key information that he mentioned in many interview appearances.

> He decided that a) Brexit was a good idea (we can see how that turned out)

Without re-litigating everything. It may have been different if the politicians and those that worked for them hadn't frustrated the process. I was genuinely disgusted by the attitudes that many of the politicians had after the Leave won. That was my interpretation of what happened. Your obviously differs.

It also says nothing about the validity of his other statements, which is what I was referring to.

> b) he decided to help get a Johnson government elected

Yes, but the way you are talking about it is omitting events both before and after the 2019 General Election.

Theresa May had been ousted by the Conservative Leadership. Earlier she ran an awful election campaign, squandered a huge lead in the polls and had to form a coalition Government with the DUP to maintain a majority.

Cummins said he was contacted by Johnson because Johnson had a minority government and couldn't call a re-election. His first job was to get Johnson out of that Quagmire, then prepare for re-election. He decided to help Johnson under certain guarantees / conditions. Which tells me that he didn't actually trust Johnson.

He claims to have been gradually forced out by Carrie Johnson and his team shortly after the election.

If you are being hampered by the Prime Minster's wife on the agenda that you are supposed to implement. It is likely to fail.

I've actually experienced something similar in my career where I was being blocked (for political reasons) by another team. It makes getting anything done impossible.

So there is no reason to believe he is lying, back tracking or retconning events.

This is because his statements about Carrie Johnson's involvement line up with other accounts from other people that I've heard during the time period shortly after his departure.

> c) joined his administration as de facto chief of staff and chief advisor. If that's not a tacit approval of Johnson and his government, then what is? Of course, he backtracked later when it was a disaster.

It not about it being an approval or disapproval of his government. Often you must work with people that you would rather not to, to achieve things.

His feelings about the Johnson government doesn't change his the validity of his statements about how Whitehall operate while he was present.

His comments about ossified organisations lines up with my past experience of working in both ossified Public and Private orgs.

His account of the events around COVID match up with the timeline of events, and I re-watched old interviews of him and he hasn't backtracked at all or changed his story around what happened. He has mentioned things he couldn't mention at the time e.g. his residence was broken into and he was advised not to mention this at the time.

I have no reason to not believe him, since his statements match up with both what I have experienced and a known timeline of events.

I think your dislike of Cummins and his involvement with Vote Leave. As a result is clouding your judgement on the validity of his statements about how Boris Johnson behaved and how Whitehall operates.

Generally there is a lot of stuff in his interviews that I've seen that quite honestly changed my opinion of him (which was somewhat negative). I believe he is telling the truth.