The former Sun editor David Dinsmore has been announced as the government’s new communications chief, despite concerns about his long service at the top of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK.
Having worked as a tabloid journalist, editor and news executive since the 1990s, Dinsmore was appointed to the civil service role from a shortlist of two, beating the PR man Tim Allan, formerly an adviser to Tony Blair.
He will join the civil service as a permanent secretary for communications in the Cabinet Office in November, having served as chief operating officer of News UK, which is run by Murdoch’s ally Rebekah Brooks.
His appointment has been met with surprise and some consternation within the civil service and by some Labour figures, given the controversies that have dogged News UK over the years, from the phone-hacking scandal to its Hillsborough coverage, which led to an apology to fans.
Although Dinsmore was not editor of the Sun at the time of either episode, he has been senior at News UK for the last decade while settlements for hacking have been reached. Hacked Off, the campaign group, described his appointment as being a “dangerous misjudgment and insult to the public”.
Three Liverpool MPs – Ian Byrne, Kim Johnson and Paula Barker – sent a letter to Starmer on Wednesday expressing their concern about Dinsmore’s appointment.
Some senior Labour women were also uncomfortable with his history of having defended publishing pictures of topless women on page 3 to sell newspapers, earning him an award for “sexist of the year” in a poll run by the End Violence Against Women campaign in 2014, before he finally oversaw the abolition of the practice at the end of his tenure. As Sun editor, he was also convicted of publishing a pixellated picture of a victim of sexual abuse that still accidentally allowed her to be identified, carrying a £1,000 fine.
A staunch defender of the UK’s news media, Dinsmore told the Society of Editors in 2018 that he was “sick of our industry being done down” and once described the Leveson inquiry as having left “banana republic-style levels of secrecy” in the British state.
Journalists who worked with him at News UK said he was a “tough operator”. But Giles Kenningham, the founder of the PR firm Trafalgar Strategy and a former Conservative communications chief, said Dinsmore was “straightforward, charming and likable” with a difficult job ahead of him to take more ownership of the government’s own media channels and “turn around the supertanker of the machine without letting the bureaucracy take over”.
Those with knowledge of the decision said he had been picked to drive through change because of unhappiness within No 10 at the unwieldiness of government communications, a desire to modernise its operation and frustration.
The government communications service has thousands of staff but some in Downing Street have been frustrated by the difficulty of getting it to convey core messages, with particular annoyance at “pointless” communications that cost at lot without reaching enough people.
Despite coming from a traditional print background, starting as a reporter for the Sun in 1990 and rising to editor from 2013 to 2015, Dinsmore oversaw big digital changes at News UK from the launch of Times Radio and Talk TV to more video output at the Sun, including its own TV programme, Never Mind the Ballots.
Government sources said Dinsmore had impressed Starmer and No 10 with his ideas on new media and reaching audiences more directly. As well as directing overarching communications, he will oversee the “new media unit” driven by a Cabinet Office official, Ed Bearryman, who has previously worked with Dinsmore as a senior marketing chief at News UK.
One senior source said Downing Street wanted government communications to be “more directional and reactive” and the news executive was “politically savvy” and “long in the tooth enough” to provide the authority they needed.
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However, they suggested there could be the potential for tensions with the political communications directors James Lyons and Steph Driver, as well as other senior Labour operators, unless Dinsmore’s role was clearly defined as focused on how the civil service operates.
Another former Downing Street adviser said they viewed the appointment as a “stop Farage” play and in the tradition of many former prime ministers who had appointed red-top spinners to senior communications jobs in an effort to tap into more populist media.
With the threat of Reform continuing to grow, and Nigel Farage broadcasting his own clips and talkshows across social media platforms, the government has been considering whether it needs to communicate more directly with voters.
On Thursday, it is due to host dozens of social media influencers at a Downing Street reception. Covering areas such as personal finance, health and food, all the influencers have worked with Labour either in opposition or in government, with the aim of reaching people who consume most of their news via social media.
“This isn’t instead of our normal communications, it’s an expansion,” one official said. “We’re alive to the way people often consume media on their own terms according to their particular interests.”
While up to 90 people are expected at the Thursday afternoon event, just four names were released in advance: the personal finance influencers Abigail Foster and Gabriel Nussbaum, the latter of whom posts under the moniker of That Money Guy; Georgia Harrison, who has campaigned about online imagery and so-called revenge porn, and Chetna Makan, a chef and writer who appeared on The Great British Bake Off.
In a statement about his appointment, Dinsmore said it was an “honour to be asked to lead this important mission at such a pivotal moment”.
“Clear and engaging communications are central to public trust, policy delivery and national resilience,” he said. “The media landscape is evolving at a rapid pace, supercharged by AI, and I look forward to helping the government leverage the exciting opportunities in front of us.”
