The Intimacy of Power: An insight into private office, Whitehall's most sensitive network E-Book
Alun Evans
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- Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes in the corridors of power during a major crisis or after a ministerial reshuffle? How do new government ministers get to grips with their portfolios and priorities? Who guides and supports them? And why, sometimes – during events such as 'Partygate' – do things go wrong? In this meticulously researched book, former senior civil servant Alun Evans lifts the lid on a vital but little-known cog in the machinery of government: private office and the private secretaries who work within it. Private secretaries exercise huge influence, and yet most of us have never heard of them. They are the ones who manage the flow of work, who whisper quietly in ministers' ears and who have been Prime Ministers' closest, most trusted and most discreet confidants. At critical moments in our national history – from the Falklands War to the Westland affair, from Black Wednesday to the 2008 financial crash, from New Labour to the coalition government – they have been central but hidden players. With exceptional access to former Prime Ministers and decision-makers, Evans explores what private office is and why it matters to British democracy. He argues that following the egregious constitutional breaches of Boris Johnson's premiership, private office must once again be taken seriously so it can return to being the independent junction box of government and a vital part of the British constitution.
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THE INTIMACY OF POWER
AN INSIGHT INTO PRIVATE OFFICE, WHITEHALL’S MOST SENSITIVE NETWORK
ALUN EVANS
v
To Charlotte and Harriet, and in memory of Ingrid Elisabeth Evans
vi
Contents
Introduction
Hi all,
After what has been an incredibly busy period, we thought it would be nice to make the most of this lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the garden this evening.
Please join us from 6 p.m. and bring your own booze!
Martin.1
On 20 May 2020, at the height of the national lockdown – introduced by the Conservative government as part of its overall strategy for tackling the Covid pandemic – the above email was sent to all staff in No. 10, some 200 recipients, almost encouraging people to break the rules.
Many people might have assumed that the sender of this ‘Partygate’a email was the Prime Minister’s diary secretary, his office manager or even some kind of head butler in No. 10.
2In fact, the author and sender of the email was Martin Reynolds,b the principal private secretary to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Reynolds was then a senior diplomat of director general rank on secondment to No. 10. A graduate of Cambridge University, a former UK ambassador to Libya and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, he was the most senior civil servant in No. 10, and the private office which he headed represented a central plank of the machinery of UK government. Later, after the party had taken place with no journalists having picked up on this undoubtedly newsworthy story, Reynolds commented, ‘We seem to have got away with it.’2
Reynolds’s decision to take on the mundane task of issuing an invitation to drinks may have been an idiosyncratic one, but this action could easily have clouded the public’s perception of the role of the principal private secretary in No. 10. The work of the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary is not to be their social secretary but rather to manage the essential hub of support across the whole range of government activity, including advising on the appropriateness of events which the Prime Minister should attend. The job of the principal private secretary is also to run the equally prosaically titled ‘private office’.
But it is not at all surprising that the public at large do not understand the dated and often obscure language used in Westminster and Whitehall, which often appears to delight in obfuscation, especially where job titles are concerned. How can the person on the street be expected to understand the difference between a principal private secretary and a parliamentary private secretary (both of which are referred to as ‘PPS’), a permanent under-secretary of state 3or even a special adviser? What exactly do they each do? Certainly, some strange job titles exist elsewhere in many professions – deputy pro-vice-chancellor, suffragan bishop, house officer (in medicine), for example – but only Whitehall seems to revel and delight in obscurity, and the ministerial private office is a choice example.
Obscure language can be a barrier to understanding. What is private about the private office? And where is the office, if there is one – or is it virtual? If there is a principal private secretary, is there also a secondary or subordinate private secretary? Who appoints these people and how? How are they trained for the role and to whom are they accountable? Perhaps, most importantly, what do they actually do?
Private office is, in fact, an essential part of our system of constitutional democracy and the civil service that supports ministers, who are accountable to Parliament. It is the interface between the elected politicians, the permanent apparatus of government and the civil servants in the government departments of state. Yet, despite its importance, private office is little known or understood – and little considered – by the media and by most academic studies. This book aims to fill that gap and seeks to shed a light on private office, what it does and how it has changed throughout history.
How was it that, during Partygate, the most senior civil servant in No. 10, responsible for maintaining standards and the integrity of the office of the Prime Minister, ended up proposing a social event that would drive a coach and horses through the national guidance then applying to the activities of every citizen in the country? The 20 May party was not even a unique event. The subsequent report conducted by Sue Gray,c a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, 4identified sixteen such events that had taken place during the period of the Covid lockdown and that appeared to transgress the government’s own regulations. Why was the authority of private office apparently diluted to such an extent that there was no voice to question the legality, let alone the wisdom, of holding parties at the height of lockdown? Why was Reynolds – whose key responsibility was to advise the Prime Minister on issues of propriety and ethics – seemingly so lacking in fulfilling that duty?
The shortcomings in the leadership and management of the No. 10 private office in 2020 were, however, not so much a one-off aberration in standards but rather they reflected part of a longer-term trend. Indeed, some politicians have argued that the support functions for ministers are not fit for purpose and need to be less the preserve of the civil service. Some want a more muscular, or even a more politicised, private office. Such an approach inevitably risks bringing the civil service – an organisation founded on the principles of independence and non-party politicisation – into conflict with government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary – the head of his private office – appeared to be condoning, or even encouraging, rule-breaking. How had private office come to this?
This book explains what the ministerial private office is, what it does on a day-to-day basis and why it is so significant. Covering 200 years of political history, it highlights how the private office has played a prominent, if hidden, role in governance. It explores the vital role that some private secretaries have had at key events in British history, including how they interacted with ministers and political advisers. That great observer of the British constitution, Lord Hennessy, famously characterised the unseen elements that support the British political system as the ‘hidden wiring’ – by 5which he meant those structures, systems and people within, in particular, the civil service that collectively make the connections and ensure things happen smoothly, even though they themselves are usually invisible.3 If the civil service, as a whole, represents the totality of the ‘hidden wiring’ in Hennessy’s analysis, the private office represents the central junction box through which much political power and energy flows. Every minister, from the Prime Minister downwards, has a private office, whose job it is to ensure that business is transacted smoothly and efficiently, and yet usually out of sight of the media and the glare of publicity.
