Romilly Dennys

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.

Romilly Dennys was a special adviser to Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary of state at the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) from 2012 to May 2015.

In September 2015 Dennys took up a new role as associate director at Seven Hills, a UK-based PR and lobbying firm.

Career

Dennys was an account director at PR and lobbying firm Media Intelligence Partners from 2010 until 2012.

Before this she worked as a foundations fundraiser at ResPublica think tank for seven months in 2010 and was a senior account executive at Raitt Orr & Associates in 2008.

In 2007 she worked on fundraising and campaigns at Diabetes UK and policy and campaigns at Independent Age.

Overheard on the train

In July 2014, the BBC reported that a government special adviser was overheard on a train from Portsmouth talking about a cabinet reshuffle; Iain (assumed to be Iain Duncan Smith) wanting to leave the DWP due to the treasury vetoing his reforms, Esther (assumed to be Esther McVey) wanting to take over but being worried that she's been 'too much of a bitch and pissed too many people off' and saying Flick Drummond (the Conservative's 2015 general election candidate for Portsmouth South) was not very savvy.

The lady who overheard Dennys said: 'She was almost like a teenager showing off, look at me - the Big "I am" - so loud and posh, and the end of every sentence was inflected. It was very annoying.'

Dennys told the BBC:

'It is just complete nonsense... some person on a train has heard two names and managed to cobble together a story,'

'I am pretty convinced she is a Labour supporter;

'The whole thing is just a complete storm in a teacup. Someone overheard two names and she just created this whole story. The story is completely incorrect'.