Rishi Sunak hires journalist Amber de Botton as communications director

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has hired Amber de Botton as his director of communications, Downing Street confirmed.Ms de Botton’s career as a journalist has included working for ITV News and Sky News.She leaves ITV News, where she was head of UK news.ITV political editor Robert Peston tweeted: ‘My colleague Amber de Botton is leaving ITV to be @RishiSunak’s director of communications. She is a brilliant news editor and journalist, and leaves a huge hole at @itvnews.’Mr Sunak appointed ITV News’s former national editor Allegra Stratton as his director of strategic communications in 2020 when he was chancellor, before she was poached to become Boris Johnson’s spokeswoman for televised briefings.It was ITV that obtained a video of Ms Stratton joking about a ‘fictional party’ at a mock press conference days after a rule-breaching Christmas party at No 10. She resigned a day later.