Liz Truss’s chief of staff brings key figures from lobbying firm into No 10

Mark Fullbrook, Liz Truss's new chief of staff, has asserted his grip over Downing Street by bringing senior figures from his lobbying firm into No 10.

The political consultant, a former longtime colleague of the election strategist Lynton Crosby, was appointed to the most senior role in Truss's team this week, having previously worked on the failed leadership campaign of Nadhim Zahawi.

Senior advisory roles in No 10 have now also gone to Mac Chapwell and Alice Robinson, both founding members of his lobbying firm, Fullbrook Strategies.

The company, which launched in the spring, has lobbied the UK government on behalf of clients including the controversial Libyan parliament and a firm that won a £680m PPE deal in the pandemic.

Two more senior No 10 staff, Beatrice Timpson, the deputy press secretary, and Reuben Solomon, a digital adviser, have done stints at CT Group, Crosby's political consultancy, where Fullbrook worked for over a decade.

Alongside Fullbrook and his aides, Truss's inner circle comprises a slew of people who have worked for rightwing thinktanks. Sophie Jarvis, a political adviser, is a former staffer at the Adam Smith Institute, a thinktank working to promote neoliberal and free market ideas, while her economics chief is Matthew Sinclair, a former chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, a pressure group campaigning for low taxes.

Some senior Tories have raised eyebrows at Fullbrook's appointment, given his lack of previous experience in government. He has decades of experience in campaigning in the UK and abroad but no prior role in a department.