10 Downing Street
(Picture: PA Archive)Boris Johnson has appointed a new principal private secretary to replace the senior official who invited staff to an infamous “bring your own booze” event in lockdown.
The UK’s ambassador to Brazil Peter Wilson will now take up the role in No 10 Downing Street from Monday.
He will replace Martin Reynolds who hit headlines after he sent an email to Downing Street staff inviting them for “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening” in May 2020.
At the time, lockdown rules only allowed people to meet one other person outside socially.
Mr Reynolds will return to the Foreign Office after Mr Wilson takes up the post.
Mr Wilson has been the UK's ambassador to Brazil since January 2021.
He was previously the UK Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) until 2020.
Also Mr Wilson spent more than a decade working on Asia policy in Beijing, Islamabad and London earlier in his career.
The married father-of-three is fluent in Mandarin and French, according to a government biography.
He has a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School.
