CARRIE Symonds’s best friend was given a £350-a-day advisory role in the Home Office which was not publicly advertised, it has been reported.

Anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali, who is godmother to Boris Johnson and Symonds’s son, was made adviser on tackling violence against women and girls.

The appointment was announced back in October but a recent freedom of information request by The Critic magazine found the position was granted through a “direct appointment process” – meaning it was “made without open competition” or advertisement.

The magazine found no record of the role before it was announced, according to the Daily Mail. 

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The Home Office said the procedure had been “appropriate” for short-term roles of this kind.

It added: “As this is a direct appointment, the role was not advertised and was not offered to anyone other than Miss Ali.”

It comes after the Tories faced allegations of cronyism last week over plans to give another of Symonds’s best friends a senior role.

Johnson was keen to make Radio Times journalist Ross Kempsell, who is reportedly very close with the Prime Minister’s fiancée, the £90,000-a-year party director of research.

The role is not currently vacant so Kempsell’s appointment would mean ousting Iain Carter, who has done the job since October 2019.

A Tory HQ source told the Daily Mail: “Ross Kempsell is a political novice without the background in serious political thinking needed to lead CRD [Conservative research department].

“It takes more than being chums with the PM and his partner. It would be outrageous to get rid of Iain like this.”