If you follow social media you may have seen a story about Boris Johnson trying to appoint Carrie Symonds as his Chief of Staff when he was briefly Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s Government. It didn’t happen and the story, though apparently not denied, was pulled from early editions of the Times.
A recent biography of Johnson by Tom Bowker notes that Johnson was already fed up because Symonds had been fired by Brandon Lewis as Head of Tory Comms and assumed this was May’s work
Why is this story of any interest? Because it plays to what we know of how Johnson goes on in Government. Jobs are given not on merit but as sinecures and favours to those who back Johnson. Its the world of pre-1832 Old Corruption where democratic oversight and accountability had little influence
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