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Cummingsism has failed.
Special advisers are multiplying at an astonishing rate. I’m not quite sure how to calculate an R number, but it took 10 years to get from one — David Lipsey, who advised Wilson — to the dozen appointed by Margaret Thatcher in 1979. By 1987 there were 24. When I started in government in 2010, there were 67 of us. At the last count, in December 2019, there were 109.
Is this a symbol of growing political corruption? The takeover of an independent civil service by a cadre of shadowy operatives, appointed through nepotistic networks and accountable to no-one? Is it a growing army of true democrats helping ministers assert authority over the unaccountable civil service and unresponsive deep state? Or is it simply a defence mechanism against 24/7 media and the growing demands of tribal politics? How should ministers access expertise and political advice in a modern democracy? Who should walk in the corridors of power? Who should speak for ministers, and under what veil of anonymity?
You might expect to find answers to some of these questions in a book entitled The Secret Life of Special Advisers, out today. But the latest offering from Peter Cardwell is not an attempt to expose misdeeds or solve constitutional dilemmas.
Instead, it is a delightful, charming, witty political memoir from a delightful, charming, witty man. Peter has seen the inside enough ministerial offices and cars to have a lifetime’s worth of dinner party anecdotes about who said what to whom, and when, and why. Conveniently, given that dinner parties are banned for the foreseeable, this book allows you to make Peter your virtual guest. Just read it with a glass of wine and a takeaway.
The book has an endearing cast of affable characters, many of them household appliances: a mini-fridge, James Brokenshire’s four ovens, and the CCHQ toaster, which apparently couldn’t be used before 7.30am on pain of political excommunication. Peter’s good nature enables him to find nice things to say about almost everyone. Characters I worked with and despised for their Machiavellian ruthlessness are somehow sublimated into feisty, friendly chappies, just doing their bit for Queen and country. For example: it is hard to find anyone in Westminster with kind words to say about Fiona Hill, Theresa May’s erstwhile joint chief of staff. But Peter has kind words for her. It’s almost bizarre when, in a later chapter, he swerves off for a paragraph to be rude about Emily Thornberry. Was that his evil twin typing, I wondered?
Only on the final page does Peter permit himself a meta-level reflection about the purpose and value of spads. “I concluded the following,” he writes. “SpAds are something we need in UK politics. They help government function as it should.”
Well, I’m pretty certain I agree with that. But I was left craving more depth, more substance and more analysis.
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SubscribeWhether or not these people are ‘gossiping grifters’ there is certainly a correlation between the growth in their numbers and the growing dysfunction and incompetence of government over the last 30 years.
If these people are to be of any use (vanishingly unlikely, as we know), then surely they should be out and about around the country talking to people, not gossiping in Westminster, where they are as cocooned and incapable as the ministers.
You have hit on the key question that has not been addressed in this article. Has the the use of special advisers improved governance?
Clearly, it has not. They are simply currently unelected members of the political class, in many cases prospective MPs or even peers.
I certainly agree that correlation is rather compelling, although the normal correlation/causation caution caveats apply. Not sure having the advisors “out there” speaking to the public would be great value for money though – isn’t that supposed to be what MPs, surveys and so on are there for?
The answer to everything in this country now seems to be “just spend some more money on it”
I’m afraid that has been the case for many decades.It is inevitable when you maintain education, welfare and immigration systems that render the vast majority of the population unable to even breathe without receiving money from the state. The inevitable consequence is Paper Money Collapse.
Was UK GOV better during the Suez Crisis, multiple £ devaluations, IMF crisis, labor unrest, and so on…?
That is arguable. What is not arguable is that the political class is now very much larger and far more expensive. We are pzying much more for much less.
You can measure it as % of GDP spending.
Or is it the numbers of mandarins it employees?
Last 30 years? Since the advent of 24/7 news? We can’t draw facile conclusions because we don’t know what governance would have been like without SpAds. Before 1990, Ministers had till the 6 o’clock news to react and comment on the day’s events. Now they are expected to respond immediately. They no longer have time to consider; they respond. It was Blair/Mandelson,Campbell who understood that staying in government did not require good policies but instead controlling what was being said in the media.
