Guto Harri Keynote Speaker

Director of Communications for Boris Johnson in No10
Former Director of Communications for NewsUK
18 year career as a BBC journalist, including Chief Political Correspondent (2002-05)

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Guto Harri's Biography

Guto spent the last 8 months at the heart of No10 during one of the most most tempestuous periods in recent political history.

Having met Boris Johnson at University and worked for him when he was Mayor of London he entered Downing Street when the Prime Minister was fighting for his political life. As Director of Comms, he oversaw the response to the police investigation into “partygate” the Sue Gray inquiry, a vote of no confidence and ultimate implosion of the cabinet which led to the PM’s downfall.

More importantly, Guto listened in on the intimate calls between Boris Johnson and President Zelensky, joined the PM on foreign visits and international summits to rally support for the Ukraine, helped him end the final covid restrictions and start to grapple with the enormous challenges of the cost of living crisis.

He witnessed the stresses and strains, character strengths and flaws, personality clashes, heroic ambitions frustrated by politics and bureaucracy and the bizarre traits of an unorthodox Prime Minister with and inimitable and relentless sense of humour.

Guto has stories that will astonish and entertain, he can share insights on the new PM and her key lieutenants, and having covered British politics for decades at the BBC, he has astute observations on the strengths and failures of our system after the major upsets of the last few years.

Guto’s gruelling challenge in No10 was helped by his successful overhaul of the reputation of news international after the phone hacking crisis, and project work on some of the most demanding cases in communications. He also drew on 18 years as a senior BBC correspondent covering U.K. politics and posted to Rome and New York