New Boris Johnson aide was looked down on because she’s ‘the girl from Swansea’

A new aide to Boris Johnson was “looked down” on because she’s “the girl from Swansea”, it has been reported.

Simone Finn, who has recently been appointed deputy chief of staff at No10 Downing Street was not looked upon favourably by the people of former UK Prime Minister, and Etonian, David Cameron, because where she came from, according to The Sunday Times.

A confidant to Finn told the paper’s Political Editor Tim Shipman: “The Cameron people rather looked down their nose at the girl from Swansea.”

Finn, 52, who was made a Baroness in 2015, was born in the US to a Welsh mother and a father who had defected from Communist Czechoslovakia, Simone Kubes. She grew up in Swansea and attended a local comprehensive before going to Oxford University.

She was poached from Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, and will support Johnson’s new chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, a Treasury civil servant turned banker and strategist who took charge of the No 10 political operation last month.

She will assist in stepping up outreach to MPs, peers, donors and Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ).

One colleague told Sunday Times: “Dan knows what it will take to get the government going at full speed towards the prime minister’s objectives.

“Simone is more instinctively political. She will be focusing on MPs and CCHQ.”

Finn is a former special adviser to Francis Maude, when he was Cabinet Office minister under Cameron.

She then went on to co-found Francis Maude Associates with him, a consultancy firm that focuses “on the implementation of fiscal, economic and public sector reform” according to its website.