James Slack has been the Downing Street Press Secretary, ie the Prime Minister's official spokesman since April 2017. He is a former political editor of the Daily Mail.
Slack wrote the controversial "Enemies of the People" front page article on 4 November 2016 which criticised senior judges in England's High Court of Justice who had made a decision the British Daily Mail newspaper did not agree with.
The headline, written by James Slack and approved by editor Paul Dacre, was in response to the ruling of the High Court of England and Wales in the Miller case that the government would need to gain the consent of Parliament before it could trigger Article 50 and exit the European Union (EU). The government had intended to use the royal prerogative to invoke Article 50, after a referendum in June 2016 had resulted in a slight majority vote to leave.
The Daily Mail claimed the court's decision purposefully blocked the Brexit process and ran the story and headline about the three high court judges – the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas, Master of the Rolls Sir Terence Etherton, and Lord Justice Sales. The Mail's website also initially described Etherton as an "openly-gay ex-Olympic fencer", but this was changed after criticism on social media. Former Lord Chief Justice Igor Judge said the newspaper's attacking comments, particularly the homophobia concerns, were "very unpleasant".
The Independent Press Standards Organisation received over 1,000 complaints about the piece, claiming it violated numerous Codes of Conduct including inaccuracy, harassment and discrimination. A Business Insider report strongly criticised the Daily Mail story as being "distorted" and could be construed as an attempt to harm the reputation and safety of the judges. In November 2016, the Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines said the public should be "very alarmed" over the Daily Mail piece.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemies_of_the_People_(headline)
I think in these circumstances, Theresa May's appointment of James Slack as her official spokesman shows an outrageous lack of judgement, symptomatic of her extreme pandering to the brexitextremists in the Tory pary.