But, at times, the system has not always worked as seamlessly as it should. On occasion, the junction box has failed to make the right connections. This book traces the roots of the modern-day private office and its growth over the past two centuries, showing how it is now an established part of the hidden wiring and assessing the future of private office in the current political climate.
The title ‘private secretary’ and the functions of that role can be traced back some two centuries, although the term ‘private office’ is more recent. Originally, private secretaries were the officials attached to ministers and responsible for the conduct of managing ministerial business and ensuring the prompt receipt and despatch of ministerial business and correspondence. However, the modern-day private office plays a far more complex role than in the past. The role has, like that of ministers and Prime Ministers, expanded relentlessly. Today’s private secretary to an energetic minister may well assist in the process of policy-making, help facilitate cross-Whitehall organisation, liaise with the royal households, get involved in crisis management and help handle the media and communications, all on top of managing the day-to-day transactions of government. They (or a deputy) may find themselves on call for 6twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A private secretary will accompany their minister to every official meeting.
Yet this role and the group of civil servants who work in private office have never been written about in detail. That is the gap which this book seeks to fill. Private secretaries are the characters who appear, sometimes only in passing, in biographies and memoirs; their roles have often been touched on but rarely in depth; and yet many ministers have testified as to how much they relied on them. Private secretaries have been, at times, some of the most powerful people in this country. Some have been colourful and controversial. Many have been brilliant minds and creative wordsmiths, well attuned to carrying out their political leaders’ wishes. Some have had close relationships with their ministers and have become immensely influential. In particular, those officials who have worked within the Prime Minister’s private office have contributed to, and helped to shape, history. These figures, while never household names – in modern times people such as Robert Armstrong, Robin Butler, Charles Powell, Kenneth Stowe, Alex Allan and Jeremy Heywood – were undoubtedly powerful and their role under-appreciated and under-chronicled. They were career civil servants and, for the most part, middle-class Oxbridge men in the traditional mould of the British administration. This is their story – warts and all. It is a history of a remarkable set of people who, while they may not have been well known, were close to, and even intimate with, the politicians who wielded power. At important junctures in our national story – such as wars, crises and moments of great political change – it has often been the private office that has been the central body responsible for keeping the show on the road, whatever it takes.
Ministers and Prime Ministers have always had their favoured 7advisers. For example, in the late nineteenth century, Benjamin Disraeli, twice Prime Minister, was exceptionally close to his trusted private secretary Montagu Corry.d Disraeli famously described the relationship between minister and private secretary as second only to that between a man and his wife. By the time of the Second World War, the civil service had achieved a near monopoly in providing advice to ministers and Prime Ministers. Private offices were nearly always composed of only civil servants, albeit ones who had already formed close relationships with Prime Ministers, like Corry and John ‘Jock’ Colville,e who supported Winston Churchill during war and peace. While all Prime Ministers and ministers used informal sources of policy advice, including from Members of Parliament, there was, prior to 1964, no formalised process of special advisers providing political advice to ministers.
However, by 1964 and the election of Harold Wilson’s Labour government, some voices had begun to question the dominance of the civil service, including within the ministerial private office. Labour intellectuals in the Fabian Society were sceptical about the establishment nature of the civil service, and some argued for a significant influx of political appointees and for the creation of more Continental-style ‘cabinets’ to support ministers, believing that breaking the monopoly of power that civil servants held in the private office would aid better decision-making. Wilson’s Labour Party, when in opposition in the early 1960s, had toyed with the idea of establishing such a Continental ‘cabinet’-type system alongside, or even in 8place of, private offices. Indeed, that had been the explicit aim of the Fabians in their influential 1964 pamphlet, The Administrators, which had argued that every Cabinet minister’s private office should contain up to four political advisers.4 In practice, Wilson was far less radical and appointed only five new special advisers across the whole of government. His most telling political appointee, however, was his new personal political secretary, Marcia Williams,f whose appointment, role and style were to create sharp tensions with the civil servants in Wilson’s private office, and with whom she often clashed, during his eight years at No. 10. Even getting agreement to Williams’s new title of ‘political secretary’ raised concerns within the civil service, not least from Wilson’s principal private secretary, Derek Mitchell.g
Some twenty years later, a charge of politicisation was again raised within Margaret Thatcher’s No. 10 private office. This time that charge was levelled against Charles Powellh (her foreign affairs private secretary) and Bernard Inghami (her chief press officer), both of whom heavily influenced Thatcher in her later years in power. Critics argued that they had effectively created a closed ‘cabinet’ of just two people – albeit both were career civil servants, not political appointees.
Under Tony Blair’s New Labour government, elected in 1997, a different model emerged. For the first time, a new central post of chief of staff was created, working alongside the traditional civil service private office. Thatcher had dabbled unsuccessfully with the 9idea of such a new role, but under Blair the post was firmly established and ably filled by Jonathan Powellj over the whole decade of the Blair premiership. Powell’s role entailed a reshaping of the private office. A political appointee (albeit, in Powell’s case, a former civil servant) became a permanent feature at the centre of the No. 10 operation, capable of acting more politically than the traditional principal private secretary. That position, coupled with the dominance of Blair’s new press secretary, Alastair Campbell,k gave No. 10 a more powerful cross-Whitehall clout than under previous regimes, although Blair still remained frustrated by what he called the lack of delivery. All subsequent Prime Ministers retained the position of chief of staff, and it is now an established role, although it has been occupied by a range of people from different backgrounds, including, exceptionally under Johnson, by a serving Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The retention of the chief of staff position by all Prime Ministers from both political parties represents a good example of the organic development of private office over the past quarter of a century.
