{"id":678,"date":"2025-08-01T22:42:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=678"},"modified":"2025-08-01T22:42:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:42:56","slug":"david-camerons-ex-chief-of-staff-to-advise-uk-foreign-secretary-david-lammy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=678","title":{"rendered":"David Cameron\u2019s ex-chief of staff to advise UK foreign secretary David Lammy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=d1d94155-d12b-4dc4-a208-e3b21ed63112\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Lord Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron\u2019s former chief of staff, is to take up a role advising Labour foreign secretary David Lammy, as part of a radical shake-up at the Foreign, Commonwealth &amp; Development Office.<\/p>\n<p>Llewellyn, Britain\u2019s ambassador to Italy, will become political director at the FCDO, a civil service role in which he will act as Lammy\u2019s international fixer and strategic foreign policy adviser, according to people briefed on the appointment.<\/p>\n<p>The appointment is part of a shake-up by permanent secretary Sir Olly Robbins, who has cut FCDO senior management in London to focus on the international network.<\/p>\n<p>Robbins has cut from nine to six the number of directors-general at FCDO headquarters in King Charles Street, while he has hired Helena Vega-Lozano, a partner at Deloitte, as chief operating officer, people briefed on the shake-up said.<\/p>\n<p>Some diplomats have expressed concern that Robbins\u2019 shake-up is part of a trend in which top foreign policy jobs in Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s government are going to people from outside the traditional network.<\/p>\n<p>Llewellyn, a longtime Conservative official who ran Cameron\u2019s Downing Street operation from 2010-2016, was the personal choice of the former Tory prime minister as Britain\u2019s ambassador to Paris, where he served from 2016-2021.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that the plum job in Paris went to a political appointment rankled with diplomats at the time, in spite of Llewellyn\u2019s impressive CV, which spanned a range of international arenas.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"n-content-image n-content-image--full\" data-component=\"image-set\"><picture><source media=\"(min-width: 700px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A567afe71-6dd0-44d0-96f1-ef4b6de407dd?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=1 1x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A567afe71-6dd0-44d0-96f1-ef4b6de407dd?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=2 2x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A567afe71-6dd0-44d0-96f1-ef4b6de407dd?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=3 3x\" width=\"2103\" height=\"1402\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2F567afe71-6dd0-44d0-96f1-ef4b6de407dd.jpg?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=1\" alt=\"David Cameron (left) and his chief of staff Ed Llewellyn leave 10 Downing Street in December 2015\" data-image-type=\"image\" width=\"2103\" height=\"1402\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/picture><figcaption class=\"n-content-picture__caption o3-editorial-typography-caption\"><span>David Cameron (left) and his chief of staff Ed Llewellyn leave 10 Downing Street in December 2015<\/span><span> <!-- -->\u00a9 Stefan Rousseau\/PA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He had worked with Chris Patten, Britain\u2019s last governor of Hong Kong, during his time as a European Commissioner in Brussels, and as chief of staff to Paddy Ashdown, the high representative in Sarajevo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is remarkable how Ed has bridged from being Tory special adviser to being the choice of a Labour government for a very senior policy job,\u201d said one Foreign Office veteran.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe deserves it, but there are some people grumbling over the growing number of highly able and experienced people who have not been able to get a senior job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Starmer\u2019s administration has often turned to outsiders to beef up its foreign policy operation, which is often seen as far more effective than his stuttering domestic operation.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Peter Mandelson, a former Labour cabinet minister was named Britain\u2019s ambassador to Washington last year, while Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair\u2019s former chief of staff, is national security adviser. <\/p>\n<p>Like those appointments, Robbins himself is not a lifetime diplomat. Meanwhile Michael Ellam, an ex-HSBC executive and former press secretary to Labour premier Gordon Brown, was hired to oversee the UK-EU \u201creset\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A FCDO spokesperson said: \u201cThe selection process for director-general executive team members was open to a diverse pool of applicants from across the civil service, and, where appropriate, beyond.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll appointments were made following a rigorous and open competition, overseen by the Civil Service Commission, ensuring that the selection process was fair, transparent, and based on merit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year the Financial Times revealed that Robbins had told staff to expect a \u201csignificant\u201d cut in staff numbers as he seeks to focus resources on the overseas network.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Robbins, Britain\u2019s former chief Brexit negotiator hired from the advisory firm Hakluyt, decided to cut back a whole tier of management, reducing the number of directors from about 50 to just 30 in a process that saw directors-general forced to reapply for their own jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#David #Camerons #exchief #staff #advise #foreign #secretary #David #Lammy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Lord Ed Llewellyn, David Cameron\u2019s former chief of staff, is to take up a role advising Labour foreign secretary David Lammy, as part of a radical shake-up at the Foreign, Commonwealth &amp; Development Office. Llewellyn, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[661,659,658,660,231,663,662,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-advise","9":"tag-camerons","10":"tag-david","11":"tag-exchief","12":"tag-foreign","13":"tag-lammy","14":"tag-secretary","15":"tag-staff"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}