NOT just leftie ranting. Papers referring to Cummings as Rasputin (to name just a few):
Guardian
Sunderland Echo
Northumberland Gazette
Telegraph
Washington Post
Daily Heil
International (Brazil)
Reuters
Repubblica (Italy)
Euronews
New York Times has DC as Rasputin too. (copied and pasted because it's behind a paywall).
Dominic Cummings was portrayed as the puppet master controlling Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a rally in London on Tuesday.
LONDON — In the melee that was the British Parliament last week, at least one person seemed to revel in the brutal politics of the era of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In his customary crumpled white shirt, Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief aide, could be heard cursing over the phone at lawmakers and seen prowling the corridors of Parliament, laying waste to the careers of Conservative politicians who stood in the way of an abrupt withdrawal from the European Union.
He saved some opprobrium for the opposition, too, interrupting a tipsy, late-night stroll to goad the opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, into backing an early election, a Labour lawmaker recounted publicly. “Don’t be scared!” Mr. Cummings screamed.
Throughout the first weeks of Mr. Johnson’s leadership, Mr. Cummings was a shadowy figure, depicted as the Rasputin directing his boss’s scorched-earth strategy to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31, with or without a deal governing future relations, “come what may.”
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