Revealed: Elegant ‘gazelle’ spotted next to No 10 ‘pit pony’ Dominic Cummings is head of task force fast-tracking female Tory MPs into key government roles and pal of Boris’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds
- Ms Watson, 31, has developed a strong working relationship with Boris’s adviser
- Cleo Watson is also close to the Prime Minister’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds
- After her time with the Vote Leave campaign, Ms Watson joined No 10 when Theresa May was Prime Minister
It has become a familiar ritual in Downing Street: photographers clamour to take pictures of elegant Cleo Watson as she strides towards the No 10 door with a dishevelled Dominic Cummings, the pair looking, as one wag put it, like ‘a gazelle with a pit pony’.
They may be poles apart sartorially but Ms Watson, 31, has developed a strong working relationship with Boris Johnson’s all-powerful, idiosyncratic adviser since they worked together on Vote Leave before the 2016 EU referendum.
Significantly, she is also close to the Prime Minister’s girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, also 31. She accompanied her on a flight to Aberdeen last September when Mr Johnson had a formal audience and dinner with the Queen at Balmoral.
Close friends: Cleo and the PM’s aide Dominic Cummings stroll along Downing Street
As the rather grandly titled head of the Prime Minister’s priorities and campaigns, Ms Watson runs the special taskforce that will fast-track new Northern female Tory MPs from the 2019 intake into key government roles.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that the unit will focus on helping MPs including Dehenna Davison, 26, the first Conservative to represent the Bishop Auckland constituency since its creation in 1885.
Ms Davison and Ms Watson may share the same objective, but their backgrounds could hardly be more different.
The former was just 13 when she learned that her father had been killed in a pub fight and went on to marry a local councillor 35 years her senior. The latter grew up in Trebinshun House, a 400-year-old mansion in the Brecon Beacons National Park which her parents have now converted into an elite English language school.
As a sixth-former at a nearby girls’ private school, Ms Watson wrote an article for The Spectator magazine, describing it as ‘St Thinians’ due to the prevalence of eating disorders. ‘The signs of a proper, full-blown size-zero infection are easy to spot,’ she observed.
Unflappable: Cleo with Carrie Symonds ahead of the PM’s audience with the Queen
‘They include having a jug of water and nothing else for breakfast, always going into tea to see what cakes are on offer and then sitting down to watch hungrily as other people eat them, spending hours analysing every aspect of the appearance of celebrities, models and television stars…
‘It’s not a healthy look that the size-zero girls are after, remember – the aim is simply to be as tiny as possible…
‘None would dream of confiding in their parents or their boyfriend. Boys our age seem totally oblivious to female psychology and, anyway, what girl would ever admit to starving themselves for a boy’s benefit?’
After her time with the Vote Leave campaign, Ms Watson joined No 10 when Theresa May was Prime Minister.
She inadvertently played a crucial role in the frenzied build-up to the EU referendum. As Mr Johnson agonised over whether to back Leave or Remain, the world’s media waited outside his London home for a decision. Suddenly, Ms Watson was spotted rushing inside carrying Vote Leave campaign material – and the secret was out. Aides describe her as a vital fixer, popular and keen to shun publicity.
Recently married to a financier called Tom, she is said to have ‘strong personal chemistry’ with Ms Symonds.
One former No 10 aide said: ‘Everyone wants Cleo to accompany them to events. She is completely unflappable, even when acting as Dominic’s minder to protect him from aggressive TV crews.
‘It sounds cheesy, but she is as beautiful inside as she is outside.’