Introducing the Mace Index of Special Advisers

Peter Cardwell | 10th May 2021 | Westminster Index
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Peter Cardwell, special adviser to four cabinet ministers, introduces our exclusive survey of the Top 50 Spads across all political parties – and explains why the politico breed are here to stay

Until Dominic Cummings made clear he disapproved of the practice, special advisers – ministerial aides personally appointed by UK cabinet ministers as their political sidekicks – often worked from home on the occasional Friday. Having spent Monday to Thursday being grilled on matters of state in the gilded rooms of Whitehall and parliament, their secretary of state generally will work in their constituency on Friday, spending the day in a dingy community hall at a constituency surgery, dealing with planning, drains, passports and sewerage.

It is not yet known whether his Downing Street replacement, Dan Rosenfield, is a Spad Friday sort of adviser, expecting people in the office at all hours.

But there has been a change of regime already with the trademark 'combative' style of Cummings now being mollified under Rosenfield. The new Downing Street adviser court now has a culture that is more emollient, more technocratic and more collegiate; and probably - I speak as someone wh...

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