Another former long-serving adviser to Michael Gove, Newman became senior special adviser at Number Ten in February 2020. Though not aligned with the Cummings wing of Downing Street politics, Newman subscribes to the former Number Ten strategist’s view of politics as a continuous campaign. He became a notable Brexit spokesperson as director of Eurosceptic think tank Open Europe, appearing on Sky News and Politics Live seemingly more than the programme hosts. Newman also worked for the Vote Leave campaign, and is currently in his third post as a Whitehall adviser, having first worked for Francis Maude in the Cabinet Office alongside Baroness Finn during the coalition government. Newman was also a key member of Gove’s leadership campaign in 2016, in which he withdrew support for Boris Johnson at the last minute. Crucially, Newman is an ally of Carrie Symonds. The pair worked closely together during her time as a special adviser and the Conservatives’ director of communications, and have remained close personally and politically in recent years. Indeed, when Newman was alleged to have been at the centre of a Downing Street briefing war in late 2020 which many saw as a sexist attack on Symonds, political journalists correctly placed Newman firmly on ‘Team Carrie’.
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