When Guto Harri walked into Downing Street on Monday to start his new job as the prime minister’s director of communications, he told waiting reporters that his first task was to distribute the contents of a Tesco bag he was carrying to staff.
Spring water and healthy snacks, he insisted. (Seems legit, since we all know now that booze is only brought in by the suitcase load.)
The journalists scurried away to stock up on popcorn.
It was always likely that the new cast of Boris Johnson’s goon show was going to be entertaining. But the early signs are that this could be one of the classic episodes. Up there with The One Where Dom Drives About to Test His Eyesight and The One Where Boris Gets Computer Lessons From a Sexy Lady.
The correct response from Harri ought to have been silence. Head down, through the famous black door and get on with the task of rebuilding some credibility in Number 10.
The fact that he responded, and with humour, highlights that this is a man not afraid of the spotlight. In a job where you are supposed to do everything but end up in the spotlight.
Men in grey suits are now men in clown suits
Tory Party apparatchiks used to be so anonymous, they were actually known as the “men in grey suits”. Now they are the men in clown suits.
Though Harri opened his account by insisting that his new boss is “not a total clown”. And his stout defence of Boris Johnson went further. He also revealed that the PM is “not the devil”. Perhaps he was indulging in some expectation management; after all, the only way is up once you’ve cleared the actual lowest bar of not being the devil.
Having taken advice from a distinguished predecessor, I’m delighted to confirm that I have accepted the role of Director of Comms for @BorisJohnson. Joining a formidable team to focus on the things that matter and deliver what he promised to the people pic.twitter.com/6zro9G6nj1
— Guto Harri (@Guto_Harri) February 6, 2022
The fact Harri gave the interview in Welsh begs the question whether the “devil” line was lost in translation, but it also suggests he’s already fitting in with a proud Downing Street tradition – total ignorance of Google translate.
Through the long Brexit hoo-ha, Theresa May, her ministers and her detractors would give interviews setting out their negotiating stance to sympathetic titles, seemingly unaware that their counterparts in Brussels had the capacity to read these articles through the power of translation.
It’s no wonder Brexit was a shambles when so many ministers could not distinguish between multilingualism and magic. Now the same spell has been cast on Harri’s Welsh words.
No political progress, just survival
Guto Harri is an ex-BBC man and he previously worked alongside Boris Johnson when the latter was Mayor of London. In his interview, he revealed that at their first meeting last week to discuss teaming up again, the pair ended up singing Gloria Gaynor track, I Will Survive.
And that is the most telling moment of this latest instalment in the Downing Street drama. The starting point in their discussion was not the work to be done, the damage to democracy to be repaired. It was political survival.
Harri recounted the meeting between himself and the PM as a dinner party anecdote to draw some laughter. To right-thinking folk, it is downright crass
At a time when many people are wondering how they’ll survive another winter in the face of a colossal energy price hike, while others are mourning friends and relatives who did not survive this administration’s bungled response to the pandemic.
Harri recounted the meeting between himself and the PM as a dinner party anecdote to draw some laughter. To right-thinking folk, it is downright crass.
Hardly surprising, given the write-up one of his former BBC colleagues gave me of a man who is oafish, overbearing and unable to eat soup without getting in a mess. In other words, someone a lot like Boris Johnson.
The line-up changes but the song stays the same
It’s a fundamental recruitment fail to hire only people in your own image. Yet, the PM is a repeat offender.
This is the man who brought Dominic Cummings into Downing Street on the basis that he was a fellow maverick. For maverick, read “chancer”. It didn’t take great political insight to predict that Cummings’ stint at the heart of power was going to end swiftly and messily.
Similarly, it’s not a very valuable predication to say that a man who walked into Downing Street singing I Will Survive will not.
It increasingly appears that Downing Street takes its cue not from Gloria Gaynor but from another classic soul act – the Four Tops. Over the years, the band changed so much that, eventually, there were no original members left, yet they were still banging out Reach Out I’ll Be There and Walk Away Renee.
Boris Johnson’s band of bampots may have a new line-up, but they remain unserious, egotistical and, uniformly, men.
It’s a Four Tops song that sums up the goings-on in Downing Street. The personnel may have changed, but It’s The Same Old Song.
James Millar is a political commentator, author and a former Westminster correspondent for The Sunday Post
