http://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-mays-press-secretary-quits/
Theresa May’s press secretary quits
Press Secretary Lizzie Loudon is the second departure from the prime minister’s team in a week.
By
CHARLIE COOPER
4/21/17, 1:29 PM CET
Updated 4/21/17, 1:30 PM CET
LONDON — Theresa May’s inner circle has seen its second high-profile departure in the space of a week, after the prime minister’s press secretary Lizzie Loudon announced she was quitting Friday.
Loudon follows director of communications Katie Perrior, whose exit was confirmed on Tuesday, the day May called a snap election.
The prime minister’s official spokeswoman Helen Bower, and her deputy Greg Swift, have also left Number 10 in recent months, with Bower joining the Foreign Office and Swift moving to the Department for Exiting the European Union.
The snap election announcement has sparked a flurry of moves at the top levels of government and within the Conservative party. Former spokesman for The Sun newspaper, Dylan Sharpe, has joined the Department for Work and Pensions, as maternity cover for special adviser Lottie Dexter. Sharpe is the latest high-profile figure from a Conservative-supporting newspaper to join the government, in a move that is likely to spark further accusations of bias from the Labour party.
Perrior’s departure followed reports of a rift with May’s chief of staff Fiona Hill, who alongside her co-chief Nick Timothy is expected to act as campaign manager during the election.
Loudon, who worked on the Vote Leave campaign before supporting Theresa May’s leadership bid and joining her in Number 10, confirmed her departure in a message to journalists. She said it had always been her intention that her departure from government to join the Vote Leave campaign would be final, but said she had been “honored” to work with May.
Prior to working with Vote Leave, Loudon was a special adviser to the former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who quit David Cameron’s government in March last year and went on to campaign for Leave. Loudon told journalists she would now “move on to other things.”
The string of departures from Number 10 has been linked to May’s highly controlled leadership style. Government officials frequently report that power over government messaging and media strategy is heavily concentrated in the hands of “the chiefs,” Hill and Timothy, and that more junior members of staff have limited freedom to operate.