They are the influential, socially ambitious and fiendishly interconnected tribe of Westminster advisers who in the words of the Hamilton musical, hanker to be “in the room where it happens” – and make sure they are.
The close-knit tribe of “spads” (special advisers) to senior ministers are keepers of romantic and professional secrets, spreaders of good news about their bosses’ talents – and the first line of defence when political trouble, marital strife and the minefields of resignation loom. And they are often the young “shock troops” of their party’s future, earning their spurs.
As Westminster returns to full combat from the deep-freeze of Zoom calls and disembodied WhatsApp groups in what one spad calls the “working from Zone 3” period, the league of influential, conspiratorial (and occasionally exhibitionist) aides to the Prime and other ministers anticipate a rollicking summer of parties, feuds and score-settling – all in the service of their bosses, jockeying to be on the right side of the national battle over the wisdom or foolishness of the Great Reopening. But as well as reflecting their bosses’ voices, political advisers can find themselves turning into the cause célèbre – or major embarrassment – all by themselves.
They relish a scrap – and come to life when conflict beckons, ready to WhatsApp LTT “Lines to Take” to supporters and defences (or veiled threats) to detractors. Spad world is as hierarchical as any big corporation, even if many of the main players tend to be under 35.
There is always an in-crowd of top-notch aides and these days, they range from Josh Grimstone, 28, the photogenic, waspish protégé of Carrie Symonds, now an adviser to Michael Gove. Grimstone’s Facebook page once joked “Once you kill a cow you gotta make a burger.” The “burger” in this case is sorting out the tangled links between Gove’s role at the Cabinet Office – the “clearing house” of government business – and Number 10. In that incarnation, he is in regular touch with Henry Newman, another of the A-list spads and FOCs (Friends of Carrie), now in Number 10 and deputy to Simone Finn.
Finn, 53, is the present incarnation of the “Mother Spad” – a figure idolised (and often feared) by those on their way up the Tory greasy pole. She’s the tough but polished product of a Swansea state school, an accomplished top accountant at PwC and the Financial Services Authority . “She’s probably the only adviser outside the Treasury who can laser-brain her way through accounts,” says a contemporary. A party animal – usually in dress-to-kill heels and a designer frock – she served under Francis Maude at the Cabinet Office and as a non-exec there under Gove, an old Oxford boyfriend.
These days, Finn is deputy chief of staff in Number 10, charged with the personnel mess after Dominic Cummings’ Krakatoa eruption – and ensuring friendly rivalries between the younger spads like Grimstone and Newman are kept within the bounds of Tiggerish competition.
Dubbed “the Claire Underwood of Downing Street” after the stylish but ruthless power broker in Netflix’s House of Cards, Finn once joked to me that she would do “anything for the Conservative Party except wear cheap make-up on TV”. Melding social and political nous, she earned her spurs organising an ABBA-themed evening for Symonds - with whom she is a close friend. Finn can charm or freeze in equal measure - the skilled spad wields power and connection like a political crypto-currency, which in this world, it is.
Crises are opportunities for new aides to shine - and those caught up in the mess to fall. And rather a lot has been going on in the “room where it happened” at the Department of Health, as it emerged that Matt Hancock was having an affair with one of his key aides Gina Coladangelo. Evidence of the “minister for hugs” taking his jokey moniker literally – in snatched footage from a security camera of him in a hot clinch with the woman who joined his team in a combined role of non–exec and special adviser – has shone an unforgiving light on the coterie who keep the political machine at Westminster rolling along, and the gossip mills turning.
Despite her titles, Coladangelo was not really a member of the brightest-and-best inner sanctum of top-notch spads. Having covered health policy for a longish stint, I was frankly unaware of her bona fides, until a policy aide discussing Team Hancock’s response to the pandemic said archly, “You’d better talk to Gina, though I have no idea what she does.” That question is now being directed at Lord Bethell - the close ally of Hancock in the Lords who signed off her parliamentary pass and is now under investigation in the Lords for so doing.
Gove’s adviser, photogenic Josh Grimstone, bonded with Carrie Symonds over the best places to go clubbing
This bonfire of the vanities also casts light on a distinction in such circles which is lightly-worn but important – between policy experts and presentational gurus. Spads are political appointees unlike impartial civil servants. Some come with legal or innovation expertise in a sector. But the most prominent exponents are often spin-doctor-strategists - helping their masters to survive the snakes and ladders of SW1 life.
And that brings us to the style of the men and women who walk discreetly behind them (though close enough to be caught in photographer’s shots in perfect blow dries and stylish office wear). Cleo Watson was invariably alongside Dominic Cummings embodying the silky art of not outshining your boss, but always being fervently on-message. Her Twitter handle reads simply “Got Brexit done”.
And when trouble comes calling, fellow spads pick up the pieces – a role that now falls to Damon Poole, as he starts work with Sajid Javid after the hasty resignation of Hancock. Because the relationship is so close and intense, one established adviser reflects that a spad feels “like a dog being rehomed” when “their” minister falls on his sword – or one inserted between his shoulder blades by an enemy.
Most of the time, relationships stay platonic, but Hancock and Coladangelo have followed in the pattern of married ministers who segue to a second relationship via the spad route. Coladangelo hosted departmental gatherings alongside Hancock (and was known as the “office wife” – a phrase which should chill the marrow of every watchful spouse.)
