W
ell that was quick. Allegra Stratton, the 10th press secretary hired for on-camera briefings on behalf of Boris Johnsons, didn’t go as far as a screen debut as the British equivalent of high-profile American porte-paroles. Instead, he will become a spokesperson for the COP26 climate change summit this fall. It’s a front row seat at the intergovernmental banquet of the year, but clearly a consolation prize. Stratton has been sidelined from a job that would have made her a national figure, and her friends described her as “sad and frustrated” because her drive to revive No. 10 communications should be crushed before the first broadcast. It leaves an interesting accounting question about the cost-benefit of a bespoke, soundproof streaming suite costing around £ 2.7 million (one insider maliciously suggests the Prime Minister send it back by hosting Zumba classes online).
Plots and disputes merge into politics and the news that the switch had been flipped in the televised briefings coincides with the outing on The Sun today (at the personal urging of Boris Johnson) of his former head of strategy, Dominic. Cummings, as the so-called “talking rat.” behind a host of revelations about spontaneous personal text messages from the prime minister.
Cummings supported the idea of television broadcasts to bypass traditional lobbyist briefings. But Stratton’s promotion sparked a confrontation between the two employees. Carrie Symonds, Johnson’s fiancée and a conservative party communications veteran, initially supported Stratton, judging that female-led television briefings would help counter the image of a male clique around Johnson. In truth, it’s still largely male because that’s the default PM setting. New communications chief No. 10 Jack Doyle also comes from the trusted line of former political journalists-turned-communicators for the Mail newspaper, after the previous headline returned to journalism.
Anne McElvoy
/ Natasha Pszenicki
This episode of Boris Johnson’s West Wing clash over the introduction and the “et tu, Dom?” moment they are a reminder that the number 10 is a bit of a zone of chaos in the Johnson era. Trustees move in and out of positions and favor at a pace last seen in the Trump White House.
READ MORE
As recently as last week, Stratton thought he could still prevail and headline the briefings. Screen tests had been done and Stratton, a seasoned newspaper and television journalist, had been working on the task of creating clips for the late-night bulletins and social media with a tone relaxed enough to deal with the pushy colleagues at the lobby, but also, as one ally says. it is “direct enough to get the attention of a busy mother, half watching the news while preparing dinner.” Not everyone at No. 10, including Dan Rosenfield, the prime minister’s chief of staff, was convinced.
The formal version of the retreat is that the “risk analysis changed” on the benefits and pains of the briefings. To which of Stratton’s allies does he joke wryly, “Did he really do it?” The consolidation of the power of supporters of “traditional” communications (through briefings to the lobby away from the public eye) meant that their plan had few allies.
A veteran of the political lobby says: “It would have been a disaster, because Allegra wanted to make points that would persuade skeptics or close a discussion. The more you do that, the more oxygen you give to the stories that the PM needs to close. Having to insist on a lobby call recently that Johnson had adhered to Nolan’s principles of probity in public life when he declared no conflict of interest in his dealings with Jennifer Arcuri, his mistress while she was mayor, may have been time. of Waterloo. Imagine the repeated denials being interrogated and played on the evening news, and then the prime minister being approached when he went out in public to be asked again about the same story.
So the Boris communications tribes ended up in an enthusiastic chorus for the status quo. And you might say, why should we care? I always thought that the American model was a better fit in American politics, where the availability of the president is much scarcer than that of a British prime minister. But the Stratton experiment and the emergence of another male lead spinner is a reminder that Johnson’s fiefdom remains an overwhelming place where great battles for power and influence are fought between the feisty types and the urban types, flanked by loyal colleagues who are considered vital. to the operation of the Johnson companies and yet, strangely, never at the forefront of them.
Anne McElvoy is Senior Editor of The Economist and appears tonight on The News Quiz on Radio 4
–
