Boris Johnson failed to close down Cummings story

If Boris Johnson's decision to appear at Sunday's press conference was an attempt to close down the story about Dominic Cummings' behaviour during the lockdown by handling it himself, it failed completely.

It certainly was not an attempt to give the public the full information.

Instead, the prime minister refused to answer the questions that remain about the specifics of his adviser's visit, or visits, to the north east of England while his team was telling the public again and again and again that they had to "stay at home".

The prime minister said repeatedly that some parts of the stories that have been reported have been "palpably false".

But without being specific about what is true and what is not, questions will continue to be asked. As a former journalist, surely the prime minister knows that?

One of the rules of political crisis management is that if a public figure gets rumbled, you need to get all the details, however gory, out from under wherever they had been hiding pronto, or else your opponents will just keep looking.

The prime minister instead only provided one broad answer - that he himself had talked to Mr Cummings about why he did what he did while he was self-isolating and that was enough.

And whatever is left hanging, the central allegation - that his most senior adviser left lockdown while his wife was ill and travelled across the country - is true. Given the government has day after day told everyone to stay at home, that is still extraordinary.

The prime minister said that Mr Cummings was within the guidelines, because of the severe challenges of finding childcare. He seemed almost to be praising him for following his "instinct" as a good father.

The problem with that, is that millions of parents were told they couldn't follow their instincts - the government's lockdown rules were "instructions", in the words of cabinet ministers.

Many of the public would have loved to rely on family members if they were unlucky enough to fall ill. Many of the public would have loved to follow their instincts in going to visit relatives who were suffering, or far away.

But instead they followed the daily exhortations from the government, the prime minister's appeal to the nation, and stayed home - however hard it was.

Rather than acknowledging a tiny iota of conflict or fraction of fault, instead Mr Johnson seemed to double down on what many people see as a double standard.

A small troop of Tory MPs have already said publicly that Mr Cummings broke the rules and should quit, and a few more have gone public since the prime minister spoke, alongside some of the government's scientific advisers.

Several ministers are saying it privately too, who feel deeply uncomfortable with what has happened and Mr Johnson's justification of it. And many of the public may feel it is quite something to watch the prime minister seemingly reinterpret the same public health advice he has credited with saving thousands of lives, to protect one of his team.

One cabinet minister has a more benevolent interpretation, saying the prime minister is someone who is always "loyal to those who have been loyal to him."

Mr Johnson certainly sees Mr Cummings as a vital part of his operation - a record forged together in the fire of the referendum campaign, the chaos and brutality of their first few months in office as a minority government, and then the strategy to turn red seats blue in the north of England, romping home in the general election.

No one doubts Mr Cummings' ability as a campaigner, and someone willing to say the unsayable.

But in government, his willingness to pick fights to get things done has made him many enemies. One senior official described his strategy today as "shouting in an empty room".

His supporters see his willingness to confront hard truths as an advantage. But it means now he is under attack: despite a few slavish cabinet tweets yesterday, there is hardly a long queue of supporters willing to defend him.

And even some of his and Mr Johnson's own supporters worry about how dependent the prime minister has become on one adviser. How has Boris Johnson allowed a situation to develop where many people in government believe one aide's view dominates above all else?

And some are questioning tonight the willingness to splurge so much personal political capital on one adviser's political survival. It is abundantly clear the prime minister is determined to keep Mr Cummings in place.

Mr Johnson has brazened out many difficult political situations before - simply refusing, for example, to answer any questions about the police being called to his and his partner's flat during his bid to become prime minister.

The hope in No 10 is that in time the controversy will fade. But this time, the misdemeanour goes against the grain of what millions of people were putting up with in lockdown at Boris Johnson's own instruction. Many of them are understandably angry.

Did the prime minister manage to shut this mess down today? Not even close.