Boris Johnson appoints new chief of staff after Cummings exit

Boris Johnson has appointed an ex-Treasury official as his new chief of staff, Downing Street has announced.

Dan Rosenfield's appointment follows a period of upheaval which saw the prime minister's senior aides Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain resign.

Mr Rosenfield is former civil servant, who has worked in the past for Labour chancellor Alistair Darling and his Tory successor George Osborne.

He will begin work at Downing Street on 7 December.

The current acting chief of staff Lord Udny-Lister will stay in the role until 1 January when Mr Rosenfield will take over.

Mr Rosenfield joins No 10 from Hakluyt, a strategic advisory firm.

He has also previously worked at Bank of America as a managing director and is chairman of the humanitarian agency World Jewish Relief.

The chief of staff role had originally been offered to Mr Cain, however some MPs and ministers objected to the appointment.

And following a power struggle inside No 10 both Mr Cain and his ally Mr Cummings stepped down from their roles.

In an interview last year with the Jewish Telegraph, Mr Rosenfield describes Judaism as being "pretty central" to his life and says his local synagogue was his "second home".

He also recalls working in the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis. "It became very clear that we were dealing with some quite fundamentally difficult challenges," he said.

Welcoming the appointment, ex-Treasury Minister David Gauke described Mr Rosenfield as "smart, likeable and effective".

His previous employers Hakluyt are a low-profile consultancy firm with offices in Mayfair, central London, as well as New York, Mumbai, Singapore, and Tokyo.

It is chaired by the Conservative peer Lord Deighton - who was recently given a role co-ordinating the drive to scale up UK manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE).