Most ministerial advisers are men. That doesn’t help equality in politics

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/26/ministers-advisers-men-equality-politics-men

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Spend some years on the Westminster beat, and you’ll clock up hundreds of hours chatting to the Bens, Tims and Toms in the ranks of special advisers. They’re the spectral presences of politics, honing their bosses’ ideas and messages, guarding the turf of their masters from encroachment by rivals.

How male-dominated the ranks of ministerial advisers are is hardly a surprise, but the raw figures are more appalling than I realised. Only a quarter of spads (special advisers) on the current list are women, and a mere 15% in Downing Street. The latter figure is an embarrassment for a prime minister who has said she wants more workplace equality for women and has a tight-knit inner circle, in which the most senior woman (JoJo Penn) is only the deputy chief of staff.

Counting the numbers of female MPs and ministers tells only part of the story of women’s roles in politics. Special advisers matter, because they reflect and shape their bosses’ priorities. The intimacy of their relationship (they are personal appointments with strong loyalty to the political aims of their minister), means that they can drive a particular policy agenda or downplay ideas they don’t approve of – so any mention of something being a “second term issue” means it is a dodo. They’re also lightning rods for feuds – Tony Blair’s team routinely snubbed Ed Balls, when he was economic adviser to Gordon Brown, a proxy show of underlying hostilities.

Spads are gatekeepers for ministers’ reputations. They have substantial influence over how their bosses are perceived – and the best are adept at pouring oil on troubled waters. I remember a particularly punchy encounter with Charles Clarke when he was home secretary, which was assuaged by his astute (female) spad intervening to leaven the standoff with a joke. A small matter, but a good example of how to stop a politician in a hole digging a deeper one.

Today, I know senior cabinet figures who regard their spad as, essentially, judge and jury over which bids they accept or which policy-hawkers they will see. Essentially, they’re the powerful clearing houses of modern politics and, like all centres of influence, they need more women.

It’s not hard to diagnose why men (usually young and ambitious with an eye on a political or consultancy career) dominate. They reflect male preponderance in senior political roles, but there’s also a cultural bias, towards the idea of the grand vizier as a mix of tough and clubbable, while women have often ended up with emollient or office-organiser roles.

The good news is that now more women are battling through to the frontlines. In part, that is due to a return to senior jobs of able women from the Cameron era after a period in Siberia. Zoe Thorogood, now at CCHQ, Anita Boateng at the Cabinet Office, Meg Powell-Chandler at education and the new culture secretary Matt Hancock luring back Lottie Dominiczak, are all evidence of the desire to join up a fairly chaotic message of what the government is about, apart from Brexit.

What matters is who gets the plum roles as consiglieri when a party gets into government

The May team, both in press and policy, could surely do with a lot more senior women to the fore (having lost the pugnacious Fiona Hill after a poor election campaign, too little focus has gone into recruiting senior women). Hill became a scapegoat for an autocratic style, but I still wonder whether, had she been a man, her modus operandi would have been treated as the norm for a rough old trade rather than a outrage.

Over on Team Corbyn, there’s a similar pattern of a close male tribe driving the project. Female power players are emerging though – and they control access to the leader’s office, an increasingly important asset as the next election hoves into view. A phalanx of senior placemen and women from the Unite union now form the inner circle around Corbyn, led by Karie Murphy (about as different a creature as you could imagine from the suits-and-stilettoes style of Anji Hunter with Blair or Kate Fall alongside Cameron).

Jennie Formby joins the top table this week as the new general secretary with Amy Jackson driving control of the party and MPs as political secretary.

What matters, though, is who gets the plum roles as consiglieri when a party gets into government. The pecking order of advisers reflects the rising or diminishing glory of their bosses. What Alexander Pope wrote of the Prince of Wales’s puppy might also be their collective motto: “I am his Highness’ dog at Kew;/ Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?”