Downing Street is out hiring for communications staff. There is still no Director of Communications following the departure of Tim Allan…
Two job ads have appeared overnight for two roles:
There have been recent departures at the mid-ranking level from the communications team in Downing Street. Some title inflation going on…
Any applicants need to demonstrate “confidence and expertise to brief the Prime Minister and their senior advisers.” For a salary of £68,558 could you bear speaking to Starmer every day (apart from Friday evenings and most of the weekend)?
Starmer gave a dumbed down self-promotional speech to TikTok stars and other influencers last month in a bid to capture some favourable attention on new media platforms. Guido would say trading access for kind words will only work for so long but then look at the Lobby…
Guido has obtained the PM’s remarks from the event held at No9 Downing Street on 24 February. Starmer went on about how much the cost of living mattered to him in pretty simple terms and pretended to give assembled influencers a scoop: “I can confirm to you that tomorrow Ofgem will announce the new price cap.” He also bragged about having assembled “more than 5.5 million followers” between the creators who were in attendance…
There was lots of effusive praise and Starmer indicated more influencer-only events are on the way. Cue gnashing of teeth from Lobby editors…
“So, thank you again for being here today. Thanks for being in this room. For the first of these events with creators. This has never been done by any government. Before. I think it is a signal of how things are changing. And, you will be able to say, you were in the room for the very first one of these, as we took a big step, towards how we communicate, and who we communicate with.”
The government’s official line is that it is “engaging with content creators as well as journalists to reach new audiences, to ensure we are held to account in a changing media landscape and keep the public better informed about Government policies.” Its influencer comms strategy is multi-pronged. Politico reported this month that the government “has tapped up digital communications agency 411 to reach out to influencers, with the comms shop asking them to be part of a campaign ‘sharing the steps that this Labour Government is taking to ease the cost of living.'” This is not the full picture: 411 is made up almost entirely of ex-Labour Party staff and has been working to engage influencers for years now with limited success. Labour will hope that its staff can do better once they get creators in a gilded Downing Street hallway…
Read the full speech below as transcripted by Downing Street staff:
The Number 10 spokesman in the Lobby briefing of press hacks today:
“We doubled our headroom against our fiscal rules. Borrowing is forecast to be lower than the G7 average… we have delivered stability when it comes to the public finances, and we’ve done so in a way that allows us to invest in priorities such as the NHS, and as you’ll see from next month, bringing people’s energy bills down”.
Rachel Reeves attacks Liz Truss’s mini-Budget with every other breath. The UK’s 10-year gilt yield is currently higher than it ever was under Truss. Last month the government borrowed £14.3 billion, which was almost double the forecasts. When interest rates go back up later this year, who will Reeves blame then? If she’s even still in post…
UPDATE: Starmer says the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war” in the Middle East, and the government is ‘working on a viable plan’ to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. No commitment on warships to do that.
He confirms a £53 million support package for “those households that are most exposed” to rising heating oil prices.
Number 10 has claimed there was “no requirement” for Keir Starmer to formally interview Peter Mandelson before appointing him as ambassador to the US. The Times revealed last night that Starmer delegated the job entirely to Morgan McSweeney and Matthew Doyle. Don’t worry, the adults are back in the room…
The Downing Street spokesman told the Lobby briefing of press hacks this morning that the “full process that was in place at the time was followed“, and the PM has since “apologised to Epstein’s victims“. When asked if it might have been a good idea to at least chat to him for a second regardless of the ‘process’, the spokesman repeated the same line almost verbatim…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”