After the night of the long hangovers, what next for Boris Johnson’s No. 10 team? Following the departure of five top advisers on Thursday, the PM has tonight announced two replacements to try and rescue his sinking premiership. Cabinet minister Steve Barclay has taken up the reins as Johnson’s chief of staff while Guto Harri joins as director of communications. Barclay’s appointment will certainly raise eyebrows, given that he is already an elected MP serving as a constituency and will now be expected to work 16-18 hour days in Downing Street.
But Mr S is more intrigued by the hire of Harri, who previously worked as Johnson’s director of external affairs between 2008 and 2012 when he was mayor of London. Since then, Harri has been on something of a journey, including being forced out as a presenter for GB News last year after ‘taking the knee’ during one programme. Indeed the Welshman has made numerous disparaging comments about Johnson in his various capacities over the past decade, which suggests that the PM had, er, a tough time in finding someone who hadn’t slagged him off to come and join his team.
Given Harri’s job will now be to go out and sell whatever message Johnson has to the great British public, Mr S thought it timely to provide a handy round-up to his readers about some of the things Harri has said about his new boss in recent years…
Johnson claims a ‘wild fantasy’
Just days before the 2016 referendum, the Remain backing Harri penned an article for Wales Online which gently ridiculed his former boss, arguing that ‘the current dream of Brexit is a wild fantasy, and curiously at odds with what Boris used to believe’ adding sadly that ‘I write as one who knows him well.’
‘Brexit destroyed him’
After Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary in July 2018, Harri told the BBC that Johnson’s support for Brexit ‘was a bad miscalculation’ arguing that ‘Brexit destroyed him… because nobody genuinely believes that he was sincere about Brexit.’ Fast-forward 12 months and Johnson was entering No. 10 as PM.
‘Sexually incontinent’
In a September 2018 interview for BBC Radio 4’s The Week In Westminster, Harri said that the-then backbencher had ‘blown up’ his own chances of becoming Prime Minister by using inflammatory language and being ‘sexually incontinent’. After Johnson likened Theresa May’s Brexit plan to a suicide vest, Harri claimed his onetime boss had dug his own ‘political grave’ following his remarks. Clearly foresight isn’t his specialty…
‘Masterclass in incompetence’
In a November 2020 article for the Telegraph after the departure of the Vote Leave team, Remain-backing Harri claimed ‘the communications strategy during this Covid crisis has been a masterclass in incompetence’ and that throughout his previous 16 months in office he had ‘been relentlessly causing offence’ acting ‘repeatedly confrontational’ and that he had seen ‘his broad church narrowed to a sect.’ Clearly so narrow that Johnson felt the need to bring even the ever-critical Harri back!
‘Not enough context’ in partygate apology
As recently as last month, Harri was a critical voice of Johnson over the way the No. 10 parties row has been handled. Appearing on Newsnight on 11 January he claimed ‘We can safely assume there were many more gatherings like this, because it seems to be a pattern’ and argued ‘the problem at the moment is nobody seems to be getting a grip.’
Having then said the following day that only a ‘really grovelling apology’ would cut it when the PM addressed the House of Commons, he subsequently claimed Johnson did not ‘provide enough context’ as to what went on there during lockdown. Less than a fortnight later on 27 January he then said ‘Boris has always underestimated how critical it is to have a fantastic team around him’ in an interview with the BBC.
Will all that now change?
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