Dominic Cummings brands Boris Johnson’s Downing Street branch of ‘entertainment industry’

The Prime Minister’s former chief aide used his website to launch a fresh series of attacks on the way the Government operates.

He claimed if people in the outside world knew how the top of Government worked “everyone would sell everything and head for the bunker in the hills”.

Mr Cummings used an online question and answer session, which subscribers paid to access, to fire his latest salvo in his sustained war of words with the Prime Minister.

In response to a question on his experience of being “close to power and the opportunities it provided”, Mr Cummings said it had been “Fascinating but very troubling”.

He added that it is “impossible to describe how horrific decision-making is at the apex of power” and that it is “generally the blind leading the blind”.

Responding to a question about the artificial general intelligence (AGI), the hypothetical ability of machines to develop human-like thinking, Mr Cummings said the country that first acquired the technology may be able to “subdue” all others “and destroy us all”.

Mr Cummings, who has a fascination with science and military technology, said AGI “ought to be a massive focus of government thinking but it is not”, despite his efforts while in Downing Street.

“Nothing like this now will get serious focus in No 10 – No 10 now is just a branch of entertainment industry and will stay so til BJ gone, at earliest,” Mr Cummings said.

“The most valuable commodity in (government) is focus and the PM literally believes that focus is a menace to his freedom to do whatever he fancies today, hence why you see the opposite of focus now and will do til he goes…”