More from Dominic Cummings

As ever, for those of you who like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you will like. Even if you don't, it's worth considering that Cummings is an unusual combination of being both highly successful in politics and incredibly open about how he does it. The fact that so few people copy him is in itself strong evidence for his claim that so many people in politics care more about status that achievements.

Here are a couple of quotations which will either whet your appetite or sate it:

"Elections are to a large extent bad showbiz. The noise is high but the stakes often amazingly low. The parties scream about each other but generally whether X or Y wins changes an amazingly small fraction of policy, money, or real power — and has little effect on the permanent bureaucracies. (One of the reasons the Brexit referendum was different is it led to much actual weeping across Whitehall on 24/6/16 as the permanent bureaucracies faced something new — real change for them. Trump’s victory was sold as the same but clearly was not.)" 

"High stakes politics is much harder than a normal startup because the former inevitably lacks what the latter has — relatively clear goals. In politics it’s normal for people to go years without ever really considering clear goals because thinking about goals in a disiplined way is a ticket to an argument."

And, finally, his suggestions for further reading, oddly similar to my own.

"A few people I’ve found interesting are:
Scott Alexander
Richard Hanania
Marginal Revolution
David Shor
Andrew Sullivan
Curtis Yarvin"