0:02

Welcome to Sincerely Sloan presented by

0:04

Uninterrupted. I'm your

0:06

host, professional tennis player, wife,

0:08

parent, and entrepreneur Sloan Stevens.

0:11

As an athlete and as a person, my

0:13

journey has had a lot of twists and

0:16

turns, from moments of adversity and doubt to

0:18

unimaginable triumph and satisfaction. Throughout

0:20

the season, I'm joined by some of the biggest

0:22

names in sports, entertainment, culture, and a few members

0:25

of my tribe. Our

0:27

conversations keep it real and push it past

0:29

skin deep. We

0:31

reveal the perspectives, routines, and products that allow

0:33

each of us to show up at our

0:35

best. Join me on

0:38

my journey of self-discovery and many, many

0:40

laughs along the way. Sincerely, Sloan. Roundabout

0:45

season two presented by Nissan is live

0:47

now, and we're back to share more

0:49

stories from the road and the memories

0:52

made along the way. We're talking rest

0:54

stops. If we're stopping to get gas,

0:57

you will be timed. Misguided plans. I grew

0:59

up in the city, so I

1:01

have like, you know, a healthy fear

1:03

of real extreme darkness. A

1:06

lot of laughs. Y'all weird, but

1:08

you, yeah, you, you are different.

1:10

And so much more. Listen and

1:12

subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

1:24

Hello, I'm Matt Cholley, and this is

1:26

Politics Without the Boring Bits coming up on

1:28

today's episode. How to

1:30

be a minister. Some top advice

1:32

for if hypothetically you're about to

1:34

become a government minister, having never

1:36

done it before. Lots of

1:38

people called Alan and Margaret Beckett. That's coming up

1:41

in our big thing. Before that,

1:43

some analysis of Rishi Sunak's big manifesto

1:45

announcement. Steve Swinford joins me for that.

1:47

And don't forget, after you've listened to

1:50

today's episode of Politics Without the Boring

1:52

Bits, head on over to How to

1:54

Win an Election this week with

1:56

Peter Manson, Polly Mackenzie, Danny Finkelstein

1:58

and US pollster, Frank Luntz on the

2:01

state of politics on both sides of the Atlantic.

2:03

And if you like what you hear on the

2:05

podcast, don't forget you can join me for politics

2:07

without the boy in bits live on Times Radio,

2:10

on your DAB radio, on your smart speaker, or

2:12

download the Times Radio app that's politics without the

2:14

boy in bits or weekdays from 10. It's

2:20

a day with a why in it, so it must

2:22

be a Mel Stride day.

2:26

Mel Stride is the work of pension secretary. He's

2:28

got his overalls on and is looking for the

2:30

spanner this morning. We can speak to him now.

2:32

Good morning to you. Mel Stride, work and pension

2:34

secretary. How are you? I'm really well. I'm at

2:36

Silverstone actually, so I'm all revved up and ready

2:38

to go. Mel Stride, work and pension secretary.

2:40

You're on more often than I am. How

2:43

are you? I'm

2:46

really well. I'm at Silverstone. Mel

3:04

Stride is the spanner this morning. Rishi

3:06

Sunak is somebody I know reasonably well.

3:09

We will have a target if you're patient,

3:11

you wait for the manifesto to very quickly

3:13

recognise that he had made a mistake.

3:16

We are now at an inflection point,

3:18

so we are now, the trajectory is

3:20

downward. Ain't nothing

3:22

going to break Mel Stride. Apparently

3:25

the only cabinet minister still available for media

3:27

rounds. Four days in a row I think

3:29

has now been available. So

3:32

there we are. Now, if you're

3:34

still unsure who to vote for,

3:36

Times Radio listener Alan Goodman has composed

3:38

a theme song to

3:40

help you make up your mind. Vote

3:45

format surely,

3:47

surely, surely

3:50

Vote format

3:52

surely on

3:54

the radio It's

4:01

pretty good. Nice harmonies from Alan.

4:04

Should we have it again? Let's

4:06

have it again. Come on Alan. Vote

4:10

format surely,

4:13

surely, surely,

4:15

vote format

4:17

surely on

4:20

the radio.

4:27

And if you want to send me your

4:29

own attempt to add a campaign jingle, basically

4:31

any sort of jingle, and you want to

4:33

hear it on the podcast, you can email

4:36

me mattattimes.radio and we'll use it on a

4:38

future episode. Now, of course, the big news

4:40

of the day, Rishisunak unveiling the Conservative manifesto.

4:43

Is this enough to get him back in

4:45

the game? He promised to halve immigration in

4:48

the same way he said he'd halved inflation.