Another shift that has taken place over recent years has been in the balance between the role of the civil service and the influence of special advisers. Whereas half a century ago, the first special advisers concentrated on policy advice, more recently they have become far more interventionist on political issues, organisational questions and even appointments. The influence of special advisers – while never formal members of private office – on ministers has increased and deepened, while that of the civil service has declined. Indeed, 10the influence of special advisers on ministers during Partygate was considerable but under-reported, with most of the media’s focus falling on the failings of the civil service.
Yet, despite these changes in culture and organisation, along with strictures from some ministers, the private office has survived and, for the most part, thrived. There was undoubtedly a body of opinion that sought to question the effectiveness of the traditional model of private office and to contrast it with the ‘cabinet’ model and its greater blend of administrators and political advisers working in a single unit. But no Prime Minister or minister has yet come up with a better model. Rather, they have sought to adapt it. There is no evidence that a ‘cabinet’ system is either more effective or more efficient than the private office. The traditional British model of the ministerial private office has existed broadly in its current format since the foundation of the modern system of Cabinet government at the end of the First World War. Many Prime Ministers sought to exert a greater level of scrutiny and control over the performance of government. This has led to periodic proposals for the establishment of a Prime Minister’s department, although its structure and powers have never been fully articulated and no such department has ever been created. Its purpose would have been to bring together the functions of No. 10 with those of the Cabinet Office,l responsible for oversight of departmental policies and delivery.
When Edward Heath was Leader of the Opposition, before the 1970 general election, his advisers urged him to consider establishing such an office, but he rowed back from doing so. Margaret 11Thatcher and John Major did not see the need for such a body, preferring to keep No. 10 smaller and more focused. Tony Blair, both in the run-up to 1997 and once in office, considered the idea again but, like Heath, chose not to pursue it. Both Prime Ministers instead introduced structural changes at the centre to try to improve policymaking and delivery.
In the early 1970s, Heath created the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), based in Cabinet Office, to build capacity at the centre for longer-term strategic thinking. Wilson built on this model by establishing the Policy Unit at No. 10 to provide the Prime Minister with dedicated political capacity to concentrate on policy-making in priority areas. That unit has survived to this day, unlike the CPRS. Blair, during his second term, became frustrated by the lack of oversight of what he called the ‘delivery’ of the government’s policies. That led him to establish the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU) in No. 10, headed initially by an expert adviser, Michael Barber. Blair’s view was that having a specific function focused on delivery of a more limited number of targets and with regular scrutiny and oversight by the Prime Minister made for a more effective premiership. Yet, while some of these initiatives over the past half-century or more could be said to reflect a frustration with the role of the traditional private office, it has survived in essentially its original form.
Which brings us back to the problems of the private office under Boris Johnson. The fundamental difference under Johnson’s government was that the hidden wiring had become exposed, frayed and subject to extensive scrutiny, not least in the media. The ‘good chaps theory of government’, whereby things would be done and processes strictly followed as a result of the quality and integrity of people entrusted with power and its use within the organisation, no 12longer seemed to apply.5 The constitution and long-standing conventions came under pressure soon after Johnson became Prime Minister in July 2019. The following month Parliament was prorogued illegally – as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom subsequently declared.6 The event undoubtedly also put the monarch in a difficult position. There is no evidence that the private office even warned the Prime Minister against this course of action. Later, Johnson’s combative special adviser Dominic Cummingsm sought, during the Covid lockdowns, to stretch the boundaries of credulity to the limit – arguing that a car journey to Barnard Castle in County Durham, allegedly to test his eyesight, was legitimate. Yet again, there appeared to have been no brake on the Prime Minister to rein in his and his adviser’s potentially law-breaking tendencies. A number of public appointments were made which evaded ‘due process’ and showed the profound influence that some special advisers had begun to have, without clear oversight by the private office. When the first special advisers were appointed in 1964, their prime focus was on supporting policy-making. They had no role in public appointments, unlike nowadays.
Throughout all of these events, Johnson’s private office and his special advisers were responsible for the overall operation for No. 10 and for advising Johnson on what he could or could not do. There is little evidence that they sought to counsel against such activities or that if they sought to do so and failed, they raised the issue higher up, for example with the Cabinet Secretary. While some of the most egregious examples may have been at No. 10, similar failings occurred in other ministerial private offices across Whitehall. In short, the system of checks and balances had failed to work. 13
LITERATURE ON THE PRIVATE OFFICE
The private office is one part of the mechanisms that help operate the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom. It is a vital element in the ‘hidden wiring’ of government.7 Surprisingly, though, in the existing academic literature, there has been no comprehensive study of the history of private office or the changing shape of that body, despite its importance. The subject has often featured in historical literature but usually only in passing, and it has rarely received detailed scrutiny. Biographies and histories are often written from the perspective of the politician or their political party and not the bureaucracy supporting ministers. While many politicians’ memoirs pay generous tribute to the work of their private secretaries, few have focused on the tasks and characters of the private secretaries involved.
