Dominic Cummings is orchestrating Boris Johnson’s messaging around coronavirus

• Cummings, who wrote in a blog in 2016 that he is ‘particularly interested in public health and the field of epidemiology’, has taken a hands-on role in the government’s messaging, the Financial Times reports.
• The special adviser has deduced that after the success of Vote Leave’s ‘take back control’ in 2016 and the Tories’ ‘get Brexit done’ in 2019, that the main message for the coronavirus outbreak should use three word catchphrases too.
• It is said that focus groups had swayed Cummings’ thinking to encourage government to repeat the lines ‘wash your hands’ and ‘stay at home’.
• A government source told the newspaper: ”Wash your hands’ might have seemed a bit trivial at the start. But when you’re talking to people in focus groups, they want to know what they can do to make a difference.’

 

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