Dominic Cummings may want to seize control of the Civil Service recruitment machine but his scope to operate is probably limited to Number Ten patronage. He asks applicants to send a one-page letter and CV to a Gmail address, and says he ‘will try to answer as many as possible … but can’t promise an answer’. It’s an odd way to go about recruiting people, especially for someone who claims to be committed to ‘data-driven intelligence’.