Dominic Cummings lashes out in all directions, with campaign critiques for Starmer and Johnson

Dominic Cummings advised Sir Keir Starmer to campaign harder on crime as he launched a two-pronged Twitter attack on Labour and the Tories following Friday's election results.

Mr Cummings, chief adviser to Boris Johnson until December last year, took Sir Keir to task over his focus on "media reality" and the "babble" of journalists.

"We have a Number 10 and Opposition who see their job as Media Entertainment Service and neither knows how to do this better than TB/Mandy [Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson]," he wrote. "Neither will try to be… a government."

Attacking Sir Keir, whom he described as "bad", Mr Cummings also claimed he did not know who the shadow chancellor was until he googled it on Wednesday.

"She [Anneliese Dodds] never touched my consciousness in a year," he said, adding that there was "zero impact of any Labour economic message of any kind".

A source close to Ms Dodds said Mr Cummings "can't blame Labour's problems on one person".

Mr Cummings said Sir Keir's recent focus on crime showed he was "trying to improve" but called for him to have a "sustained effort on violent crime", not a "crime week".

His comments came on a torrid day for Labour, as the party lost Hartlepool in a crunch by-election, along with control of several councils in the party's Northern heartlands.

Turning to the political fortunes of his former boss Mr Johnson, Mr Cummings said the "optimal political strategy" for the Tories and Labour was "almost identical" but would be described by the media as "incoherent/mad".

The ex-Vote Leave boss repeatedly attacked the media and political pundits, whom he accused of "babbling" rather than facing "actual reality".

Mr Cummings has recently been accused of leaking stories to the media about the Prime Minister – a claim he denies.

He has also offered to reveal all his communications from his time in Downing Street as part of an inquiry into the Government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.