The security risk civil servant who offered to sell sex to an undercover Daily Mirror journalist was personally introduced to David Cameron in Downing Street, Guido can reveal. The 20 year-old woman, whose identity Guido has decided not to reveal, was praised by civil service bosses and was a poster girl for the fast track scheme. A source says she visited Number 10 on multiple occasions and met Dave there in 2015. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing. Does she know his Pret order too?
When Theresa May entered Number 10 she vowed to do away with Dave’s chumocracy and make sure her Downing Street wasn’t stuffed full of a load of old mates. Guido has previously revealed how 85% of Number 10 SpAds are blokes. Another theme has been identified on Whitehall: Gavin Barwell’s Croydon cronies. As May’s chief of staff, failed Croydon MP Barwell has hired three pals from his old patch to work in Downing Street. Mario Creatura, the PM’s digital SpAd, used to be Barwell’s bag-carrier in parliament and is also a Tory councillor in Croydon. Jason Cummings was a parliamentary assistant to Barwell for two years and is also a Croydon Tory councillor – now he’s a political adviser to the PM. Nero Ughwujabo, who works in the Number 10 policy unit, ran the Croydon BME Forum for 15 years before also benefiting from Barwell’s patronage. The women problem and chumocracy live on in Downing Street, it’s just that this time the inner circle are Old Croydonians rather than Old Etonians…
Guido can also reveal a few new SpAd moves. Peter Cardwell is moving to the Home Office to look after the women and equalities brief. Sophie Dean is now working for Esther McVey at DWP. Karen Bradley’s Northern Ireland team has been bolstered with the hires of her former DCMS SpAd Romilly Dennys and ex-Tory NI minister Kris Hopkins. Let us know any updates here…
Following Guido’s story that 85% of Number 10 SpAds are men – with just 6 female advisers working in Downing Street – Women and Equalities select committee chair Maria Miller tells the FT’s Laura Hughes:
“We need to make sure that there are strong women’s voices around the policy making table. Current situation is simply not good enough.”
There are 10 advisers in the Downing Street policy unit: James Marshall, Douglas McNeill, Giles Wilkes, James Kent, Nero Ughwujobo, Toby Lloyd, John Randall, Mike Crowhurst, Mat Ilic and Jean-Andre Prager. All blokes…
UPDATE:
Fact: for 2 decades women have received more of the best degrees from best universities than men-we need best talent advising PM, don’t we? https://t.co/txdsrtgGWJ
— Maria_Miller (@MariaMillerUK) March 23, 2018
Daisy Goodwin, creator of ITV series Victoria, says a senior Downing Street adviser put his hand on her breast when they met at Number 10 between 2010 and 2016. Goodwin tells the Radio Times the aide was a few years younger than her, so likely to be in his forties:
“The official, who was a few years younger than me, showed me into a room dominated by a portrait of Mrs T and we sat at a table carved, he told me, from one piece of wood. Then to my surprise he put his feet on my chair (we were sitting side by side) and said that my sunglasses made me look like a Bond girl.
At the end of the meeting we both stood up and the official, to my astonishment, put his hand on my breast. I looked at the hand and then in my best Lady Bracknell voice said: ‘Are you actually touching my breast?’ He dropped his hand and laughed nervously… I wasn’t traumatised, I was cross, but by the next day it had become an anecdote, The Day I Was Groped In Number 10.”
Former Downing Street aides have been speculating which of them can’t be left alone in a room…
Speaking about being a young mum in 1996, Rayner said of 18 years of Tory government:
“I had a National Health Service that was there for me”
