\n<\/p>\n
The former Sun editor David Dinsmore has been announced as the government\u2019s new communications chief, despite concerns about his long service at the top of Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News UK.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s ally Rebekah Brooks.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cdangerous misjudgment and insult to the public\u201d.<\/p>\n
Three Liverpool MPs \u2013 Ian Byrne, Kim Johnson and Paula Barker \u2013 sent a letter to Starmer on Wednesday expressing their concern about Dinsmore\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n
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 \u201csexist of the year\u201d 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 \u00a31,000 fine.<\/p>\n
A staunch defender of the UK\u2019s news media, Dinsmore told the Society of Editors in 2018 that he was \u201csick of our industry being done down\u201d and once described the Leveson inquiry as having left \u201cbanana republic-style levels of secrecy\u201d in the British state.<\/p>\n
Journalists who worked with him at News UK said he was a \u201ctough operator\u201d. But Giles Kenningham, the founder of the PR firm Trafalgar Strategy and a former Conservative communications chief, said Dinsmore was \u201cstraightforward, charming and likable\u201d with a difficult job ahead of him to take more ownership of the government\u2019s own media channels and \u201cturn around the supertanker of the machine without letting the bureaucracy take over\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cpointless\u201d communications that cost at lot without reaching enough people.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cnew media unit\u201d driven by a Cabinet Office official, Ed Bearryman, who has previously worked with Dinsmore as a senior marketing chief at News UK.<\/p>\n
One senior source said Downing Street wanted government communications to be \u201cmore directional and reactive\u201d and the news executive was \u201cpolitically savvy\u201d and \u201clong in the tooth enough\u201d to provide the authority they needed.<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n 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\u2019s role was clearly defined as focused on how the civil service operates.<\/p>\n Another former Downing Street adviser said they viewed the appointment as a \u201cstop Farage\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t instead of our normal communications, it\u2019s an expansion,\u201d one official said. \u201cWe\u2019re alive to the way people often consume media on their own terms according to their particular interests.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In a statement about his appointment, Dinsmore said it was an \u201chonour to be asked to lead this important mission at such a pivotal moment\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cClear and engaging communications are central to public trust, policy delivery and national resilience,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The former Sun editor David Dinsmore has been announced as the government\u2019s new communications chief, despite concerns about his long service at the top of Rupert Murdoch\u2019s 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,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1685,689,5865,3523,2984,205,2641],"class_list":{"0":"post-13198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-announced","9":"tag-chief","10":"tag-communications","11":"tag-editor","12":"tag-governments","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-sun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}