Osborne’s PR provides jobs for the boys at Deliveroo
HAVING transformed the public image of former Chancellor George Osborne, Thea Rogers is using her lucrative new job to help enrich her old Downing Street colleagues.
After Osborne was sacked by Theresa May, Rogers took up a sixfigure position as public relations chief for takeaway service Deliveroo, recently valued at £480 million.
And official documents reveal Deliveroo is employing the services of Hanbury Strategy and Communications, the consultancy set up by Ameet Gill, who was David Cameron’s speechwriter-turneddirector of strategy.
Handsome Ameet is also one of Thea’s former boyfriends.
‘What a cosy little world it is,’ remarks my man in Whitehall.
The deal has been disclosed by the Government’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Gill had to inform the committee of the Deliveroo deal because of his senior role at 10 Downing Street.
The committee raised no objections, but warned Gill should not draw on any ‘privileged information’ he had access to at No 10.
Glamorous Rogers was credited with encouraging Osborne to adopt a ‘Caesar’ style close-cropped haircut and to slim down on the 5:2 diet, fasting for two days of the week.
Before being snapped up by Osborne, Rogers was described by one broadsheet as ‘ an intriguing figure who excites members on both sides of the House’. Another of her exes is James Purnell, the former Labour Cabinet minister — now a senior executive at the BBC. They had an affair while he was on a ‘break’ from his fiancee. Rogers was a producer on Newsnight at the time, leading to complaints that the then presenter Jeremy Paxman had let Purnell off lightly in an interview.
Rogers worked her way up to be the BBC’s lead political producer before moving to Downing Street.
She is close friends with Sir Craig Oliver, a BBC high-up who went on to be Cameron’s right-hand man.