The choice of Dido Harding to run the UK's new public health agency cements her position as one of the most powerful unelected officials involved in the fight against coronavirus.

 The choice of Dido Harding to run the UK's new public health agency cements her position as one of the most powerful unelected officials involved in the fight against coronavirus.

As chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, she will take control of a huge scientific, technological and bureaucratic empire which ministers hope will play a vital role in ultimately defeating the virus.

As well as continuing to oversee the much-criticised NHS Test and Trace system, which she helped launch in May, she will assume responsibility for all local public health protection teams following the abolition of Public Health England, as well as the Joint Biosecurity Centre.

It caps a meteoric rise through the Whitehall ranks for the high-achieving businesswoman, whose time as chief executive of Talk Talk was marred by a massive data breach which landed the firm a record £400,000 fine .

A successful amateur jockey whose passion for horses is shared by her boss, Health Secretary Matt Hancock, she has an impeccable Conservative pedigree.

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She is married to an ex-minister, John Penrose, and represents the Tories in the House of Lords. Her full title is Baroness Harding of Winscombe, a reference to the village in her husband's Western-Super-Mare constituency where the couple live.

While the coronavirus outbreak has thrust the 52-year-old.