EMILY PRESCOTT: Ex-Boris aide ‘The Gazelle’ gets a little ruffled before launch of her bonkbuster

Former Downing Street aide Cleo Watson was forced to take emergency action before the launch party of her bonkbuster book Whips – after discovering her dress was too risqué.

Cleo, nicknamed the Gazelle when she worked for Boris Johnson due to her long legs, had to lengthen her eye-catching dress from cult fashion brand The Vampire’s Wife.

‘I actually had to have a little modesty ruffle put on the bottom because it was so short,’ the glamorous author told me at the party for Whips.

The book – described by one critic on Radio 4 as ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey meets Prime Minister’s Questions’ – delves into the adventurous sex lives of a group of fictitious politicos.

The author revealed in The Mail on Sunday earlier this month how she dreamed up one X-rated bedroom scene while former Prime Minister Theresa May chaired a rather dull session about Brexit at Chequers.

Cleo, nicknamed the Gazelle when she worked for Boris Johnson (pictured) due to her long legs

This didn’t deter Mrs May attending the launch party last Wednesday though – she even came wearing a pair of red shoes not dissimilar to those on the book’s front cover.

Cleo, 34, who remains ‘hopeful’ Whips will be commissioned for television, says her parents are yet to read the novel but they would see the humour in it.

And she thinks the best feedback so far has been from her legal team.

‘The lawyers from the publishing house – who read it to look at the libel angles – all came back with completely different people they thought the characters were based on,’ she says.

‘I just thought, “Oh good, they’re nice and confused. That was a good sign.” ‘

Cleo, who has worked in politics for more than a decade, including on former US President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012, is the second Watson to work closely with a Tory leader.

Her sister Annabel, 44, known as Bee, was Mrs May’s chief of staff between 2006 and 2010.