As the Met begins dishing out fines for partygate, the new regime in No. 10 is focusing on the future. Boris Johnson’s Oxford chum Guto Harri was brought in at the beginning of last month to steady the ship as Director of Communications. His early interventions proved a little unorthodox: giving an interview on his appointment, retweeting John Major’s criticism of his successor and rocking up Downing Street wielding a Tesco shopping bag with healthy goods.
Now though, it seems Harri has settled down and begun to prepare for the future. First, he raided his old firm Hawthorn Advisors to recruit his former colleague Oscar Reddrop as the new No. 10 head of broadcast. And now, Mr S can reveal that Harri – who served as Johnson’s comms chief when the latter was Mayor of London – has hired another Hawthorn aide and alumnus of the BBC and City Hall. Caroline Newton, who served as an assistant director at the GLA under Johnson, joins as a special adviser.
She is the third staff member to be recruited from Hawthorn Advisors, the firm co-founded by Tory party co-chair Ben Elliot, in just eight weeks.
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