Hidden motives?

So Emily Maitlis says she got a supportive text from Dominic Cummings after the BBC criticised her for breaching BBC editorial guidelines with her controversial Dom-and-Boris-bashing Newsnight monologue.

Now, if all's as Emily tells it, that's definitely quite something: It's astonishing that DC sent it. And it's almost as astonishing that EM kept quiet about it for a few weeks and then dropped it into a Tatler interview. 

That he evidently had her phone number initially surprised me - for all of two seconds. Of course he had it! 

Emily's choice of phrase to describe Dom's text was 'peak surreal' - a 'peak metropolitan elite' way of putting it, you might think! 

So what were they both up to here?