Yahoo News Boris Johnson's New Spin Doctor Once Accused Him Of 'Digging His Political Grave'
Boris Johnson’s new spin doctor once said he was “digging his political grave” by joking about suicide vests and being “sexually incontinent”.
Guto Harri also predicted that Johnson would be a “hugely divisive figure” if he became Conservative Party leader.
Harri has been appointed the new Downing Street director of communications as part of a major Number 10 shake-up in the wake of the partygate scandal.
Conservative minister Steve Barclay has also been made chief of staff as the prime minister tries to avoid a vote of no confidence in his future.
A dozen Tory MPs have announced that they have submitted letters of no confidence in the PM, with several more publicly calling on him to go. A total of 54 letters a needed to trigger a vote.
Harri, a former BBC journalist, was a senior adviser to Johnson when he was mayor of London.
He replaces former No. 10 communications chief Jack Doyle, who was one of five aides to quit Downing Street in the space of 24 hours at the end of last week.
Announcing Harri and Barclay’s appointments on Saturday night, the PM said: “The changes I’m announcing to my senior team today will improve how No. 10 operates, strengthen the role of my Cabinet and backbench colleagues, and accelerate our defining mission to level up the country.”
But it soon emerged that in 2018, when Johnson was Foreign Secretary, Harri was highly critical of his behaviour.
Referring to a column Johnson had written accusing then PM Theresa May’s Brexit deal of wrapping “a suicide vest around the British constitution”, Harri told the BBC: “Unfortunately he is now dragging us into a place where we think that we can joke about suicide vests and that we can be sexually incontinent.
“Somebody needs to take the spade out of his hand or it looks to me like he’s digging his political grave.
“He was a huge unifying figure by the end of my time with him when the Olympics happened in London. He would not have been re-elected in a left-leaning city like London if he hadn’t appealed to the left.”
“Now he’s gone the other way. He’s become more tribal, and tribal within the tribe, so that he would now be — if he were to become leader — a hugely divisive figure.”
Just last month, Harri criticised the scandal over alleged parties in Downing Street and Whitehall during lockdown, and cast doubt on whether Johnson could survive.
He told the BBC’s Newscast podcast: “Boris has always underestimated how critical it is to have a fantastic team around him. And I don’t think, even if he can pull this back, he will be allowed to do it unless he promises to his party that he’s going to overhaul that machinery so the kind of nonsense that has happened and the bad stuff that has happened over the last weeks and months will never happen again.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.
