Cleo Watson is a former Downing Street adviser. In Government, she served as Boris Johnson’s co-Deputy Chief of Staff, adviser to Dominic Cummings, and before that as Theresa May’s Political Adviser. She has had a front row seat – and, occasionally, one at the table – for some of the most decisive moments in British politics of the last few years. Cleo worked on the Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 EU Referendum, on the 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections, and on President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012. Perhaps luckily for those involved she has chosen to write fiction in her first book, Whips, which came out in May 2023 and her follow-up, Cleavage, which came out in June 2024. Her new book series, which she describes as a cross between Jilly Cooper and Clarkson’s Farm, comes out with The Ploughman’s Lunch in summer 2027.