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Allegra Elizabeth Jane Stratton is a former British political aide, writer, and former journalist who served as Downing Street Press Secretary under Boris Johnson from November 2020 to April 2021.
Allegra Elizabeth Jane Stratton is a former British political aide, writer, and former journalist who served as Downing Street Press Secretary under Boris Johnson from November 2020 to April 2021.
Stratton worked for The Guardian as a political correspondent until joining the BBC in 2012, where she became Political Editor of BBC Two’s Newsnight from 2012 to 2016.
She worked for ITV as National Editor of ITV News from 2016 to 2018 and co-presenter of Peston on Sunday from 2016 to 2018.
After leaving journalism, Stratton became a Conservative Party political advisor.
She was Chancellor Rishi Sunak‘s Director of Strategic Communications at the Treasury from April until October 2020 when she became the press secretary for 10 Downing Street.
In April 2021 she was appointed as spokesperson for COP26 President Alok Sharma.
She resigned from the post on 8 December 2021, after footage was released of her at a press conference rehearsal during the COVID-19 lockdown in December 2020 where she joked about a Christmas party at 10 Downing Street with colleagues.
Stratton was born in Nottingham on 10 April 1980 and brought up in Chiswick, West London as one of four children of a translator father and textile artist mother.
She was named after Allegra Byron, a daughter of the poet Lord Byron. Stratton attended Chiswick Community School and Latymer Upper School, an independent school in West London, before studying at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she read archaeology and anthropology.
Stratton worked as a producer for the BBC, on the foreign desk at The Times, and wrote for The Independent and the New Statesman.
She then joined The Guardian as a political correspondent, presenting the newspaper’s Politics Weekly podcast with journalist Tom Clark.
During this period Stratton wrote a non-fiction book, Muhajababes, that explores the youth culture of the Middle East and the contradictions of the modern life of young adults in Muslim societies. The book was based on Stratton’s experiences of travelling in the region in 2005.
Stratton returned to the BBC on 20 February 2012, as Political Editor of Newsnight, replacing Michael Crick who left to become a political correspondent for Channel 4. In May the same year, she faced criticism for a Newsnight interview with a single mother who was claiming housing benefit. The interviewee described feeling “humiliated” by Stratton, who misrepresented her as unemployed.
Private Eye magazine reported that Stratton had chosen the single mother over several other interviewees offered, including a couple with four children who had lost their jobs and faced homelessness.
This incident led to a 20,000-signature petition soliciting an apology from Stratton and Newsnight. Following an official complaint to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit, a correction and apology was issued in August.
In November 2015, the BBC announced that Stratton was leaving to join ITV News as its national editor. She made her first appearance on ITV’s News at Ten in January 2016 and co-presented Peston on Sunday with Robert Peston until April 2018, when she departed to spend weekends with her children.
Stratton quit ITV News in April 2020 to become Director of Strategic Communications at the UK Treasury under Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Six months later, in October 2020, she was given the newly created role of Downing Street press secretary, to present proposed televised press briefings initially scheduled for launch in November 2020.
The briefings were subsequently delayed to January 2021 and it was reported that they would take place when the House of Commons was sitting on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The January launch date was repeatedly pushed back due to the COVID-19 lockdowns and on 20 April it was announced that the briefings would be scrapped entirely, with Stratton instead becoming the spokesperson for the COP26 summit to be held in Glasgow in November.
On 7 December 2021, ITV News released a special report, showing a video alleged to be from December 2020, in which Stratton – during a mock press conference – joked about a Christmas gathering in 10 Downing Street, which BBC News reported as having “several dozen” attendees.
In the leaked 47-second clip, filmed from the Downing Street Press Briefing Room, Stratton and other Downing Street staff joked about the “imaginary party” being just “cheese and wine” and a “business meeting”, with “no social distancing”.
At the time of the alleged party, London was under tier 3 lockdown restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following day, Stratton resigned from her position as government spokesperson for the COP26 summit. Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologised for the video at Prime Minister’s Questions but continued to deny that a party had taken place and declared that an investigation would be undertaken by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.
Stratton married James Forsyth, Political Editor of The Spectator magazine, in 2011. The couple have two children and live in Canonbury, North London.
Future Chancellor Rishi Sunak was best man at their wedding, and they and Sunak are godparents to each other’s children.
In November 2020, Stratton told The Sunday Telegraph that despite voting for the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats in the past, she voted for Brexit and describes herself as “a Johnson Tory”.
She is said to be an ally and friend of Boris Johnson’s wife, Carrie.
Allegra Stratton is 43 years old (birth date April 10, 1980).
Allegra Stratton was born in Nottingham, UK.
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