The diplomat Nicholas Henderson was an exception. Although not a politician, he wrote a book in 1984 on the Foreign Secretary’s private office (which he subsequently updated in 2001). This volume, while of interest, was more a study of the Foreign Secretaries whom Henderson had observed and the ways in which they operated and engaged with their private offices.8 He had served as private secretary to both Anthony Eden and Ernest Bevin, so had first-hand experience of the workings of the private office and powerful Foreign Secretaries. Henderson’s book remains a useful memoir and source of anecdotes about how the private secretaries in the Foreign Office operated, but it is far from a systematic analysis of their work across Whitehall. There have been a small number of other academic studies of the private office. For example, Rod Rhodes devoted a chapter to what he describes as ‘The Departmental Court’ in his book Everyday Life in British Government.9 Based on interviews with serving 14and former private secretaries, Rhodes documents the roles of, and relationships between, private secretaries, ministers and special advisers. His book provides a valuable addition to Henderson’s. It is also more recent and covers three domestic departments.n
There have been a number of other studies of the role of the No. 10 private office and how it has changed over time. In 1988, George Jones wrote a chapter entitled ‘The Prime Minister’s Aides’ in Anthony King’s The British Prime Minister.10 Jones describes the work of all Downing Street staff and not just the private office. Of the principal private secretaries, he says they can be categorised on a continuum:
At one extreme are the ‘smoothers’, who regard their role as to pour oil on the system, to facilitate and expedite the flow of business. At the other extreme are those who see their role as being not just to smooth the passage of business for others, but to make their own contribution, injecting their own observations into the flow of business.11
As will be seen, in the No. 10 private office (as well as in other private offices) and among both principal private secretaries and private secretaries, there have been many examples of what Jones called ‘smoothers’, as well as what might be termed ‘interventionists’. Other books and articles have also analysed aspects of the inner workings of the Prime Minister’s office and its staff.12 On the role of the private office, as a training ground for high office in the civil service, Kevin Theakston initially provided the best analysis of the background of 15senior mandarins, including their service in No. 10, the Treasury and private office.13 More recently, Andrew Blick and George Jones have also explored the role of the private office in the wider context of the development of prime ministerial power.14 Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon, in The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, also carried out more detailed analysis and looked at the operation of No. 10 from 1970 until the arrival of the New Labour government in 1997. Their book includes a valuable appendix on the staff of all the Prime Ministers from 1945 to 1999.15 However, with the exception of that volume published in 1999, other studies of No. 10 have tended to focus on more political issues or the role of political advisers and accounts of the political power struggle between, for example, the Blair and Brown camps, as opposed to studying how administrative power operated and how the private office functioned.16 More recently, Seldon has written, or co-written, histories of the Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and Johnson premierships, but, again, they are more studies of politicians, policies and events and not of the systems of governance and administration that supported them.17 The private office gets only a passing mention, rather than being a central theme in these volumes.
An exception to this is a book by Jonathan Powell, who served as chief of staff to Blair throughout his decade as Prime Minister. The New Machiavelli (which is partly a memoir of Powell’s time at No. 10) contains many references to the organisation and operation of No. 10, including the way in which he, as a special adviser, worked effectively alongside the permanent civil servants within the No. 10 private office.18 The book also provided Powell’s justification for the new post of ‘chief of staff to the Prime Minister’, which was introduced with his arrival in No. 10 and which has existed ever since. The chief of staff, a political appointee, now works closely alongside 16the No. 10 private office. The most senior civil servant within private office during Powell’s time was Jeremy Heywood,o who was to remain in or close to No. 10 for around a quarter of a century. Powell paid particular tribute to Heywood, calling him ‘an outstanding civil servant for whom the word “Stakhanovite” might have been invented’.19 Andrew Holt and Warren Dockter’s more recent work focused mainly on the foreign affairs private secretaries at No. 10.20 However, in the final chapter of their collection, Anthony Seldon analyses the background and the different styles of principal private secretaries in No. 10.21
There have also been attempts to explain the specific role played by the private secretary. For example, in 1980, Gerald Kaufmanp wrote How to Be a Minister, a light-hearted yet valuable study of the way in which the power around ministers operates.22 While it is often more in the tone and style of the Yes Minister television series, it offers a helpful perspective on the way in which ministers operated in the second Wilson government and on the systems surrounding them, including the private office and the private secretaries.q Kaufman commented that, for a minister, the private secretary
is in charge of your personal domain, ready to anticipate and pander to your every whim and also to keep a sharp eye on you in case you show signs of getting out of line … Your Private Secretary, or one his assistants, will accompany you to all your 17engagements except Cabinet Committees, take a note of all your meetings, listen in to all your telephone conversations, travel with you at home and abroad. He will get to know you better than anyone except your close relatives.23
A more recent book, in the style of Kaufman, is How to Be a Minister: A 21st-Century Guide by John Hutton and Leigh Lewis.24 This is a guide to being a Cabinet minister, which touches on how a minister can make the best use of their private office. Hutton and Lewis worked together as Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary in the same department.r They state authoritatively that ‘to be a successful minister you need to have a good private office. It is as basic as that.’25 They go on to explain recruitment to private office, the pivotal role of the principal private secretary (‘the most important person in the private office’) and the skills that are required to fulfil the role.26 Hutton and Lewis also emphasise:
Private secretaries are not there to be your cheerleaders. And they are not part of your party political support team either, however close you might get to them as colleagues. Private offices can provide something much more important than support. The best private offices should be able to provide engaged objectivity, a sound source of additional advice and pointers to you so that you [as a minister] can make the right decisions.27
Of course, Hutton and Lewis’s book, like Powell’s and Kaufman’s, was written by insiders and they are therefore all partially witness accounts. Such accounts can bring great insight and expertise to 18the question of what happens within the private office. However, they may also, at times, be less detached in scrutinising their subject matter.
Beyond the literature on private office itself, there is a wealth of sources on wider political history and political science which refer to the power and influence of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s office and the development of the civil service. The two most detailed volumes are both by Peter Hennessy. Whitehall, first published in 1989, focused on the role of Whitehall departments and the Cabinet Office, but has a substantial section on the operation of the centre of government and the part played by private office.28The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945 carries out an examination of the operation of the office of each Prime Minister from Attlee to Blair, including references to the working of, and officials within, the No. 10 private office.29 In addition, there is the wider context of the history of the civil service and reform.30
SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY
This book has relied on a range of sources, not just the above literature, and is based on research conducted over the past decade. These include files from the National Archives (TNA), the traditional repository for much research material. However, those files and others from similar archives, such as the Margaret Thatcher Foundation (MTF), offer relatively limited access to the past for any study of the private office or of private secretaries in the period covered here. There are three reasons for that. First, there is no single archive holding for private offices, since their records were not 19habitually kept as a whole or even in part. The traces of their work and that of private secretaries can be found in files at TNA, and to a lesser extent the MTF, but they are disparate and incomplete. Second, many TNA records for the period beyond the thirty-year rule covered in this book, namely after 1990, remain closed. Third, even if full papers were filed at TNA for private offices since 1964, the nature of government papers would mean that their activities, and especially those of private secretaries, would probably not be captured. That is because the purpose of private office is not to dominate decision-making but to enable its processes and actions. Moreover, and critically, government records do not chronicle the personal interactions and human relationships that have existed between ministers and private secretaries and that have been vital to the function of government.
