Cashing in! Sir Spin’s Brexit job

DAVID Cameron’s former spin chief has been handed a lucrative job at a company with links to the Clintons and Tony Blair.

Sir Craig Oliver, who helped to lead the Remain campaign, will be paid a six-figure salary by global consultancy Teneo for giving firms ‘strategic advice’ on issues including Brexit.

Fresh details of the 47-year-old former BBC news executive’s senior managing director role have emerged a month after the Daily Mail revealed his appointment.

Teneo was founded in 2011 by former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band and PR executive Declan Kelly, who served as Hillary Clinton’s economic envoy to Northern Ireland. Mr Blair also sat on the group’s advisory board in its early months.The US-based firm has set up a ‘Brexit client transition unit’ to advise firms on how to influence the Government’s plans to leave the EU.

The prospect of one of the men who lost the referendum helping pro-EU companies make the best of Brexit will raise fears of a conflict of interest. Teneo’s clients include Nissan, which threatened to close its Sunderland car plant if Britain loses access to Europe’s single market. Sir Craig, nicknamed ‘Sir Spin’, was Mr Cameron’s communications director. He left No 10 in July when Theresa May took office, and he was handed a knighthood in Mr Cameron’s controversial resignation honours.

He has apparently not yet had his new job approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. The Whitehall watchdog – which critics have branded toothless – has been urged to prove its mettle by turning him down. Last night it was unable to confirm whether it had done so. Teneo declined to comment.