Before I begin this thread, let me make it clear that I do not in any way blame Dominic Cummings or Dido Harding for their antecedents. What interests me is the way power is acquired, transmitted and sustained in the United Kingdom.
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2. This is Field Marshall Sir John Harding. In 1949, he was sent to Malaya to suppress the insurgency. British actions were notoriously brutal, using Agent Orange, scorched earth campaigns, hunger as a weapon and concentration camps. It’s not clear how much of this he did.

3. From 1952, as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, he advised the British government on suppressing the Kikuyu revolt in Kenya. This involved the mass murder of civilians, torture, mutilation and mass imprisonment in concentration camps and fortified villages.

4. In 1955, he was appointed Governor of Cyprus, where he sought to stamp out the insurgency against British colonial rule. Under his command, rebels and civilians were detained in concentration camps. Torture was widespread. Rebel leaders were summarily executed.

5. In 1958, for his services to empire, he was created 1st Baron Harding of Petherton. He is Dido Harding’s grandfather.

6. This is Sir Evelyn Baring. He was governor of Kenya from 1952-59. Perhaps drawing on Sir John Harding’s advice, he set up a system of concentration and slave labour camps, in which tens of thousands of Kikuyu people were tortured and mutilated, beaten and burnt to death.

7. In 1960, for his services to empire, he was created 1st Baron Howick of Glendale. He is Dominic Cummings’s grandfather-in-law.

8. Dominic Cummings and Dido Harding occupy crucial, and highly controversial, positions with the government. Neither were elected, but owe their positions to appointments made within a tight circle of acquaintances.

9. It is this chumocracy, which has replaced professional, competent civil servants with people drawn from a highly entitled (and titled) elite, that is responsible for the fiascos surrounding the pandemic, and is now driving us towards a possible no deal Brexit.

10. I reiterate: I don’t blame anyone for their ancestors or in-laws. But what we see here are lineages that achieved great power and status, including hereditary peerages, through committing crimes against humanity.

11. Inherited power and status helped secure the social position of their descendants and in-laws. This social position secured their place within the current chumocracy. It also buffers them, professionally and socially, against criticism and public complaint.

12. The misrule of this elite has resulted, among other impacts, in the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands, through the mishandling of the pandemic. They don't seem to care.
In other words, this seems like a vignette of everything that’s wrong with the way we are governed.

13. There is more on this theme in a previous thread: https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1273132740142120961