Consequently, I sought to get first-hand testimonies on the role and work of private office, drawing on thirty-six original interviews (the full list is contained in the bibliography) and associated correspondence with former private secretaries and other officials and ministerial advisers of the past fifty years. Those testimonies included interviews with all the four living Prime Ministers (John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) covering the main period I studied. I am very grateful to them and their offices for the time they devoted to helping me. Major and Brown, of course, came to No. 10 with many years of ministerial service and knowledge of the working of private offices, whereas Blair and Cameron became Prime Minister with no prior ministerial experience.s
20I also interviewed eight principal private secretaries to the Prime Minister, from Robert Armstrong,t who served in No. 10 from 1970 but had far wider private office experience going back to the 1950s, up to Simon Case,u the current Cabinet Secretary, who was one of David Cameron’s principal private secretaries. I interviewed many other private secretaries and officials who had worked at No. 10 and elsewhere in a range of Whitehall private offices, and who regularly interacted with the No. 10 private office. I spoke to five other former Cabinet Secretaries. In order to gather evidence from the private offices on the handling of specific events, I interviewed David Omandv (the Falklands), Richard Mottramw and Charles Powell (Westland), Jeremy Heywood (Black Wednesday and many other events of the past two decades), Jonathan Powell and Alex Allanx (the transition to New Labour in 1997), James Bowler (the Brown–Cameron transition in 2010) and Caroline Slococky (on being the first female private secretary in No. 10). I consulted advisers who had worked at No. 10 such as Bernard Donoughue,z who served from 1974 to 1979 in the No. 10 Policy Unit under Wilson and Callaghan, and 21David Lipsey,aa who worked for Callaghan from 1976 to 1979. I also interviewed people who worked in the communications function in government, notably Joe Hainesbb and Alastair Campbell. The choice of officials to interview was mainly based on the level of engagement that they had had with private offices in their careers. I sent them questions in advance, held face-to-face (or occasionally telephone) interviews and followed up with further questions via correspondence, as necessary. Only one former adviser – the late Marcia Williams (Baroness Falkender) – refused to be interviewed.
A combination of these interviews and correspondence plus research in official papers and other historical sources has enabled me in this book to faithfully portray the operation of the private office and how private secretaries worked and behaved over the past half-century. Inevitably, oral history has some shortcomings, because individuals’ memories may be partial and/or fragmentary. In addition, some participants in past events or during crises may recall what they wished they had done rather than precisely what they had done. That said, oral history is a vital component of contemporary history, and the triangulation of different memoirs collectively can usually be held to clarify exactly what happened at any time.
My research methodology has therefore had three distinct elements. First, this is a work of political history drawing on the traditional tools of such historical research as described above, using archival material and the rich vein of primary and secondary sources written by politicians and others of the era, together with the perspectives of modern political historians and commentators.
Second, the methodology is informed by my career, my 22perspective and, also perhaps, my prejudices. I worked for over twenty years in the senior civil service from 1993 to 2015. During that time, for almost four years, I was a principal private secretary to three different Cabinet ministers in two different departments.cc I ran the private office of those Cabinet ministers and managed junior ministerial offices. Those duties gave me direct experience and understanding of the role of the principal private secretary as well as the relationships between ministers and their private offices. I witnessed first-hand how the machinery worked at many critical moments, including the transition following the general election of 1997. I saw how the institution helped to support, or hinder, the political process. Following my service in private office, I worked at No. 10 when Tony Blair was Prime Minister and then for the office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Third, I used the documentary and archival evidence to help create a narrative of what happened in private office during some critical moments of history over the past fifty years. I analysed specific events when the private office played a prominent role to illustrate the operation of that body at such times. Two case studies show the private office as policy-makers (at the time of Britain’s accession to the European Community in 1972 and during the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund in 1976). One case study shows the operation of private offices during a military conflict (the Falklands War in 1982), while another shows the private offices of two different departments effectively at war with each other (during the Westland affair in 1986). More recently, a series of events showed private office in response to crises (during the New Labour era from 2000 23to 2003) and a final brief study shows how private office responded, at short notice, during the financial crash of 2008. These case studies were not meant to be comprehensive in coverage but rather to show how private secretaries acted and functioned in response to different historical circumstances. They have helped to build up a strong evidence base of how decisions were taken and the influence of the private office at such critical times. To tell this narrative, my research had to go beyond the official records at the National Archives and elsewhere. While private secretaries often record the outcome of a meeting, or note the discussions and positions taken, they very rarely discuss their role, or that of the private office, in these events. Hence the need to rest on original oral testimony.
Chapter 1 introduces and explains the structure of the private office, as well as the roles and responsibilities of its members. These include the principal private secretary who, in any government department, acts as the key channel of communication between the Secretary of State (the political head of a government department) and the Permanent Secretary (the administrative head of a Whitehall department). Chapter 1 also dissects the tasks performed by the private office and explains how those tasks have changed over time, including, for example, as a result of the growth of new technology. It categorises the twelve essential functions of the private office in a more systematic way than has ever been done before. The work of private office has increased over the period studied and the functions are now far more complex and interdependent than they were in 1964. Chapter 2 then examines the changing make-up of private offices, including the background of the principal private secretaries in No. 10.
Chapters 3 to 10 present a history of the private office from its origins in the seventeenth century up until the present day, including case studies that illustrate when the private office played a major role in British 24governance. These chapters follow a broadly chronological approach to show how the role of the private office has and has not changed during that period, and the factors that underlay such changes.
