I think he was only known & unpopular among those who follow politics closely. I expect 80% or 90% of the UK hadn’t previously heard of him. The media coverage of the incident turned him from a niche suspect figure into a universal hate figure.
Re your point [1], people associate physical appearance with attitude. I overhead someone in the street at the time saying of Cummings’ press conference: “He’s so arrogant! Did you see how he was dressed?” I.e. that Cummings was and is deliberately slovenly to show two fingers to the press/Establishment—i.e. that he doesn’t care what they think. Which is probably the case. Or at least, the geeky view that how you dress shouldn’t matter—the two of course being closely related.
I think he was only known & unpopular among those who follow politics closely. I expect 80% or 90% of the UK hadn’t previously heard of him. The media coverage of the incident turned him from a niche suspect figure into a universal hate figure.
Re your point [1], people associate physical appearance with attitude. I overhead someone in the street at the time saying of Cummings’ press conference: “He’s so arrogant! Did you see how he was dressed?” I.e. that Cummings was and is deliberately slovenly to show two fingers to the press/Establishment—i.e. that he doesn’t care what they think. Which is probably the case. Or at least, the geeky view that how you dress shouldn’t matter—the two of course being closely related.