“Trust is at an all time low”: can the bald community ever recover from Dominic Cummings?

There’s only one name on everyone’s lips right now, and that’s Dominic Cummings. The maverick, renegade, very clever and smart guy behind last year’s Conservative election win (previous hits include Vote Leave), is in a spot of bother for breaking lockdown to chill at his parents’ gaff in Durham. His list of reasons for doing so is longer than the 270 miles it takes to drive there from his London home.

For once, the UK press has decided to not pretend that this, ahem, version of events was normal and so, on Monday, he was forced to sit in the garden of Number 10, telling more, ahem, versions, much of which felt conspicuously different to the, ahem, version written by his wife in Tory jazz mag, The Spectator, the month before.

Now, as a bald man that is somewhat influential in the bald community, let me be up front and clear so there is no doubt in anyone’s mind: Dominic Cummings’ flagrantly bald behaviour does in no way reflect the wider bald community.

Yesterday evening, in the furious ball pit of trolls, bots and outrage merchants that is Twitter ​“dot” com, I saw a lot of abject hate towards bald people. ​“He somehow has more bald energy than people who have less hair than him. The man is catastrophically bald,” said one. ​“Time to cancel baldys [sic],” cried another. ​“Cancel us all,” wrote one bald man, falling on his own in an act we are obliged to refer to as ​“hairy-kari” [Alright, that’s enough – Ed].

Trust in bald people is at an all time low. Not only did this one bald guy break lockdown rules, but he also successfully managed to distract everyone from the main issues in this coronavirus crisis, such as: ​“When’s the footy coming back on?”, ​“Is it anti-feminist to have a cleaner?”, plus something or other about 37,000 deaths, many of which may have been avoided had the UK implemented an earlier lockdown (something that Cummings was first said to oppose and has now been seen to break).

Listen, I get it. It’s easy to look at ferociously bald men and have fear struck into your heart. Even as a bald man I sometimes look at Lee Hurst’s gleaming forehead and feel like I’ve glanced upon Cthulhu itself. And even though DomCum is still the most powerful maverick, renegade, very clever and smart guy in the UK right now, and the chances of him facing any accountability are apparently fuck all, don’t let the fear of his baldness enter your heart and tarnish how you see the bald community. We’re just a bunch of normal guys trying to get by with a small amount of hair follicles and a whole lot of heart. Thank you for reading.