I start before the office of the Prime Minister even existed. Chapter 3 begins with an analysis of the origins of the concept of private secretaries – or ‘clerks’, as they were then termed – in the seventeenth century up until the fall of Chamberlain at the start of the Second World War. This was the period that saw the emergence of the first people who could be classed as ‘private secretaries’, albeit ones who were then political adherents of the ministers for whom they worked, many of whom later became politicians themselves. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Northcote–Trevelyan report laid out the principles of recruitment on merit to the civil service. However, many Prime Ministers during the late nineteenth century continued to recruit personal supporters. It was only at the end of the First World War that, with the establishment of the Cabinet Office and the greater formality of Cabinet government, the private office became independent. That moment was marked because private secretaries at No. 10 emerged as independent of their Prime Minister, as exhibited by the fact that when there were changes of Prime Minister, the private office remained to manage the support of the incoming premier. This was a fundamental change in terms of the party political neutrality of private secretaries.
Chapter 4 shows how private office operated in the war years up until 1964. Churchill’s key private secretaries – not least Jock Colville – became extremely powerful in terms of both the personal support they offered the Prime Minister and their influence on policy development.
Chapter 5 then examines in depth private office during the first Wilson premiership, a turbulent period of political flux and of 25relative economic decline. The chapter describes the private office which Labour inherited and charts how Wilson developed his own and brought in the first formal special advisers to enhance the political capacity of his government, especially on economic policy and, later, on communications.31 Chapter 6 assesses how private office changed when Wilson lost the 1970 general election and Edward Heath proceeded to reinstate a far more traditional form of private office, relying more on established civil servants. Wilson’s chief press officer was replaced by a civil service press officer and Heath’s new political secretary, Douglas Hurd,dd with a diplomatic background, assimilated well into the atmosphere at No. 10. That was in contrast to his predecessor, Marcia Williams, who did not fit with the ‘good chaps theory of government’ as described by Peter Hennessy, whereby politicians and their advisers were expected to ‘behave themselves’ and abide by and adhere to ‘unwritten rules’.32 Private office evolved again with a return of the Wilson entourage in 1974 and the expansion of special advisers in No. 10 and elsewhere. The No. 10 Policy Unit, established in 1974, worked alongside the private office. Chapters 5 and 6 also highlight the role of the private office in providing stability in the period between 1964 and 1979, when there were five different political administrations and four changes of government all within fifteen years. The general election in which the private office played its most significant role was that of February 1974. As principal private secretary at No. 10, Robert Armstrong was central to facilitating the transition between Heath as Prime Minister and Wilson’s return to Downing Street.
Chapters 7 and 8 cover the years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997, which were dominated by Margaret Thatcher. She had strong 26views about the ways in which she managed her office and, according to some of the civil servants who worked for her, the private office was at its most effective in terms of organisation and efficiency when Thatcher was in power and at her most decisive. Chapter 7 examines how the No. 10 private office developed during the later Thatcher years and how, for much of that time, it came to be identified with two people, neither of whom was its head, namely Charles Powell and Bernard Ingham. Powell was the Prime Minister’s private secretary for foreign affairs from 1984 to 1991 and became one of the most powerful officials in Britain, operating with the full authority of the Prime Minister. Ingham, another career civil servant (although not part of Thatcher’s private office), was her chief press secretary and managed all No. 10 relations with the media. By contrast, Chapter 8 shows how, under John Major’s seven-year premiership, the private office reverted to a far more traditional role.
Chapter 9 then examines the period from 1997 to 2010 – the New Labour years and beyond. It begins by analysing the approach of the 1997 general election and the way in which New Labour prepared for government. It considers how the private offices prepared for transition and change while, at the same time, supporting the Major administration during a period when it was widely expected to lose the forthcoming general election. This chapter also shows how the Blair government grew in confidence and competence and how private office itself evolved and connected with the wider network of support and advice on which Blair and his advisers tended to rely. The chapter also analyses the continued rise of special advisers in British politics and their influence on the functions of the private office, including the roles and powers of two No. 10 special advisers, Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell. Powell’s new role as chief of staff bridged the civil service and political worlds and meant that a political appointee 27became formally a part of the private office, while Campbell was Blair’s all-powerful chief press secretary and official spokesman. The Cabinet Secretary was concerned about their likely powers. Gordon Brown, and subsequently David Cameron, despite initial protestations that they wished to reduce the size of the No. 10 machine, both sought to strengthen the centre to enforce their policies and their influence across Whitehall. In practice, Brown’s premiership became dominated by the economic crisis of 2008–09, and he became ever more reliant on his private office, led by Jeremy Heywood, whom Brown persuaded to return to the role he had left in 2003.
Chapter 10 begins with reflections from the incoming Prime Minister David Cameron in May 2010 about what he took from his experience as a special adviser and observing the workings of No. 10 prior to his entering Downing Street, including what he and his advisers learned from private office in the New Labour years. It then examines how, under Cameron’s premiership, with Nick Clegg as his deputy, there was a large increase in the total number of special advisers working for the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. The process of decision-making became a much more contested area than under New Labour, with new forms of governance emerging for managing interministerial coalition discussions, including via a process known as the ‘quad’.ee Finally, with the Brexit referendum of June 2016 and the fall of Cameron, the nature of British politics changed and the process for ‘getting Brexit done’ came to dominate all aspects of politics, including the role of private offices. Theresa May’s chief of staff Gavin Barwellff has related how, throughout the three years of May’s premiership, that policy area 28became his sole focus. Finally, with the Johnson premiership, many of the most basic principles of good governance – including those of the private office and No. 10 – began to fall apart. There was no process to flag up these failings and, seemingly, no one to caution the Prime Minister and other senior ministers about what they were doing. Chapter 10 concludes with some wider thoughts on the role and effectiveness of private offices, as well as some reflections about the context in which private offices now operate.
