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SpAds Are People Too!!

Tony McNulty defends the wonderful creature that is the Special Adviser.

By Tony McNulty

21 Oct 2011, 09:00

Special advisers are not politicians, nor are they civil servants. They serve a different function both from the politicians they serve and the civil servants they work with. They have become the unloved creation of modern politics. They have often been portrayed in less than generous terms as ‘spivs’, ‘spinners’, ‘bully boys’ and all round ‘Machiavellian operators’. There are, and have been, inept special advisers in the same way that there are, and have been, inept MPs and, heaven help us, inept ministers. However, special advisers are essential to how our politics work in today’s world. With the growing complexity of governing and the incessant demands of a 24 hour media and rolling news, the role of the special adviser is essential to the smooth running of Government.

There are special advisers who can barely tie up their own shoe laces and who speak to people with all the finesse of a dead lettuce, but come  alive when discussing the impact of this or that policy development on the narrow area of their expertise. Their strong and focussed analysis of such policy development often enhances their minister’s ability to deliver or their adroitness at avoiding potholes. There are special advisers who can barely string together two sentences of convivial and social small talk, but who sound like masters of the universe on the phone to members of the media who are looking to destroy or outfox their minister. There are special advisers who could read out the London telephone book and make it sound like a dirty, sleazy conspiracy against all that their party stands for, yet smooth talk a room full of journalists with huge skill when trying to get their message across. There are special advisers who protect their ministers from annoying predators – public or media – with all the skill and sinister overtones of a ‘capo di tutti capi’ defending his Mafia boss, but with a little more charm.

Like every aspect of humanity – and yes, spads are people too – there are heroes and villains, angels and thugs who inhabit the strange world and murky undergrowth where the special advisers live. Modern politics could not survive without special advisers and our politics are all the better for their existence. We might best describe these four different types of special advisers - all important in their own way – as wonks – the policy experts, hacks – the media specialist, backwatchers – the gatekeepers, the access experts and consigliere – the all round adviser, or indeed, the counsellor.

The most common form of this creature is the policy expert – the wonk - someone completely au fait with all of the policy developments in a given area. Indeed, this was the genesis of the original advisers in the sixties – outside experts who knew more than the best civil servant in a given field. Today’s policy experts differ from the sixties model in that they are also far more political than their predecessors. Although often very young, they are policy experts with at least some understanding of the ‘corporate memory’ within their party in this area. They know how their party has discussed their policy area over the last thirty years with all the insight of the old Sovietologist who could tell you who was going to be the next General Secretary of the CPSU by observing who stood next to whom on Lenin’s Tomb.

The hacks are more than simply spin doctors – they know who to cultivate in the media and how; they know when they need to work closely with the minister on an issue and when things can be left to the departmental press office; they know when to push their minister in the media and when to minimise coverage – and they know how to work with No.10 inside government and the party outside government. Their job is to manage news and, as far as is possible, control or shape media coverage of their minister in the context of their minister’s role within government. They spend a good deal of their time trying to spike coverage rather than encouraging it. The wrong coverage with the wrong emphasis at the wrong time could spell serious troubles for their minister.

Backwatchers are more than simply bodyguards, they are also gatekeepers and in charge of access to the minister – they are akin to the minister’s Praetorian Guard. If they are to be effective, they have to know, in detail, all aspects of their minister’s life. Their role is to harness and manage the competing pressures on the minister’s time – from the ministerial office, the No.10 office, the constituency office, the party and the minister’s family. They have to know, almost before the minister does, what the most compelling and important priority for the minister at any time of the day or night. They are constantly doing battle with all of these competing calls on the minister’s time. They end up being virtually inseparable from the minister and the keeper of the minister’s soul.

The consigliere is the all rounder special adviser. In truth, a good special adviser has to be part-wonk, part-hack and part-backwatcher, but the all rounder is more than the sum of the parts. All good special advisers evolve into consigliere – if they stay with one minister for long enough. They are formidable characters on whom the minster comes to rely heavily on. You want the ear of the minister, see the consigliere first. The minister is to busy to attend an important meeting – then invite the consigliere. They often become the Minister’s confidant and sometimes a trusted friend too.

Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron may have got some cheap headlines from limiting the number of special advisers, but ultimately this was one of those gestures in modern politics that please no-one and end up in a political graveyard. In a panic, Gordon Brown decided that as part of a post-Damian McBride ‘clean-up’ of politics, the number of special advisers should be decreased, and then restricted. He was wrong, just as David Cameron was wrong to announce that he would ensure that the number of special advisers would be kept to fewer than the number employed by the last Labour Government. He made this judgement based on a futile numbers game and the notion that special advisers were the political equivalent of the devil. The only issue for the government and the country must be how many special advisers are required for good government to prevail – and is the right type of special adviser being employed.

As John Major left office in 1997, his government employed 38 special advisers. Labour nearly doubled this straight away to 70. The number of special advisers under Labour peaked at 84 in 2004-5, falling back to 74 by the time Labour lost the election in 2010. Under the coalition government the number of special advisers has risen from 66 in June 2010 to 74 in March 2011 largely because David Cameron has slowly realised over his first full year in office that his No.10 operation was far from perfect and needed more help and assistance from both the civil service and special advisers. Nick Clegg has made clear that he needs more support, as does his party in the departments where they have no ministers. The Government has just announced that six further special advisers will be appointed by the Liberal Democrats – which will take the total number of special advisers to 80. Sensible observers of the machinations and processes of government should welcome this announcement. The Coalition agreement included an ill-thought out commitment to ‘put a limit on the number of special advisers’, but did not understand the consequences of such a policy – good for populist rhetoric, not so good for good government. Having 80 rather than 66 or 74 special advisers does not mean that this government will ultimately be successful - the quality of its policies and how well it delivers them is what they will be judged on. But having the right number and type of special advisers can mean a greater degree of competence and cohesion.

Of course, given that they are funded by public funds there are quite rightly strict controls over what special advisers can and cannot do and how they interact with civil servants. But it is no accident that the number and influence of special advisers have grown as the role and power of our media has grown. Whether the special adviser is a hack, wonk, backwatcher or consigliere - a key role is both a proactive and defensive interaction with the media. Much of this role is purely informational, but of course, spin is also involved – as it has been since politics was invented.

We need a debate on the increasing role of special advisers and how they relate to the civil service. We need to get beyond the notion that they are the root of all evil and work out how their role can be incorporated into the British political system. We need to start from the basis that special advisers are here to stay and are actually a positive development in our new, modern politics. We also need to decide whether the way that things have evolved to date is the best model for our politics. For instance, do we want to go further and develop a complete tier of overt political appointments rather like the USA, or the cabinet system of France, or take the best from other models and build a new British model. Let’s get beyond a redundant debate about numbers and concentrate on how special advisers can assist our politics and modern governance so that the government governs with greater competence – with the wonks, hacks, backwatchers and consigliere that it needs to govern effectively.