The privilege of public service and the dangers of populist technocracy: a response to Michael Gove and Dominic Cumming’s 2020 Ditchley annual lecture

On 27 June 2020, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, Michael Gove, gave the Ditchley Annual Lecture on the theme of ‘the privilege of public service’. Although the fact that it took place in the context of the broader Coronavirus crisis meant that it received relatively little publicity or attention, the central argument of this article is that the lecture provides great insight into the ideas shaping government policy, in general, and into the inner mind of Dominic Cummings, in particular. As such, we argue that although the lecture was given by Michael Gove, it was clearly floating ideas and themes that were taken, almost directly, from Dominic Cummings’ website. We draw out and explore these themes and suggest that what they combine to offer is a dangerous blend of technocratic populism that is as intellectually splintered as it is politically naïve.