This book tells the history and story of private office, from its origins in the seventeenth century to the far more complex and yet still relatively small and intimate body that it has become. There is a central, and essential, role in the civil service for such an impartial body to support all ministers and, in particular, the Prime Minister, working with and alongside political advisers. The case for a more politicised private office has not been made and, indeed, it would be a constitutional upheaval with enormous implications were it ever to happen. That said, the failings of private office that have been witnessed over recent years need to be addressed urgently. The private office needs to change with the times. Its integrity needs to be restored and restated. Private secretaries should not be cheerleaders for their ministers, still less should they be routinely in the public eye. The role and powers of special advisers need to be more clearly and closely defined. They have a responsibility to remain in the background, away from the public eye, but to resume their function as an essential and central part of the hidden wiring of our constitution. That is a challenge for Prime Ministers, ministers and private secretaries themselves to seek to achieve in future.
NOTES
1 As quoted in the ‘Findings of the Second Permanent Secretary’s Investigation into Alleged Gatherings on Government Premises during COVID Restrictions’ (‘Sue Gray report’) (London: Cabinet Office, 2022), p. 11.
2 Ibid., p. 13.
3 Peter Hennessy, The Hidden Wiring (London: Victor Gollancz, 1995).
4 Fabian Tract 355, The Administrators: The Reform of the Civil Service (London: The Fabian Society, 1964).
5 Andrew Blick and Peter Hennessy, Good Chaps No More? Safeguarding the Constitution in Stressful Times (London: Constitution Society, 2019).
6 House of Commons Library note, 24 September 2019.
7 Hennessy, The Hidden Wiring.
8 Nicholas Henderson, The Private Office Revisited (London: Profile Books, 2001).
9 R. A. W. Rhodes, Everyday Life in British Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 137–65.
10 George Jones, ‘The Prime Minister’s Aides’, in Anthony King (ed.), The British Prime Minister (London: Macmillan, 1988), pp. 72–95.
11 Ibid. p. 76.
12 The main work on the prime ministership is Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its HoldersSince 1945 (London: Penguin, 2001), which includes reference throughout to the work of the private offices of all Prime Ministers from Attlee to Blair. For more specific studies on the work of the Prime Minister and the No. 10 private office, see Andrew Blick and George Jones, Premiership: The Development, Natureand Power of the Office of the British Prime Minister (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010); Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Secker & Warburg, 1989); Andrew Holt and Warren Dockter (eds), Private Secretariesto the Prime Minister: Foreign Affairs from Churchill to Thatcher (London: Routledge, 2017); George Jones, ‘The Prime Minister’s secretaries: politicians or administrators?’, in J. Griffith (ed.), From Policy toAdministration (London: Allen & Unwin, 1976); Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon, The Powers Behindthe Prime Minister (London: HarperCollins, 1999); King (ed.), The British Prime Minister; J. M. Lee, G. W. Jones and J. Burnham, At the Centre of Whitehall: Advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998); and Kevin Theakston, Leadership in Whitehall (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).
13 Kevin Theakston, The Civil Service Since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 34–55.
14 Blick and Jones, Premiership.
15 Kavanagh and Seldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, Appendix 1, pp. 327–44.
16 See, for example, Andrew Rawnsley, Servants of the People (London: Penguin, 2000) and Andrew Rawnsley, The End of the Party (London: Penguin, 2010); James Naughtie, The Rivals: The Intimate Story of a PoliticalMarriage (London: HarperCollins, 2001); and Anthony Seldon and Guy Lodge, Brown at 10 (London: Biteback, 2010).
17 Anthony Seldon, Blair (London: Simon & Schuster, 2004); Anthony Seldon, Blair Unbound (London: Simon & Schuster, 2008); Seldon and Lodge, Brown at 10; Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowden, Cameron at10 (London: HarperCollins, 2015); and Anthony Seldon, May at 10 (London: Biteback, 2019).
18 Jonathan Powell, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Bodley Head, 2010).
19 Ibid., p. 97. 410
20 Holt and Dockter (eds), Private Secretaries to the Prime Minister.
21 Anthony Seldon, ‘The Prime Minister’s Private Office from John Martin to Chris Martin’, in Holt and Dockter, Private Secretaries to the Prime Minister, pp. 187–207.
22 Gerald Kaufman, How to Be a Minister (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1980).
23 Ibid., pp. 33–4.
24 John Hutton and Leigh Lewis, How to Be a Minister: A 21st-Century Guide (London: Biteback, 2014).
25 Ibid., p. 117.
26 Ibid., p. 118.
27 Ibid., p. 121.
28 Hennessy, Whitehall, in particular, pp. 380–92.
29 Hennessy, The Prime Minister. For his analysis of the functions of the Prime Minister, see pp. 53–101.
30 See, for example, Jon Davis, Prime Ministers and Whitehall (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007); Gavin Drewry and Tony Butcher, The Civil Service Today (London: John Wiley and Sons, 1991), Nevil Johnson, ‘Change in the Civil Service’, Public Administration, 63 (Winter 1985), pp. 415–33; Rodney Lowe, The Official History of the British Civil Service, Volume 1: The Fulton Years, 1966–81 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011); Theakston, The Civil Service Since 1945; and Kevin Theakston, The Labour Party and Whitehall (London: Routledge, 1992).
