As Boris Johnson seeks to reinvigorate the leadership campaign that he hopes will take him to Downing Street next month, he has reshuffled his top team.
Here is what you need to know about four key aides behind the former foreign secretary’s bid to replace Theresa May as Conservative party leader and prime minister.
Iain Duncan Smith
Campaign chairman
When Mr Johnson appointed Mr Duncan Smith to chair his campaign on Tuesday, the political messaging was unmistakable.
The former Conservative leader has long been one of the leading lights in the European Research Group of hard Brexiter backbench Conservative MPs.
His appointment will be seen as a move to shore up support for Mr Johnson in the ERG after some its members had wondered whether the former foreign secretary was starting to wobble on his commitment to leave the EU on the scheduled Brexit date of October 31, “deal or no-deal”.
In recent days, Mr Johnson appeared to downgrade the October 31 date, merely describing it “eminently feasible” rather than a cast-iron deadline.
Mr Duncan Smith’s appointment came within hours of Mr Johnson ramping up his promise to leave on October 31, saying it was a “do or die” commitment.
“Iain has been brought in to keep Boris onside on Brexit,” said one MP. “He’s there to ensure discipline and to guarantee that there’s a strong link between Boris and the parliamentary party in this final stage of the campaign.”
Mr Duncan Smith came to prominence as one of the backbench MPs who haunted John Major’s government over the Maastricht treaty in the 1990s. He has since had mixed fortunes in frontline politics. His brief leadership of the Conservative party was widely written off as a failure and his tenure as work and pensions secretary was blighted by his controversial introduction of universal credit.
Mark Fullbrook
Chief executive
One of the Conservative party’s most skilled grassroots campaigners, Mr Fullbrook has taken the de facto role as chief executive for the second phase of Mr Johnson’s leadership campaign. During this time, Mr Johnson needs to consolidate his backing among the 160,000 party activists who will choose between him and Jeremy Hunt by the end of July.
Mr Fullbrook is a close associate of Lynton Crosby, the leading political tactician, in the political consultancy CTF Partners. While Sir Lynton is widely regarded as an expert on national election campaigning, Mr Fullbrook has an unsurpassed knowledge of the Tory operation at association level.
“Mark is now in charge of the entire campaign effort for Boris, ranging from the overall strategic picture to the day-to-day grid,” said one MP. “Now that the MPs’ voting phase is over, he is the person running the show.”
Mr Fullbrook first came to prominence in 1992, when he ran a target seats campaign that helped John Major win that year’s general election against all predictions. In 2012 he was deputy campaign director for Mr Johnson’s victorious re-election campaign as Mayor of London. Allies say he has run over 20 campaigns around the world from the Bahamas to Kazakhstan.
Carrie Symonds
Informal adviser
Ms Symonds, 31, became Mr Johnson’s partner following his separation from his wife Marina last year. She has no formal role in his campaign for the Conservative leadership, but she clearly has considerable influence. She is said to have sharpened Mr Johnson’s somewhat shambolic image and encouraged him to focus on policy detail, an area in which he has often been criticised for his alleged lack of command.
Ms Symonds, a graduate of Warwick University, is a PR professional who spent eight years working in advisory and communications roles at Conservative party headquarters. In her last position, as head of communications, she improved the party’s presence on social media.
She quit that role in 2018, before starting at Bloomberg as PR for the group’s Vibrant Oceans programme, a philanthropic initiative to ensure ocean ecosystems survive. MPs say she has moved green issues and the environment up the Johnson agenda.
Ms Symonds campaigned to change the law to prevent the release of John Worboys, the convicted rapist, who had attempted to assault her in his taxi when she was 19.
Last week she became the focus of national media attention after police were called to her London flat following a loud altercation with Mr Johnson.
Lee Cain
Chief spokesman
Mr Johnson’s 37-year-old aide is a familiar figure to political journalists in the press gallery at the Palace of Westminster where he patrols a corridor known, for reasons that are unclear, as “Burma Road”.
Mr Cain, a former journalist on the Sun and the Mail on Sunday, worked for Vote Leave, the official campaign led by Mr Johnson and Michael Gove in the 2016 EU referendum. There he answered directly to Dominic Cummings, the strategist behind Vote Leave’s victory.
When Mr Johnson subsequently became foreign secretary, Mr Cain was hired as special adviser in charge of media for the Foreign Office. He has also worked for Mr Gove at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Mr Cain, a Lancastrian, is a savvy media operator, referred to by some political journalists as “Boris’s man on earth”. He has been thought to be in consideration for the role of director of communications in Number 10. But friends think he is unlikely to follow Mr Johnson into Downing Street, believing Mr Cain will consider it “job done” if he has helped guide the former foreign secretary from the backbenches to the summit of power.
