Downing Street Spaffs Hundreds of Thousands on TikTok Gurus During Comms Crisis – Guido Fawkes

Downing Street Spaffs Hundreds of Thousands on TikTok Gurus During Comms Crisis

mdi-fullscreen

Downing Street briefed the creation of its ‘New Media Unit’ to ‘break out of the bubble’ in November last year. It has only kicked into gear in the last two months or so…

As Guido revealed in March the government’s last hiring spree picked up £697,474 worth of new staff. Guido’s FoI Unit has now established that there are 13 staff, who only have to turn up to the office 60% of the time, in total. Bringing the average wage to £53,652 and above…

Since its foundation the TikTok unit has also spent £76,963 on procuring advertising services. It has so far set up a Reddit account for the government and brought in influencers to ask them for help on communications and policy. No boost to Starmer’s favourability ratings yet…

The government isn’t so keen on revealing what the salary bands or basic terms of reference are – to do so would apparently “prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs… discussions and communications rely on their own safe space within which issues can be discussed openly and frankly.“ A ridiculous use of exception rules…

The government has concurrently let go of its communications chief Simon Baugh to replace his role with a permanent secretary position. Tough to communicate the ‘missions’ when they keep changing…