The news on December 19 that the Home Secretary’s two special advisers had been removed from the Conservative Party’s official candidates’ list stirred a great deal of comment in the media. In a letter to The Times, Alistair Lexden enlarged the discussion by pointing out the need to evaluate the work that special advisers do. He also drew attention to the underlying reason why the two Tory special advisers had been expected to help in a recent by-election. The letter was published in edited form in The Times on December 24:
Dear Sir
Is Britain a better governed country as a result of the work of over 100 special advisers to ministers? No one knows. A rigorous independent study of their contribution to government is badly needed. That should be followed by cross-party agreement on an upper limit to their numbers and by the establishment of a simple and transparent set of criteria that they would need to meet before being considered for appointment. Allowing ministers to appoint whomsoever they wish is hardly a satisfactory basis for good government.
To complement the work of career civil servants, special advisers need above all a firm understanding of the policies of the political party whose interests they are helping their ministers to advance. That is unlikely to be available to those whose political education has been derived principally from a lobbying or public relations organisation. On the Tory side, many of the best special advisers have been graduates of the Conservative Research Department whose briefings and policy work have helped sustain the Party for nearly a century. It was there that both the Prime Minister and Chancellor served their apprenticeships. So too, as it happens, did Nick Timothy and Stephen Parkinson whose work is highly valued by the Home Secretary.
There should be no need to try and dragoon special advisers who are on the Conservative Party’s official candidates’ list into becoming constituency helpers during by-elections (“ Cameron approved removal of May’s aides from candidate list”,Dec.20). This new peremptory demand has arisen because Tory volunteers are now so thin on the ground. No one in the Party’s hierarchy is giving any serious attention to reversing this disastrous decline. Throughout her premiership Margaret Thatcher set aside days for regional tours to thank party workers and help recruit more. When did David Cameron last do such a thing?
Yours faithfully
Lord Lexden
(Deputy Director, Conservative Research Department 1985-97)
House of Lords