Wordsmith behind PM’s tour de force

THERESA MAy can thank one of her unsung back office team for yesterday’s unlikely triumph.

Most Tory MPs at the conference centre admitted they’d never heard of the softly spoken and unassuming Keelan Carr, who crafted the speech which garnered such widespread praise.

Born in Wakefield, he went to a yorkshire comprehensive and after going to Oxford in 2003 to study English, joined the Conservative research department.

Carr was poached by Mrs May in October 2016 when she got wind that he was a talented wordsmith. He writes the best jokes in Whitehall. At the Westminster correspondents’ dinner in March, he persuaded May to tease Matt Hancock, now Health Secretary, who had devised his own online app.

She said: ‘Other ministers are following his lead. The Boris Johnson app is great for extending your vocabulary, but it does contain some adult content. The Philip Hammond app is like a drier, less frivolous version of LinkedIn … tonight I can reveal that I am working on my own app. It provides GPS directions to your nearest wheatfield.’

Carr, who is paid £65,000, wrote a blog in March detailing his struggle to come out as gay, saying ‘it is now something about myself which makes me happy and I want to share it’. One Downing Street insider said: ‘He is one of the nicest and most modest people. He’s already saying other people deserve the credit, but it’s down to him.’