It is a dynamic wryly observed by Sarah Vine, who wrote candidly in her Daily Mail column last week in the wake of separating from Michael Gove after a 20-year relationship: “Ministers are surrounded by people telling them how brilliant they are. Their departments treat them like feudal barons. Their every whim is treated as law. It changes them. It becomes increasingly difficult for anything to compete with the adrenaline of power.”
This brought to mind the eye-roll delivered to me by the wife of a prominent aide of the Blair era, who observed that her husband, steeped in the details of international agreements, had somehow acquired “diplomatic immunity from domestic life”.
In the case of the Goves, rumours of third parties being involved in the divorce of the high-profile Minister for the Cabinet Office return to scuttlebutt about aides, past and present – something that Gove and Vine, as seasoned Westminster operators, anticipated by insisting in a clear joint statement there was “no one else involved” in their split.
The heat and speculation are themselves a sign of how intense and committed the relationship between advisers and senior ministers can become. Excitable gossip aside, Gove’s networks of spads and non-exec links is both highly personal and politically trenchant. It intersects with the ultimate court of the Johnsons – and the FOCs who control it unopposed since the departure in high umbrage of the Great Ousted Adviser Dominic Cummings. The best of these aides are often bridges between two power bases. So Gove’s old team made amends with the Boris fiefdom, by supplying the PM and his wife with a fresh bank of loyalists – the better to hold the fort against the traditional power base of the Treasury, where the Chancellor has a far deeper bench of official expertise to support his arguments.
For a pitch perfect send-up of this tendency of modern spads to end up as cheerleader, it’s worth watching the comedian Josh Berry’s impersonation of a Newman-esque figure comforting the PM’s wife after criticism of her expensive choice of furnishings in the Downing Street lair: ”It was perfect: it was gorge and well worth spending 1% of GDP on. Go chill and get yourself a turmeric latte.”
Gina Coladangelo was known as Hancock’s ‘office wife’, a phrase to chill the marrow of every watchful spouse
Real-life spads are, however, sharper than Berry’s engaging public-school dimwit and these days not always from the smug Oxbridge factory. Grimstone started his career after being hired at Conservative Central Office by Symonds after bonding with her over the best places to go clubbing in the northern cities. He’s a Manchester history graduate who went to state school (albeit top-notch Tiffin in southwest London) and was one of a handful of political insiders at the Johnson wedding (beating many Cabinet ministers to an invitation).
But when quarrels arise, they can be fervent and bitter, because everyone knows so much about their fellow aides’ faux pas. Proxy wars then spiral between camps, once aligned, now at war. Cummings accused Newman of being the “chatty rat” who leaked information of a second lockdown and, along with many spad insider mysteries, this one was never fully cleared up. Newman insists he was not the leaker and would not have been hired by Number 10 if he had been. “Debatable,” texts a colleague with a glint of mischief.
Inevitably, some aides hit the buffer in the pinball of power – notably Allegra Stratton, the talented TV journalist shunted from a promised role fronting televised press conferences to spinning for the Cop 26 climate change conference. On the upside, many of the breed go on to highly successful business careers, capitalising on their insider knowledge. Ben Wegg-Prosser, dapper sidekick to Peter Mandelson in his ministerial pomp, is now managing partner at Global Counsel, a prominent international strategy consultancy.
He reflects: “Spads have always drawn their influence from the political masters. But the best ones extend their reach beyond their boss’s own remit. That way they can secure better outcomes but also be seen as distinct and different.”
When I point out that Cummings might be seen as a case of too much independence, Wegg–Prosser replies, “He took distinctiveness to a new level which ultimately became destructive.” And advisers can make a bad situation worse - as it turned out when Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy ran into trouble serving Theresa May and were dubbed the “gruesome twosome” for alienating colleagues. In truth, Timothy was an ideas man who could have been at arms length from the daily battles surrounding the Withdrawal Agreement and Hill, a tough TV journalist, also struggled in a role which requires allies as well as underlings. If it looks like an easy gig from the outside, it isn’t, which is one reason (as well as the connections) spads often go on to successful careers in comms and business.
Often most effective are the ones you haven’t heard of – not the ones who brief journalists on the brilliance of their bosses and foibles of opponents. They are the ones ministers turn to for candid, confidential advice when the going gets tough and policy challenges and political necessity are a hard combination to pull off. One such figure is Andrew Hood, now on Team Gove – and a (relatively rare) transfer between the parties at Westminster.
Hood is a “Lexiteer” – part of the small tribe of Labour Leave supporters in high-level policy roles – and has advised ministers reaching back to the Blair government (his background, conveniently, is complex litigation). He was also general counsel under Cameron and a non-exec at the Department for International Trade. Now on Team Gove, Hood advises on the cat’s cradle intricacies of the Northern Ireland protocol. That’s the swottier end of the spad trade and it probably matters a lot more than who flatters the minister most or styles his hair.
On the other hand, it’s not quite so exciting as being the person in the innermost sanctum of the after-party WhatsApp group, in the room where it happens, chewing over the latest juicy personal revelations – or helping make them happen.
