Sir Keir Starmer has appointed a former editor of The Sun newspaper to a senior communications role in Number 10, bringing him into the centre of government.
David Dinsmore was editor of the tabloid newspaper between 2013 and 2015. He will now act as a senior civil servant responsible for overseeing and improving government communications.
Whitehall sources indicate Mr Dinsmore’s role, permanent secretary for communications, had been newly-created by the prime minister. He was personally selected by Sir Keir after the PM was impressed with his understanding of modern media challenges, The Telegraph reports.
Mr Dinsmore began his career in journalism at the Scottish Sun in 1990, and rose to become its editor in 2006. He edited The Sun between 2013 and 2015, after which he was promoted to chief operating officer of News UK.
The journalist was again promoted in 2022 to News UK’s Executive Vice President, whilst retaining the COO role. He has earned plaudits for his media career, ranking 27th in the 2014 Media Guardian 100 and 67th in GQ magazine’s 2015 ‘Most Connected Men in Britain’ list.
While parts of The Sun online went behind a paywall during Mr Dinsmore’s tenure, he is credited with growing the paper’s online subscriber base from an initial 117,000 to almost double, at 225,000.
But the appointment is likely to prove controversial among some Labour MPs, especially representing from Liverpool, where there remains a concerted boycott of The Sun over its reporting of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
Campaigners have also pointed to several controversies which took place during Mr Dinsmore’s time at the tabloid newspaper.
In 2016, the former Sun editor was convicted of breaching the Sexual Offences Act after the tabloid printed a photo of a teenage victim of a sexual offence in 2013, which did not conceal the victim’s identity, and which happened during his tenure.
The teenager was victim of footballer Adam Johnson, a former England player who was found guilty of sexual activity with the 15-year-old girl in 2016.
Judge Howard Riddle said he was “satisfied” Mr Dinsmore did not realise he was committing an offence. He was ordered to pay £1,300 costs and £1,000 in compensation to the victim.
Shortly before Mr Dinsmore left the editor post, The Sun dropped its page 3 featuring topless models following prolonged outcry from campaigners.
However, he was branded ‘sexist of the year’ in 2014 by campaign group End Violence Against Women, after initially resisting the move. In 2013, Mr Dinsmore said in an interview it was a “good way of selling newspapers.”
The former newspaper editor was also criticised for platforming Katie Hopkins during his tenure, during which time she held a weekly column promoting her as “Britain’s most controversial columnist.”
Both Ms Hopkins and Mr Dinsmore were reported to the Metropolitan Police in 2015 for incitement to racial hatred over a column that appeared in The Sun.
The piece saw Ms Hopkins describe asylum seekers looking to reach Britain as “cockroaches” and suggested the government deploy “gunships” to stop them landing on shore.
Filing his report, barrister Peter Herbert, chair of the Society of Black Lawyers, said the column contained “some of the most offensive, xenophobic and racist comments I have read in a British newspaper for some years.”
While Ms Hopkins was questioned over the comments by police, the Met confirmed neither she nor Mr Dinsmore would be charged.
Mr Dinsmore’s appointment to Sir Keir’s top team has been strongly criticised by campaign group Hacked Off, established in 2011 in response to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.
Launching a petition against his appoint, the group said accused Mr Dinsmore of overseeing “endless and false denials that The Sun was involved in the phone hacking scandal; eventually exposed in January 2025, when The Sun was forced to apologise.”
“Appointing a former Sun editor to a publicly funded role is an insult to the taxpayer, and in particular to all those who were affected by the Hillsborough disaster and were smeared with despicable and false attacks by The Sun newspaper,” it adds.
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