4:50

Unveiled 17 billion pounds

4:52

of tax cuts. He promised to take

4:54

a further two-pee off employees' national insurance

4:56

by April 2027 and abolish the

4:59

main rate of the tax for the

5:01

self-employed entirely. By the end

5:03

of the parliament, he claimed there'd be a regular

5:05

rhythm of planes taking off to Rwanda and said

5:08

he wanted to require migrants to undergo

5:10

a health check in advance of coming

5:13

to the UK. He also

5:15

pledged to build 1.6 million

5:17

new homes, 600,000 more than the Labour Party. But

5:20

the document stopped short of saying that the

5:22

UK could leave the European Convention on Human

5:24

Rights, which is what some on the

5:26

Tory right had called for, including the

5:29

former Home Secretary Svala Baffman. Interestingly, at

5:31

one point in the speech, he paid

5:33

tribute to former Conservative Home Secretaries. He

5:35

mentioned Theresa May, he mentioned Priti Patel,

5:38

he mentioned James Cleverley, he didn't mention

5:40

Svala Baffman. Anyway, here is a taster

5:42

of what Rishisunak had to say. We

5:44

will keep cutting taxes in the coming

5:47

years, meaning that by 2027, we will

5:49

have halved national insurance to 6%. That

5:52

is a tax cut, my friends, worth £1,300 to

5:54

the average worker. We

5:57

speak to Steve Swinford, the political editor of The Times.

6:00

So what did you make of it, Steve, in

6:02

terms of the overall messaging and some of the

6:04

detail we didn't know before? I

6:06

think most of it we knew. They've heavily

6:08

trailed it in the past few weeks, and

6:10

it's all in a bid to shift the

6:14

dial to move the conversation on. The

6:16

concern I think Tory MPs will have

6:18

is not actually that much that is

6:20

new today, and all the messages

6:23

are already out there. As we know, the polls

6:25

have not shifted yet on the basis of all

6:27

those measures. So we knew about the 2P cuts

6:29

in national insurance, we knew about the income tax

6:31

cuts for pensioners. It's a big

6:34

manifesto. It's a kind of kitchen sink

6:36

manifesto. They are chucking everything at

6:38

core voters here, and still the polls haven't

6:40

shifted. And the question I think will be

6:42

asked in the wake of this is, if

6:44

they haven't shifted already, what is going to

6:46

change that would make them shift now? In

6:51

terms of the reception in the room,

6:53

I mean, given that there are literally

6:55

people in which he's seen acts cabinet

6:57

sitting in front of me as

6:59

he made that speech who are thinking about

7:01

if the polls are right, the conservatives lose

7:03

the election, they'll be throwing their hat in

7:06

the ring for a leadership campaign.

7:08

Do you think on some of those key things, whether it

7:10

is tax cuts, whether it is

7:12

the question

7:15

of the European Court of Human Rights, does it go

7:17

far enough with those people, potential leadership

7:20

contenders? I

7:22

think it depends which wing of the party you talk

7:25

to. Obviously, the centrists are very clear that they shouldn't

7:27

be going further on the ECH jar.

7:29

But I think whether you speak to people in

7:31

the centre or on the right of the party,

7:33

they're all united that this is not a good

7:35

campaign. It was a mistake to go early, and

7:38

they all think the Tories are going to lose.

7:40

And increasingly, what we're seeing in their social media

7:42

advertising and elsewhere is a

7:44

kind of damage limitation approach that one

7:47

of their social media efforts today says don't

7:49

handstarm a massive majority. It doesn't sound

7:51

like a party that thinks it's going

7:53

to win the election. It's about avoiding

7:55

stammer being empowered for 10 or

7:58

more years. mood

8:00

music is and when you talk to all

8:02

those cabinet ministers privately they are despairing about

8:04

the way this campaign has been run and

8:07

the way that it's going it is a

8:09

very unhappy party. I think the other question

8:11

is are these the right taxes to cut?

