With Keir Starmer and Labour looking likely to form the next government, Rishi Sunak and his advisers have seized upon what they see as a big idea that they will aim to project for all it is worth at their Manchester conference.
Although the Tories have been in power for more than 13 years, they believe they can portray Sunak as the leader who represents “change” and “new thinking”.
Normally those labels would be associated with the leader of the opposition, coming with fresh thinking and ideas. But in No 10 they think they can perform an audacious reversal and paint Starmer as cautious and uninteresting, and Sunak as fizzing with ideas. Their challenge is to disassociate and disconnect Sunak with the 13 years that went before.
Who, then, is the Team Sunak behind the masterplan?
Liam Booth-Smith
The 36-year-old cricket-loving chief of staff from Stoke-on-Trent helps to connect the hugely wealthy Sunak with the real world. Raised by a single mother on a council estate, he is said to have his boss’s trust more than any other adviser.
Isaac Levido
Out of the Lynton Crosby school of political strategists, Levido is credited with much of the recent Sunak rethink, including climate policy. The Australian ran the Tories’ 2019 election campaign. Not officially employed at No 10, Levido, 40, runs a private consultancy, Fleetwood Strategy, which does political campaign management and opinion research.
James Forsyth
The former Spectator political editor is married to Boris Johnson’s former media chief Allegra Stratton. Forsyth, 42, has been close to Sunak since school — Winchester College — and was best man at his wedding. His ties to Westminster journalists and knowledge of how to work media channels are invaluable.
Eleanor Shawcross
A public policy specialist, Shawcross, 40, is heavily involved in policy development, having worked in George Osborne’s Treasury. She held several special adviser posts clocking up experience of how different departments work — and fail to work — together. Married to Next retail tycoon Lord Wolfson, she is regarded as one of the brains of the operation.
Nerissa Chesterfield
Recently appointed as director of communications after the sudden departure of Amber de Botton, who spent barely a year in the role. Chesterfield worked on the media side with Sunak when he was chancellor and was also involved in the Vote Leave campaign and at the rightwing Institute for Economic Affairs.
Will Tanner and Rupert Yorke
Deputies to Booth-Smith, with Tanner on the policy side and Yorke on political duties. Tanner is a former thinktanker who helped found the centre-right operation Onward, which specialises in research about the “red wall”. Yorke was brought with Sunak from his days in the Treasury where he handled relations with MPs.
Jamie Njoku-Goodwin
A former special adviser to Matt Hancock and ex-housemate of Booth-Smith. He has only recently returned to government, having left in 2020 to become chief executive of UK Music. Njoku-Goodwin, 42, was brought in to help shape the strategy and image of Sunak in the run-up to the next election.
