Blair to appoint Tory as top media chief
Tony Blair is set to appoint a Tory to head the government’s communications department.
Howell James, a former aide to Tory leader John Major and Cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher, has accepted the £120,000-a-year the job of permanent secretary in charge of communications.
The government’s apparent U-turn on “spin culture” follows the resignation of Alastair Campbell, Downing Street’s controversial director of communications and strategy, a dominant figure at the side of Mr Blair.
And last month, Geoff Mulgan, head of the No 10’s strategy unit, announced his decision to leave Downing Street for a new job at the Institute of Contemporary Studies.
Private secretary Jeremy Heywood, media aide Anji Hunter, senior foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning, and chief European adviser Sir Stephen Wall have already upped sticks.
Pundits view Mr James’ appointment as a move to rebuild the fraught and fractured relationship with the BBC, made worse by the Dr David Kelly scandal. Mr James was a former head of corporate affairs at the Corporation.
Some view the appointment of a career civil servant as a bid by No 10 to draw a line under the government’s rocky marriage with media “manipulation” and to rebuff claims that Labour politicised Whitehall.
But it may also reignite the debate on Labour’s links to sleaze and cronyism as Mr James was a former PR man for brothers, Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja.
Labour came in for criticism after the Hindujas “cash for passports” affair, which led to the resignation of Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson. Mr James is also a close friend of Mr Mandelson.