Yes I agree on the effect of 24hr news.But I suggest that a clear understanding of what you are about and the ability to tell the truth and be blunt takes the edge off the stupidity and dreadful lack of intelligence of most news presenters. the Sopie Ridges of this world are really not very and the fact that their simplistic tricks win mostly is an indictment of the politicians.
This issue seems to me to be allied with the increasing tendency of the political class especially MPs to be drawn from a narrow cadre of people with fewer and fewer having expertise outside a narrow university / media / adviser career route. Very few business people, scientists and engineers are drawn to this world, and we need their expertise and experience (and fewer Oxford PPE graduates) more and more as the world changes. However becoming a SPAD or similar is seen as the route to a political career.
It seems to me also that part of the problem is that over the years the perception has grown that the senior civil service has seen its role as challenging the government rather than giving them good information and advice but then implementing their decisions dutifully and not undermining them.
Whether this is fair I’m not entirely sure, maybe it has always been that way. “Yes, Minister”, has been described as a documentary not a comedy.
1) A lot of MPs are in safe seats so people that vote for them are very tribal, Do they really care if their MP has a PhD in Physics or do they care that he/she is from the “right” party! When was Parliament ever full of STEM graduates? And as people say “we want politicians just like us”…well you got them. Mark Francois is not beamed from space but democratically elected by the British people – OVER and OVER again.
2) The perception has grown because politicians like to walk away from responsibility. Right now the Big Issue is Brexit. Please show the detailed Brexit plan that the politicians (democratically elected) developed for the Civil Service! You can go back to all the promises made by 2 MPs (BoJo and Gove) and compared it with the reality of negotiations (IT systems, 50,000 custom officials, paperwork, etc)
3) You should watch Yes Minister again. Thousands of years ago very wise Greeks warned us about politicians, promises, voting and people. We learned that lesson…. blaming the Civil Service!
The big issue right now is Brexit!
Can you please show me the detailed Brexit plan (developed by politicians) that the Civil Service should execute?!
Major problem, Politicians and the Civil Service have no idea how to plan to achieve things. Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing HS2 , Electric cars where batteries are dependent on Chinese controlled key rare elements ( instead of Hrdrogen and fuel cells) and wind power when we have a huge coastline and predictable tides etc etc
Electric cars will be manufactured by car makers; there is no need for the Civil Service to plan things. Japan & SK are large manufacturers. In relation to raw materials – yes China plays an outsized role but I am not aware (as of now) of Chinese blocking exports of materials or finished products.
Spads are a glaring example of bad management .
If those tasked with job of advising (the Civil Service) are not delivering -then the solution is not to appoint additional separate people.
Its huge sign of weakness to seek to avoid dealing with a performance issue by adding different people. Correct the performance issue.
Sadly the evidence before us is plain. The talents to get to the top in politics clearly do not include management skills.
The proliferation of SPADs is a sub set of a much wider problem: the unchecked growth of the political class as a whole. We have too many MPs (650), far, far too many unelected peers (nearly 900 and counting), about 200 more in the 3 regional parliaments & assemblies plus numerous city & regional mayors with ‘cabinets’ and countless thousands of councillors. This is far more than any comparable democracy and far more, too, than at any time in our history. This growth, a lucrative job creation scheme for the political class, coincides with what is arguably the most divisive, distrusted and incompetent governance since the war, regardless of political party. Time for more quality, less quantity. Won’t happen, of course – too many snouts in the trough.
But, but where will all the Oxford PPE grads earn an Avocado smeared crust if we reduce the number of these knob heads?
At least we have reduced the number by getting rid of the MEPs. Brexit is not an end in itself but the start of a process of political reform.
On the contrary we have a ‘democratic deficit’ when it comes to elected positions, compared to just about any other western democracy.
OK, no one is suggesting we copy the US or France, where there are literally thousands of small town mayors elected, as well as multiple layers of politicians – and in the case of the US, people like judges and sheriffs.
But we should look to countries like Germany, where the states share power with central govt. They also have well-funded and managed local authorities.
What we really need is a broader spectrum of government ministers and MPs. Most of parliament are PPE and public school. We need a broader spectrum of MPs from all walks of life with a minimum of 20 years work experience in the big outside world amongst common folk. A closeted education and a PPE degree doesn’t cut the mustard.
