Two months ago Simon Enright, one-time press adviser to the King and Queen, was being tipped to become “Sir Keir Starmer’s king of spin in 10 Downing Street“. According to The Sun’s Harry Cole, Sue Gray was “keen to bring in Simon Enright”, which seemed plausible given he had been providing training and advice to the shadow cabinet.
That didn’t play out, Simon Enright last week left spin-shop Freuds to become the new director of communications for Grant Shapps at the Ministry of Defence. Which means Sue Gray is still looking for a new “king of spin” for Number 10…
She could of course choose a queen, Beth Rigby’s online analysis in what is the unregulated-by-Ofcom “Sky Analysis” (formerly “Sky Views”) section of the channel’s website already reads like she is writing press releases for the Labour Party:
Perhaps the Parliamentary Lobby’s only openly known Labour Party member, Paul Waugh, might get the job assuming he doesn’t want instead to have a second go at becoming the MP for Rochdale.
Could Tom Baldwin reprise the role he did for Miliband? His hagiography of Keir shows his closeness to the principal. They say everyone has a third act in them…
Downing Street denies blocking Penny Mordaunt penning an article for The Sunday Telegraph on defence spending this weekend – contrary to whispers going around. Downing Street claims they didn’t block Penny from writing for the paper, despite it being pulled at the last minute according to Fleet Street sources. Penny is said to be pretty angry about it…
Penny’s been hitting the headlines recently over speculation of a potential leadership bid before the election, and it looks like Downing Street are now trying to rein her in. One Westminster source says:
“Open season on the PM is over. She can either be a member of the cabinet or she can campaign to lead it. She cannot expect to be allowed to do both.”
On the offence…
UPDATE: Downing Street says that Penny’s piece was written for the Mail on Sunday, who rejected it. Another op-ed had already been organised in The Sunday Telegraph so Penny’s was agreed to go to them next week. Penny’s team blames internal miscommunication for the mishap. Their robust response shows the degree of concern about Penny being seen to be offside…
It looks like Number 10 are hiring more Cameron-era staff. Guido hears the soon-to-be former Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales, Jean-Christophe Gray, is set to be the new Head of the Delivery Unit in Downing Street. Gray was Cameron’s official spokesperson from 2012-2015. He is yet another Oxbridge history graduate and his resume shows he is a career civil servant generalist with no real world private sector business experience. Clearly the dynamic change-maker you want to get things done. So perfect from the blob’s point of view to lead on the operational delivery of Rishi’s priorities coming up to an election…
UPDATE: At the Downing Street briefing this morning we asked the PM’s spokesman (Oxford, PPE) what qualified Jean-Christophe Gray (Oxford, History) to head the Delivery Unit when his predecessors had actual private-sector, real world experience. The PM’s spokesman was a bit stumped and eventually managed to say the appointment was the result of a “robust, competitive process”. Just how bad were the other applicants?
Guido was out and about in Westminster last night chatting to SpAds about their job searches. One near despondent SpAd was beginning to panic that they would not secure a move across to the private sector before the value of their government contacts expired worthless. An anecdote from a recent Thursday night SpAd school is illustrative of the state of morale within the SpAd class;
Last month the PM’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Will Tanner, tried to boost morale at the increasingly thinly attended weekly SpAd school session –
“I’m here to tell you that the polls are wrong. They were wrong about Brexit, they were wrong when it came to the independence referendum and they’re wrong again now. You shouldn’t pay any attention to them. We’ve got this. Look at Labour – they don’t have any long term plan on AI but we do.”
This message was delivered to stunned silence on the part of the SpAds – nobody had any questions when prompted by Tanner to ask. Everyone just quietly left and shuffled off to the pub. It was a jaw-dropping moment when finally most of the room realised some in Number 10 had “lost their marbles”.
“From 10 months ago when Liam Booth-Smith told SpAd school we needed to be 10 points behind by the autumn to this – a steady 20-point deficit and a plan to just ignore the polls. In the pub Will was dubbed Comical Willy after Saddam’s Comical Ali”
The atmosphere this week at drinks parties is one where Labour confidence is verging on smug and Tories have a resigned gallows humour. Many in Downing Street and Whitehall are just going through the motions…
The UK is due to hold the 4th European Political Community summit in May, the intergovernmental forum for political and strategic discussions about the future of Europe, established in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, when Guido asked Downing Street about the event, and whether it is actually going ahead, they couldn’t confirm any details of when and where the event was being held. All they could answer was that it is “due” to be held in Spring, a three month window.
It is highly unusual to not have any plans for an event the UK is meant to be hosting in, at the latest, six months time. The last EPC took place in October in Spain, with the venue and date announced in February, eight months beforehand. The likely reason for Downing Street not confirming any details is that they are wary of fixing the timing in case of an early General Election, not committing to hosting an international event at a time that would clash with a spring election. They would need to free up civil servants’ hands for running the ship during a campaign, rather than hosting the event. Or perhaps they want to kick it down the line in which case Starmer may end up dealing with the Europeans instead. Either way, it’s telling that they won’t confirm any details, fuelling further rumours of a spring election…
While Team Rishi spent the entire leadership race last year insisting they were keeping their distance from Dominic Cummings – Rishi claimed he hadn’t seen the man since he quit in 2020 – this eyebrow-raising picture has been doing the rounds in SW1 WhatsApps in recent days. It shows Cummings himself clapping away merrily at the wedding reception of… Liam Booth-Smith and Olivia Oates. Booth-Smith ran Rishi’s campaign, and is now his Chief of Staff.
The wedding reception was held just weeks before Rishi entered Downing Street last October. Number 10 insisted he’d have “no role” in Rishi’s government and was not involved in his leadership bid. Close enough to get a wedding invite from the most senior aide in Downing Street though…
