Others cited “genuine concerns as to how his connections and views on China will affect the wider Number 10 thinking regarding Beijing”.
Angela Rayner, the shadow chancellor, warned that there could not be a “revolving door from lobbying to government seeing potential national security issues arise”.
“We need full transparency from Guto Harri about all contact he had with the Government in his former role as a lobbyist and who his clients were,” she said.
A source close to Ms Rayner said Labour was calling for a list of all the people Mr Harri had contact with in government while in the role, including “transparency around his contractual arrangements”.
However, Mr Johnson’s spokesman said Mr Harri “provided advice to the clients of a private company. That’s entirely legitimate, it’s in the public domain and obviously we would not exclude from Government someone with valuable experience and expertise”.
‘We had a blast of Gloria Gaynor’
On Sunday, Mr Harri suggested he would change the culture in Downing Street after the “partygate” saga that has engulfed Mr Johnson’s premiership, as he arrived at No10 with “healthy snacks and mineral water” in a Tesco bag for staff.
The comment was viewed as a coded reference to an alleged drinking culture, which Mr Johnson has pledged to reform.
Speaking to the Welsh language website Golwg360 on Monday, Mr Harri said: “I walked in, I did a salute and said: ‘Prime Minister, Guto Harri reporting for duty.’ He stood up from behind his desk and started accepting and doing the salute, but then said: ‘What am I doing? I should take the knee for you.’
“The two of us laughed. Then I asked him: ‘Are you going to survive, Boris?’. He said, in his deep voice, slowly and purposefully, started singing a bit and ended the sentence with ‘I will survive’.
“He did it in a way that I was invited and obliged to say, ‘You’ve got all your life to live’, to which he answered, ‘I’ve got all my love to give’ – so we had a blast of Gloria Gaynor.”
Mr Harri added: “He’s not a complete clown, but he’s a very likeable character. About 90 per cent of the discussion was very serious, but it shows his character and that there is fun to be had.”
