Downing Street communications director says Johnson “not a complete clown”

Guto Harri has described his employer Boris Johnson as “not a complete clown” in an interview with Golwg 360, published shortly after the journalist took up his new position as Downing Street director of communications.

Speaking to the Welsh news website after being hired following a number of resignations from the No 10 team caused by the ongoing ‘partygate’ scandal, Harri insisted that the Prime Minister is a “very likeable character”.

He also revealed that, when asking Harri on Friday to take the position, the Prime Minister assured him that “I will survive” by singing lines from the Gloria Gaynor song. Johnson has been under increasing pressure from his party in recent weeks.

Around 15 Tory MPs are thought to have submitted letters of no confidence following numerous revelations that rule-breaking social gatherings took place in Downing Street and elsewhere in Whitehall offices during Covid lockdowns.

Harri has previously worked for Johnson, serving as his spokesman and chief of staff during his first term as London mayor. Labour has raised concerns over Harri’s work as a lobbyist on behalf of Huawei, calling for transparency over “all contact he had with government in his former role and who his clients were”.

The journalist has made disparaging comments about Johnson since working for him. Harri described Downing Street parties during the pandemic as “unforgivable” in an appearance on Newsnight last month, telling viewers that he was certain that many more took place than have then been reported over the past few weeks.

Harri published a piece in The Daily Telegraph in November 2020, shortly after the departure of Dominic Cummings, in which he described No 10’s communications strategy during the pandemic as a “masterclass in incompetence”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster in 2018, when referring to a description of Theresa May’s Brexit deal as wrapping a “suicide vest” around the constitution, that Johnson was “dragging us into a place where we think that we can joke about suicide vests and that we can be sexually incontinent”.

He also argued that Brexit had “destroyed” the now Prime Minister when Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary in 2018 “because nobody genuinely believes that he was sincere” about the campaign for the UK to leave the EU.

The journalist’s appointment came alongside news that Steve Barclay has been appointed as Downing Street chief of staff. Concerns have been raised as to whether the MP, minister in charge of the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will have enough time to devote to the role.

Commenting on the changes at No 10, Keir Starmer said: “We’ve been here before. This time last year we were told that the Prime Minister had learnt the lessons, he was putting a new team in place. Only a few weeks ago we were told he was going to make changes and this was going to be what would make the difference.”

The Labour leader added this afternoon: “Nothing will change until the person at the top changes, because all routes really lead to the Prime Minister and that’s the change that we really need to see now.”