Most Tory MPs “do not care” about poor people, according to Boris Johnson’s special advisor.
Dominic Cummings – who orchestrated the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum – is one of the most influential people in the new prime minister’s team in Number 10 and was one of Johnson’s first appointments.
But it has now emerged that his new role came just two years after the told the Nudgestock conference that many Conservative MPs don’t care about the NHS or “poorer people”.
“The Tory Party is run by people who basically don’t care about people like me – that’s what most people in the country have thought about the Tory Party for decades,” Cummings said during his 2017 speech.
“I know a lot of Tory MPs and I’m sad to say, the public is basically correct. Tory MPs largely do not care about poorer people, they don’t care about the NHS and the public has kind of cottoned on to that.”
Ian Lavery – who is chair of the Labour Party – branded the comments a “staggering admission from the prime minister’s right-hand man”.
He told the Guardian: “As Dominic Cummings says himself, the Conservatives don’t care about anything apart from looking after their rich friends – whether that means selling off our NHS to American corporations in pursuit of a Trump trade deal, or giving tax cuts to big businesses while cutting public services.”
Meanwhile, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth tweeted: “The guy pulling Boris Johnson’s strings reveals the truth. The Tories don’t care about the NHS and you simply can’t trust them with it.”
But it was not just Labour attacking Cumming’s position in Number 10 – according to the Times, Nigel Farage has ruled out an electoral pact with Johnson while Cummings is involved the government’s no-deal Brexit strategy.
The former Vote Leave leader is not a “true believer” in Brexit and secretly wants Britain “bound to the EU”, the Brexit Party leader is said to have told the PM.
“He thinks we’re all cretins and members of the lower order,” Farage reportedly said.
“He has never liked me. He can’t stand the ERG . I can’t see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit.”