Vote Leave Meltdown - It’s Cummings

Following the announcement by ITV that they will broadcast a debate on the EU featuring - but not at the same time - both Young Dave and Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, Vote Leave, which is the officially designated group for the Outers, went into meltdown. Accusations of bias were made, ITV was said to have lied to the group, and there were threats suggesting that some kind of retribution would follow, once the referendum was over.

Olympic freestyle wibbling champion speaks

As Politics Home reported, “Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign group, accused ITV of a “stitch up” for selecting Mr Farage who supports rival eurosceptic group, leave.EU … A senior source in Vote Leave accused the channel of allowing Downing Street to select the Prime Minister's opponent … Vote Leave has reportedly vowed to take ITV to court over the issue”. That much was bad enough. But then came the threats and accusations.

“ITV is led by people like Robert Peston who campaigned for Britain to join the euro … ITV has lied to us in private while secretly stitching up a deal with Cameron to stop Boris Johnson or Michael Gove debating the issues properly … ITV has effectively joined the official In campaign and there will be consequences for its future - the people in No 10 won’t be there for long”. Where do we start with that lot?

Robert Peston, as he has pointed out, did not campaign for Britain to join the Euro, so that rather dampens the accusations of lying. That “senior source” also assumes that someone like Bozza would be any use in a debate, when all the evidence is that he soon loses it when challenged. ITV cannot, by the terms of its licence, join any campaign. And nobody at Vote Leave, or anywhere else, is in a position to threaten “consequences”.

So it was no surprise to see a press reaction consisting of bewilderment and mockery. Sam Coates of the Times observed “Vitriolic and highly personal 11pm Vote Leave statement released last night which obsesses about role of [Robert] @Peston”, which prompted Hugo Rifkind’s comment “Why you shouldn't send angry work emails when you're pissed on the night bus”. Quite. So who was the culprit?

Simples. “A senior Vote Leave source” who uses that kind if intemperate language, yet thinks nothing of it, means it came from Dominic Cummings, formerly chief polecat for Michael “Oiky” Gove at the Department for Education, and the main source of the abuse doled out by the @toryeducation Twitter feed. His prints are all over that statement.

Indeed, Cummings appeared before Andrew Tyrie’s Commons select committee last month, where he was equally abusive. When Tyrie pointed out to him “Vote Leave quotes numerous figures on its website … most of them misleading or inaccurate”, Cummings retorted “Accuracy is for snake-oil pussies … and besides, I’ve got a really bad memory”. He was widely regarded as being out of control at the DfE, and now he’s all too obviously out of control at Vote Leave. The group’s credibility is therefore shredding itself.

If Vote Leave can’t control Cummings … we can all have even more of a good laugh.