The revolving door in No/ 10 seems to turn even faster these days, given the news that Downing Street will shortly be greeting its fourth director of communications in eight months. Amber de Botton will be next to sip from what has become widely regarded as a poisoned chalice, following the departure of Adam Jones, Guto Harri and Jack Doyle since February. Let’s hope she gets more time in the role.
She at least comes with plenty of experience. De Botton is well-regarded among the lobby – judging from the Twitter reaction to her appointment – and will bring senior broadcast knowledge to the team, working closely with long standing Sunak aide Nerissa Chesterfield. This is not the first time de Botton has been connected with a No. 10 role – when Boris Johnson’s Downing Street was looking to hire a comms figure to lead televised press conferences (an idea that has since been binned) she was touted by No. 10 sources as a potential candidate.
She joins from ITV: not the first time Rishi Sunak has chosen to hire from the broadcaster, given the appointment of Allegra Stratton as his Director of Strategic Communications at the Treasury in April 2020.Since then of course, there was the whole Partygate scandal, with ITV breaking a series of scoops since de Botton arrived as its Head of UK News in April 2021. Such a history could make things awkward between the new hire and those veterans of the Johnson administration with not-so fond memories of the Sue Gray inquiry and subsequent fines of the Metropolitan Police. Paul Brand, the journalist credited with such scoops, modestly wrote on Wednesday that de Botton was one of those ‘who deserve all the glory’ for ITV’s reporting.
Best of luck to her in re-building bridges and improving No 10’s comms: given the scale of the task ahead, she will need it.
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