NOW we understand why Dominic Cummings has a reputation for being a strategic genius. After 48 hours which saw the UK Government mishandle the Durham Dash crisis so badly that even the Daily Mail had to tell regretfully tell them "go home lads, you’re drunk" – No.10 moved to phase two of their crisis management plan.

What better way to distract from such an epic clusterf**k that to give the plebs a peek behind the curtain? Dominic Cummings: the man, the myth, the legend – or so he tells us – took the unprecedented step of delivering a statement to the nation. We should be grateful he managed to tear himself away from the bluebell woods long enough to answer some questions.

The golden rule is that advisors advise, ministers decide. We can only assume that Cummings advised the Prime Minister that he has photos from that wild night out in Soho stored on his hard-drive and Boris Johnson decided he didn’t want to piss off Daddy Dom, thank you very much.

Over to the Downing St rose garden, where Mr Cummings arrived 30 minutes late and had ditched his achingly on-brand viva le revolution beanie hat and jogging bottoms for a white preacher shirt.

Allowing Dom on his lawn confirmed the prime minister’s write up in the history books as more chihuahua than Churchill. It’s like your husband cheating on you and you letting him to host a garden party where he tells all your friends and family that you are an absolute nightmare to live with and he was just ‘’following his instincts’’ when he broke social distancing rules to get it on with your sister.

Cummings began his lengthy statement sat behind a make-shift garden desk, as the sound of hell itself rang out in the background in protest.

His statement had a heavy "dear diary" vibe and we learned that inside the mind of a self-defined genius is unbearably dull. His tale was relatable to any parent and it made me wonder whether we had perhaps been too quick to judge. Who among us has not transported a deadly virus a few hundred miles up the road to stay in the house in their mum’s back garden just in case we needed her to show us how to stick some fishfingers in the oven?

Who hasn’t taken a stroll in woods owned by their father, adjacent to the cottage on their family’s estate? And who – I ask you – has not taken their family out for a drive to "test out" their eyesight because they were worried it was failing?

One of the key questions that the public wanted answered was when the Prime Minister knew about Dom’s trip to Durham. And he had an answer for that which was crystal clear and not at all designed to wriggle his way out of scrutiny. Apparently – and bear with me on this – Dom and Dummer MIGHT have had a conversation about his lockdown-breach but neither can remember what the content of that conversation was. They were both so ill that this critically important conversation may have happened or it might not have. Cheers Dom, glad you cleared that one up pal.

Under questioning from the journalists in attendance, Dom’s nice guy act began to crumble. "If you’ll just let me FINISH" he protested, as though more words would help his situation.

On and on it went, every question and answer acting as a log thrown onto the burning building of Dom and the Prime Minister’s reputations.

An exercise that was designed to squash the scandal did anything but. It’s a good job Dominic Cummings is not paid for his strategic brilliance, eh? Classic Dom.