The Brexit-backing former ambassador set to become national security adviser

The nature of his appointment has raised a lot of eyebrows, writes Tom Peck, but who is the man chosen to fill the UK’s highest national security job?

UK Brexit negotiator David Frost sits next to the ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, during negotiations in Brussels (Reuters)

The civil service, like Everest, is not meant to be conquered the back way. The almost impossibly tough though well trodden path to the summit is supposed to be the only one available. Indeed, in recent years the failures of various corporate-backed stuntmen have shown that parachuting in to the top is even harder than doing it the hard way.

Perhaps David Frost, Boris Johnson’s most favoured civil servant and now the nation’s newest and by some margin most inexperienced national security adviser, might like to show them how it’s done.

The clearest evidence that Frost’s appointment to the highest national security job in the land is out of the ordinary came in the form of the out of the ordinary scenes that followed it. Within 24 hours of his appointment, the not overly interventionist Theresa May had denounced his suitability for the role on the floor of the House of Commons.