Boris Johnson has hired a Brexiteer minister as his chief of staff in a bid to save his career by ‘returning to Tory values’.
The embattled prime minister has chosen Steve Barclay, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to be his most senior aide.
He has also hired Guto Harri, a trusted former City Hall aide and ex BBC journalist, as communications chief.
The PM said the shakeup of No 10 would ‘strengthen the role of my
Cabinet and backbench colleagues and accelerate our defining mission to level up the country’.
Mr Barclay’s role is intended to reassure Tory backbenchers that the government will break away from the interventionist era of the pandemic and return to the small state conservatism championed by Mr Johnson before he entered Downing Street, reports The Telegraph.
The former Treasury minister is an ally of Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his appointment is also likely to help thaw relations between No 10 and No 11.
It comes after five members of Boris Johnson’s top team resigned within 24 hours on Friday in the wake of the Downing Street party scandal.
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