31 Andrew Blick, People Who Live in the Dark (London: Politico’s, 2004), pp. 63–122.
32 Blick and Hennessy, Good Chaps No More?, p. 3.
a The journalistic collective term for the series of parties at No. 10 and the centre of government, covered by the Sue Gray report.
b Martin Reynolds CB CMG (1969–); principal private secretary to the Foreign Secretary (Philip Hammond, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt) 2014–18; British ambassador to Libya 2019; principal private secretary to the Prime Minister 2019–22.
c Sue Gray (1957–); director general and head of propriety and ethics, Cabinet Office, 2012–2018; Second Permanent Secretary Cabinet Office 2021–22. Subsequently left the civil service and was appointed, in 2023, as chief of staff to the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer.
d Montagu ‘Monty’ Corry (1838–1903); private secretary to Benjamin Disraeli 1866–81; created Baron Rowton 1880.
e Sir John ‘Jock’ Colville (1915–87); assistant private secretary to the Prime Minister (Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee) 1939–41 and 1943–45; joint principal private secretary to the Prime Minister 1951–55. Colville, unusually for a civil servant, published his diaries (TheFringesofPower) and they provide a unique insight into the workings of the No. 10 private office during the 1940s and 1950s as well as his relationship with the Prime Minister.
f Marcia Williams (1932–2019); personal secretary to Harold Wilson 1956–64 and 1970–74; personal and political secretary to the Prime Minister 1964–70 and 1974–76; created Baroness Falkender 1974.
g Sir Derek Mitchell (1922–2009); principal private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Reginald Maudling) 1962–64; principal private secretary to the Prime Minister (Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson) 1964–66.
h Charles Powell (1941–); private secretary (foreign affairs) to the Prime Minister 1984–91; created Lord Powell of Bayswater 2000.
i Bernard Ingham (1932–); chief press secretary to the Prime Minister 1979–90.
j Jonathan Powell (1956–); Foreign Office diplomat 1979–95; chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition 1995–97; chief of staff to the Prime Minister 1997–2007.
k Alastair Campbell (1957–); former political journalist; chief press secretary to the Leader of the Opposition 1994–97; Prime Minister’s chief press secretary and official spokesman 1997–2001; director of strategy and communications No. 10 2001–03.
l The Cabinet Office, headed by the Cabinet Secretary, has a responsibility to provide support and advice to the whole of Cabinet – not just the Prime Minister and No. 10. It is responsible, for example, for the structure of Cabinet committees which co-ordinate all cross-government policy and advice to the Prime Minister.
m Dominic Cummings (1971–); special adviser to Michael Gove 2010–12; special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson 2019–20.
n Rhodes’s analysis was based on interviews with the private offices of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Trade and Industry.
o Jeremy Heywood (1961–2018); private secretary to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1986–88; principal private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Norman Lamont and Kenneth Clarke) 1991–94; private secretary (economic affairs), subsequently principal private secretary, to the Prime Minister (Tony Blair) 1997–2003; principal private secretary to the Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) 2008–10; Permanent Secretary No. 10 2010–12; Cabinet Secretary 2012–18; created Lord Heywood of Whitehall 2018.
p Gerald Kaufman (1930–2017); political assistant to the Prime Minister and parliamentary liaison officer, No. 10, 1965–70; MP 1970–2017.
qYes Minister was the satirical BBC television series written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn and based around the workings of a Cabinet minister’s office, including the relationship with his Permanent Secretary and his principal private secretary.
r Hutton served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2005–07, while Lewis was his Permanent Secretary at that time.
s Although Cameron did have experience of working in the Treasury as a special adviser at the time of ‘Black Wednesday’ and therefore knew many of the key figures then working in No. 10 and the Treasury, including Gus O’Donnell and Jeremy Heywood (both future Cabinet Secretaries).
t Robert Armstrong (1927–2020); private secretary to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury 1953–54; private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (R. A. Butler) 1954–55; joint principal private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Roy Jenkins) 1967–68; principal private secretary to the Prime Minister (Edward Heath and Harold Wilson) 1970–75; Permanent Secretary to the Home Office 1977–79; Cabinet Secretary 1979–87; created Lord Armstrong of Ilminster 1988.
u Simon Case (1978–); civil servant, Permanent Secretary No. 10 2020; Cabinet Secretary 2020–.
v David Omand (1947–); private secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence 1973–75; principal private secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence (Francis Pym and John Nott) 1979–83. Later Permanent Secretary Home Office and security and intelligence adviser to the government.
w Richard Mottram (1946–); assistant private secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence 1972–73; private secretary to the Permanent Secretary (Sir Frank Cooper) 1979–81; principal private secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence (John Nott and Michael Heseltine) 1982–86; later Permanent Secretary in five departments, including the MoD. He ended his career as the government’s chief intelligence and security adviser.
x Alex Allan (1951–); principal private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Nigel Lawson) 1986–89; principal private secretary to the Prime Minister (John Major and Tony Blair) 1992–97; high commissioner to Australia 1997–99; e-Envoy 1999–2000; Permanent Secretary Ministry of Justice 2004–07; chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee 2007–11.
y Caroline Slocock (1956–); private secretary to the Prime Minister (home affairs) 1989–91.
z Bernard Donoughue (1934–); head of the Downing Street Policy Unit 1974–79.
aa David Lipsey (1948–); special adviser to Anthony Crosland MP 1974–77; special adviser to the Prime Minister 1977–79; created Lord Lipsey 1999.
bb Joe Haines (1928–); chief press secretary 1969–70, 1974–76.
cc Alun Evans (1958–); civil servant; principal private secretary to the Secretary of State for Employment 1994–95; principal private secretary to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Gillian Shephard and David Blunkett) 1995–98; head of the Strategic Communications Unit, No. 10, 1998–2000.
dd Douglas Hurd (1930–); Foreign Office diplomat 1952–66; political secretary to the Prime Minister 1970–73; Conservative MP 1974–97; Home Secretary 1985–89; Foreign Secretary 1989–95; created Lord Hurd 1997.
ee The ‘quad’ was the mechanism which developed during the coalition for resolving disputes between the two parties.
ff Gavin Barwell (1972–); chief of staff to the Prime Minister (Theresa May) 2017–19.
1
The junction box of government: What is private office and what does it do?
In 1880, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli reflected on his relationship with his private secretary Montagu Corry, highlighting that
the relations between a minister and his secretary are, or at least should be, among the finest that can subsist between two individuals. Except the married state, there is none in which so great a confidence is involved, in which more forbearance ought to be exercised, or more sympathy ought to exist.1
