A Cardiff University graduate who worked as one of Boris Johnson's aides has described her role in "nannying" the needy PM during the pandemic. Cleo Watson, who went to Haberdashers' Monmouth School for girl, worked in Downing Street from 2019 to 2020 and given a scathing insight into life with Mr Johnson behind the scenes.
Writing for society magazine Tatler she claims staff had to barricade the Prime Minister inside his office with a "puppy gate" to stop him leaving the room while isolating after he was 'pinged'.
A former Vote Leave campaigner, Ms Watson was bought into Number 10 by Dominic Cummings and left shortly after his departure in November 2020. She was regularly pictured accompanying him into Downing Street in pictures that earned her the nickname "the gazelle".
Read more: The main reason people think Boris Johnson was forced to quit as Prime Minister
In her article Ms Watson said: "My role at No 10 sounds fancy, but a lot of the time I was much closer to being Boris' nanny. At the start of the pandemic, testing was limited so, like everyone else, the PM regularly had his temperature taken to check for symptoms.
"This was generally done by me, towering over him (with or without heels – I generally found it useful to be physically intimidating in the role of nanny), one hand on a hip, teapot-style, and the other brandishing an oral digital thermometer. 'It's that time again, Prime Minister!'' I'd say. Each time, never willing to miss a good slapstick opportunity, he dutifully feigned bending over."
She added: "The PM himself was subject to a fair amount of house-training. Like many, he was 'pinged' a couple of times and insisted on working from his downstairs office while isolating.
"Very soon, this required setting up chairs as barriers in the doorway, as he couldn't resist stepping over the threshold into our adjoining room to peer over shoulders at what people were working on (invariably in a pair of someone else's reading glasses he'd found lying around).
"So the prime ministerial 'puppy gate' was created. He'd kneel on the seats, his elbows propped over the top, like a great unruly golden retriever, howling for attention."
The 33-year-old woman is remarkably driven and at one pointed boasted the title of 'head of the Prime Minister's priorities and campaigns'. One of five high-achieving sisters, they reportedly all enjoyed an idyllic childhood in a mansion in the Brecon Beacons. All five have gone on to high-flying careers in politics, business, and journalism. Cleo Watson is actually the second Watson to work closely with a Tory leader – her sister Annabel was Theresa May's chief of staff between 2006 and 2010.
The country pile – which their father inherited from the Hamilton dynasty – is still in the possession of the Watson family and is today run as an English language school in the heart of the Brecon Beacons. Ms Watson's time at Number 10 came to a close after Mr Cummings was ousted from the top table in a power battle with the PM's wife Carrie Johnson. In her article she claimed Mr Johnson had forced her out too.
She wrote: "The end for me came in November 2020, about two weeks after Dom's hurried departure. The PM had been isolating after his latest 'ping' and he and I finally reunited in the Cabinet room, where we had an exchange that I am sure may have been familiar to many of his girlfriends.
"He said a lot of things, the most succinct being: 'I can't look at you any more because it reminds me of Dom. It's like a marriage has ended, we've divided up our things and I've kept an ugly old lamp. But every time I look at that lamp, it reminds me of the person I was with. You're that lamp.'
"A lamp! Still, he presumably knows better than most how it feels when a marriage breaks up."
Ms Watson is due to release a book about salacious goings-on in Westminster. Erotic political thriller Whips! is due to be released next May. It has been described as a cross between House Of Cards and 50 Shades Of Grey – with characters said to be based on real-life political figures.
READ NEXT:
