Dominic Cummings is not in this picture of the Bullingdon Club

26 May 2020
What was claimed

Dominic Cummings appears in a photograph of the Bullingdon Club alongside Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

Our verdict

This is not true. The man identified as Mr Cummings in the photograph is called Harry Eastwood.

A post shared hundreds of times on Facebook suggests that political adviser Dominic Cummings is pictured alongside David Cameron and Boris Johnson in a photograph of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University from 1987. This is not true, and the man identified as Mr Cummings is actually called Harry Eastwood. 

The photograph shows Mr Cameron and Mr Johnson with eight other men, all dressed in formal tailcoats. The Bullingdon Club is a male-only society, which is notorious for the drunken behaviour of its usually wealthy members.

The Facebook post identifies a man standing on the right hand side of the group to be Mr Cummings. However, the photograph has been widely reported on in the past, and these reports all identify this man as Harry Eastwood—a businessman and TV producer.  

Mr Cummings did attend Oxford University where he studied Ancient and Modern History. There is no evidence he was a member of the Bullingdon Club. As Mr Cummings started at the university in 1991,  graduating in 1994, he is unlikely to have been present at the university in 1987 when this Bullingdon Club photograph was taken. 

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