Cleo Watson is a British author and former special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. [1]
Watson attended Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls. [2] She grew up in Hay-on-Wye and studied politics and economics at Cardiff University. [3]
In 2012, Watson interned for the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign. [3] She joined 10 Downing Street in 2019, as an ally of Dominic Cummings and a former employee at Vote Leave. [4]
She described working for Boris Johnson during the COVID-19 pandemic as being a like a "nanny" to him. [5] She was fined after the Partygate scandal. [6] Following the Sue Gray report it emerged that Watson had organised the event. [7] In November 2020, she left Downing Street alongside Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain. [8] In September 2022, she was a panellist on the debut episode of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on BBC One. [9]
Watson is an author of two books. [10] In 2024, she described Johnson as "quiet, bookish and, occasionally, extremely nasty". [11]
Watson's sister Annabel worked as chief of staff for Theresa May from 2006 and 2010 when she was Shadow Leader of the House of Commons and Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary. [2]
Watson was portrayed by Naomi Battrick in the Channel 4 drama Partygate . [12] She was portrayed by Greta Bellamacina in the Sky Atlantic docudrama television miniseries This England. [13]
The Downing Street chief of staff is the most senior political appointee in the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, acting as a senior aide to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The holder of the office retains a highly powerful, non-ministerial position within His Majesty's Government.
To date, forty-seven women and three men have been married to the British prime minister in office. There have also been four bachelor and nine widower prime ministers; the last bachelor was Edward Heath (1970–1974) and the last widower was Ramsay MacDonald. The Duke of Grafton (1768–1770) and Boris Johnson (2019–2022) are the only prime ministers to have divorced and remarried while in office.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
Dominic Mckenzie Cummings is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until he resigned on 13 November 2020.
Susan Gray is a British special adviser and former civil servant who served as Downing Street Chief of Staff under Prime Minister Keir Starmer from July to October 2024, having previously served under Starmer as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Opposition from 2023 to 2024.
Caroline Louise Beavan Johnson is an English media consultant and is married to Boris Johnson. She is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent.
The Dominic Cummings scandal, or the Dominic Cummings affair, was a series of events involving the British political strategist Dominic Cummings during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. The events include at least one journey that Cummings, the then chief adviser of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and his family made from London to County Durham after the start of a national lockdown in March 2020 while they were experiencing symptoms of COVID-19.
Helen MacNamara is a British former civil servant, who served as the Deputy Cabinet Secretary in the Cabinet Office from 2020 to 2021. She had previously worked as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet from January 2019 and was Director General for Propriety and Ethics in 2018. Previous to this, she was the Director General for Housing and Planning in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. She worked for Jeremy Heywood in the Cabinet Secretariat from 2013 to 2016.
Daniel Robert Rosenfield, Baron Rosenfield is a British political adviser and civil servant who served as the Downing Street Chief of Staff from January 2021 to February 2022. Between July 2007 and April 2011, he served as the principal private secretary to chancellors Alistair Darling and George Osborne, and subsequently as a managing director for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
This England is a British docudrama television miniseries written by Michael Winterbottom and Kieron Quirke. It depicts the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom based on testimonies of people in the Boris Johnson administration, on the various intergovernmental advisory groups, and in other affected British institutions such as care homes and hospitals. It premiered on Sky Atlantic and Now on 28 September 2022. Kenneth Branagh stars as Boris Johnson, and Ophelia Lovibond as Carrie Symonds.
Jack Doyle is a British journalist who served as Downing Street Director of Communications from April 2021 to February 2022.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is an ongoing, independent public inquiry into the United Kingdom's response to, and the impact of, the COVID-19 pandemic, and to learn lessons for the future. Public hearings began in June 2023. Boris Johnson announced the inquiry in May 2021, to start in Spring 2022. In December 2021, Heather Hallett was announced as the chair of the inquiry.
Partygate was a political scandal in the United Kingdom about gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gatherings. The scandal contributed to Boris Johnson's downfall as Prime Minister and his resignation as an MP.
Pippa Crerar is a British journalist who is the political editor of The Guardian. She was previously the Daily Mirror's political editor from 2018 to 2022. While at the Mirror, she reported extensively on Partygate, a political scandal that culminated in the resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from January to June 2022.
The July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered by Boris Johnson's announcement on 7 July 2022 that he would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following a series of political controversies.
On 6 June 2022, a vote of confidence was held amongst Conservative Party MPs on the prime minister, Boris Johnson's, leadership of their party. Johnson won the vote with the support of 211 Conservative members of Parliament, 58.8% of the total. Out of 359 MPs, 148 (41.2%) voted against him.
The 2022 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are honours awarded following the September 2022 resignation of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom in 2023.
Partygate is a British satirical political docudrama. It is a fictionalised dramatisation of the political scandal dubbed "Partygate" in British politics during the prime ministerial government of Boris Johnson. It mixes contemporary news footage with dramatisations of parties in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. It was broadcast on Channel 4 on 3 October 2023.