Guido can confirm that highly respected No 10 foreign policy adviser John Bew has told colleagues he will shortly be departing Downing Street. Labour briefed back in July that Bew wouldn’t be allowed to continue advising as a SpAd, and a month later he was said to be still at work in government on “a series of defence-related issues.” Now he jokes that as “an excellent new foreign affairs team beds in, it is a good time to sub myself off before I begin to resemble dear old Casemiro”…

Bew, who has survived four PMs, tells colleagues will now take up long-held plans to start as Professor of History and Foreign Policy at KCL – where he’ll be heading up a new Centre for Statecraft and National Security. He’s also taking up a position as Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University to work on an Urgent Security project as well as becoming Distinguished Advisor to the Australian National Security College. Bew’s keeping busy…

Government insiders speak highly of Bew and there were some rumours he would stay on in a Starmer administration. It’s Downing Street’s loss…