By Tim Bale
This blog is based on an article originally published in Parliamentary Affairs by the author.
Keir Starmer, in his first eighteen months, has had three. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss had one each. Boris Johnson contrived to have nine, while Theresa May made do with just three, as did David Cameron. Gordon Brown had four, as did Tony Blair. John Major managed with only two, while Margaret Thatcher had five.
The superbly well-informed readers of this blog will, of course, know that I’m talking about Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Yet, with only one or two exceptions, remarkably little has been written on the role – partly perhaps because, as Tim Finch, one of those who has examined it in more detail put it, a PPS is often seen as little more than a ‘bag carrier’. Yet, as he noted, they have the potential to become a ‘linchpin,’ expanding the scope of the role beyond two-way communication between the Prime Minister and their parliamentary party so as to become a vital part of the PM’s tactical and strategic operation.
The exemplar, perhaps, is Ian Gow, who served as Margaret Thatcher’s PPS from during her first term as Prime Minister. He was regarded by Thatcher and most of those who served her as a brilliant appointment and, by some margin, as the best PPS she ever had. It was a role which (in hindsight reluctantly) he relinquished in 1983 in exchange for a junior ministerial job, although he was eventually to resign from government in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement two years later. Even then, however, he insisted on his continued devotion to the woman he (along with her many other admirers at the time) called ‘The Lady.’
Sadly, no PPS since Gow (who died at the hands of the IRA in 1990) seems to have fully realised the enormous potential of the role – a pity, perhaps, given how difficult so many of our recent premiers seem to have found their job. Had they been able or seen fit to appoint someone who could do even half of what Gow did for, they might perhaps have struggled a little less and maybe even have achieved a little more.
Naturally, much of what a PPS does and can do inevitably takes place behind closed doors – one reason why, even if it only allows us to prise (rather than fling) open those doors, exploring contemporaneous archive and diary material, can, especially when combined with material gleaned from ministerial memoirs and interviews, provide us with more insight than hitherto. And this is exactly what my article just published online (and free to read) in Parliamentary Affairs tries to achieve.
Gow, it argues, serves as a reminder of the role that, potentially at least, a good PPS to the PM can play – a role that that goes well beyond ‘eyes and ears’ and, for all that the 2020s are not the 1980s, could still be played today if, that is, someone willing to play it is allowed the requisite leeway.
A Parliamentary Private Secretary to the PM is there to explain the Prime Minister to the parliamentary party and the parliamentary party to the Prime Minister, getting a sense of pitfalls and problems before they turn into something more serious. He or she should remind their boss of the need to engage with back-benchers and junior frontbenchers on all sides of the party. Gow, unlike his successors, did not attend Cabinet meetings; but he showed even so that a PPS to the PM is able to influence them, albeit informally. He or she can also have considerable influence on reshuffles and, fairly or unfairly, on how ministers are regarded by the Prime Minister. And, if adept at the dark arts, he or she can help the PM deny Cabinet colleagues too much autonomy. Moreover, if on the same wavelength ideologically as his or her boss, the PPS can also serve not just as a sounding board but as their conscience, stiffening their spine as well as helping with key speeches. And he or she can play a part in helping the Prime Minister make that supposedly loneliest of decisions – namely when to call an election.
But the role requires a certain sort of individual to do the job well. They need to be gregarious but also shrewd, relatable but also ruthless. Not only do they have to know their boss’s mind, and their strengths and weaknesses, but they also have to be willing to speak truth to power. Gow’s apparently phenomenal tolerance for alcohol may not be so necessary nowadays – the Commons has changed (although, some argue, not enough) in that respect. But a willingness to work far more hours than is strictly sensible probably still is – so much so that MPs who have the combination of personal qualities and sheer commitment needed to make a success of the role may well be a rarer commodity nowadays. But they are nonetheless a highly valuable one.
Many recent Prime Ministers, Thatcher included, have eventually been forced out owing to their failure to keep in close touch with (and a close eye on) their colleagues on both the front and back benches – in part through the wont of a high calibre consigliere like Gow. Whoever takes over from Sir Keir Starmer, then, be it sooner or later, would be well advised to take as much time and care in appointing their PPS as they do in choosing their Cabinet.
About the author
Tim Bale is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London.