Surely you mean that we need Ministers and MPs with a sound classics education, the cream of our private schools. … LOL
How many science or engineering graduates are there in cabinet, government, the political class as a whole – including the spadocracy – or the manderinate? Not many fingers needed to count them all!
Fair point, but if the whole Covid/lockdown crisis has shown anything it’s that we shouldn’t trust people just because they are ‘scientists’
True. But, rather more of them in government might be in s better position to evaluate the advice from SAGE and others. Clearly the PPE, arts and humanities graduates who predominate in and around politics haven’t been too good in that department. And this is an issue that goes very much wider than the response to the virus.
Never mind grads most of them just scraped “O” level maths.
SpAds were around in the 70s (see ‘Yes, Minister’). They were appointed by Labour politicians who felt the Civil Service was too conservative and by Thatcher’s Ministers who felt the Civil Service was too centrist. The surprise is that the number of SpAds has risen even though the Civil Service post-Blair has become more political and centred itself at the political centre (halfway between Blair and Cameron). They are largely an irrelevance, the froth that fascinates the media. What matters is the decline in the quality of politicians and of the Civil Service.
Damn right. Decline in quality plus huge increase in quantity – see my comment below.
“Ministers need to be able to recruit a wide range of experts into their department”
The Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation have been the number one NGO to advise our government since 2014. Do we really need or want these Psychopaths running our country ?
Special Advisors, arch enemy of Civil Servants are bad.
Politicians try to get around an unsympathetic, intransigent (and often wiser) civil service by using SPADs.
Thus SPADs break an important power balance.
politician and SpAds may be useless but the civil service is not often wiser.
I ask this question because I don’t know. How does a Director of Policy to the Deputy Prime Minister differ from a special advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister, and is their wage also paid from the Public Purse ?
Good Question…Polly???
Rude about Emily Thornberry? Can this book be delivered to France?
I think the last couple of paragraphs are the most interesting, as this is analogous to how in complex data systems we see increased throughput and capability as the number of participants increases, but decreased coherence and efficiency, and a greater number of failures. We see this in action in team sports all the time; perfect performances are largely the preserve of single-player sports where a single outstanding individual is in full control of the strategy and execution.
On this basis, the optimum level of advisors will depend entirely on the goals of the strategy: To manage a high speed and complex media strategy and respond to every detail then a very high number of diverse advisors will be necessary; To create and execute a coherent political strategy, a tiny number of outstanding critical thinking generalists is required. I am not aware of a solution to any complex data problem that can fulfil both these competing requirements with any real success, and whilst inefficiencies can be minimised through various techniques, the underlying paradox will remain.
The question is of course what is actually best for the public who fund this system in a messy world where only the election winner gets to define policy. As usual in these things, probably somewhere in-between.
Most people pay tax on their redundancy pay once it’s over £30k. I’m shedding tears for these spads with no life experience but huge entitlement.
Problem is more basic. Politicians are not connected to the real world anymore.They should have to do a real job for 5 years minimum and show management success before being allowed to stand for County Councils upwards to MP election.Then the people needing advisers and the things they need to advise about would get back the the realms of reality in the common world. The appalling incompetence and lack of managerial skills or understanding in the CV crisis highlights this in Givt,Media and PHE and especially NHS.
“These need to be serious jobs for senior people, not kids treating politics like a virtual reality Game of Thrones.” Ah, Polly, don’t ever change!
SpAds play a valuable role. However, I would like Polly to expand on her throwaway comment that Ministers should be able to recruit experts into their departments. Who are the people and what are the skills and experience that are not currently available to Ministers through existing routes? Michael Gove and others have used the SpAd/expert advisor route to bring in subject experts (though they tend to be relatively junior and highly political), while Departments like DfE, DHSC and MHCLG have a long history of bringing in experts from education, the NHS and local government through open competitions as substantive civil servants, or on secondments. And DfID had people coming in and out of the NGO sector. What is the problem Polly is looking to fix?
how appropriate that Cummings photo is adjacent to the tag line “this swollen political class”…though in Cummings case it is “a swollen classless political class” in need of extraction.