8:13

So Rishi Sunak has bet the house on

8:15

national insurance both in his autumn statement then

8:17

in his budget and today again another 2p

8:19

on national insurance. Is that a vote winner

8:22

or could he have taken the kind of

8:24

20 billion that he had to play

8:26

with nearly 20 billion in these kind of fictional figures

8:28

that are in the manifesto if you like could he

8:30

have taken that money bet it all

8:32

on income tax or put it all on

8:34

inheritance taxes or something else and that debate

8:37

will play out in the coming days and

8:39

weeks. Has Rishi Sunak prioritized the right

8:41

tax cuts and has he gone far

8:43

enough on the ATHR? Just

8:45

funny Steve when he does have problems

8:47

with Tory MPs who are unhappy with

8:49

how this campaign has played out what

8:51

should we make of the line in

8:53

his speech when he was paying tribute

8:55

to the work to bring down migration

8:58

and others and law and order by

9:00

successive home secretaries he mentioned Theresa he

9:02

mentioned pretty he mentioned James he didn't

9:04

mention Suella what should we read into

9:06

that? I think there's

9:08

two ghosts in the speech there's Suella who

9:10

he Bravman who is obviously very critical of

9:12

him and thinks there should be a deal

9:14

with reform the other ghost that's missing from

9:16

his speech is Liz Truss he name-checked all

9:18

the other former Tory Prime Ministers didn't name

9:21

check her anywhere near and that's because he

9:23

still thinks he's been handed the kind of

9:25

worst hospital pass for a generation and a

9:27

lot of his troubles are on her door

9:29

but I mean there was an extraordinary bit

9:31

in the speech Matt which

9:33

is just worth reflecting on briefly he was

9:35

saying I am NOT blind to the fact that people

9:38

are frustrated with my party and frustrated with

9:40

me things have not always been easy and

9:42

we have not always got everything right I

9:44

mean to acknowledge that people are frustrated with

9:46

the Tories and him personally in a speech

9:48

when he's asking people to vote for him

9:50

it's quite an unusual tactic and I think

9:53

they're hoping the honesty about what has happened

9:55

under Liz Truss and those that have gone

9:57

before him will help I think the question

9:59

is will it. Stephen Swinford there,

10:01

the political editor of the Times

10:03

and plenty more analysis of what

10:05

was and wasn't in the Conservative

10:07

manifesto at thetimes.com. Up next, how

10:09

to be a minister. Welcome

10:20

to Sincerely Sloan presented by Uninterrupted.

10:23

I'm your host, professional tennis

10:25

player, wife, parent and entrepreneur

10:27

Sloan Stephens. As

10:29

an athlete and as a person, my journey

10:31

has had a lot of twists and turns

10:34

for moments of adversity and doubt to unimaginable

10:36

triumph and satisfaction. Throughout

10:38

the season, I'm joined by some of the biggest

10:40

names in sports, entertainment, culture, and a few members

10:42

of my tribe. Our

10:45

conversations keep it real and push it past

10:47

skin deep. We

10:49

reveal the perspectives, routines and products that allow

10:51

each of us to show up at our

10:53

best. Join me on

10:55

my journey of self-discovery and many, many

10:57

laughs along the way. Sincerely, Sloan.

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now, wherever you get your podcast. So

14:00

once they print this book, they can then... They'll know what they're

14:02

doing. Explain what we mean by the private

14:04

office. So your cabinet minister, you turn over

14:07

your government department, what is your private office?

14:09

Every cabinet minister has a private office made

14:11

up of almost exclusively civil

14:13

servants. There'll be a private secretary or

14:15

principal private secretary and a small team

14:17

of between four or

14:19

five for junior minister, more like eight

14:21

to 10 for a

14:23

cabinet minister and more in the private minister's

14:26

office. There are also special advisors who are

14:28

not part of the private office, but

14:30

the office, the job of the private office is to

14:33

manage the business of the day, to make

14:35

sure the work gets done, that policy gets

14:37

implemented, to ensure that the minister

14:40

is in the right place at the right time, that

14:42

she or he does their parliamentary work, but

14:44

also to do more to facilitate

14:46

relationships across Whitehall via the network

14:49

of private offices to

14:51

give an alternative opinion if asked

14:53

for on some of the issues

14:55

coming up from the department and

14:57

depending on the relationship they develop,

14:59

to become something of a friend,

15:02

a metaphorical shoulder to cry on, an

15:06

aide within the department who is both

15:08

a departmental civil servant, but also attached

15:10

to the civil service, to the

15:13

minister. And some relationships can get extremely

15:15

deep and extremely close, hence the title,

15:17

The Intimacy of Power. Because you're spending

15:19

all day together seeing them at their

15:21

highs and their lows. Yeah, I mean,

15:24

Disraeli famously said the relationship between a

15:26

minister and a private secretary is

15:29

the most intensely can

15:31

be apart from with someone's wife

15:33

or partner. So you spend more time

15:35

probably with the minister than

15:37

the minister will with their family certainly during the week.

15:40

And they become very, very close and

15:42

some ministers rely intensely on

15:44

the private secretary. And a good private

15:47

secretary can make a good minister

15:49

even better and make a bad one, perhaps not

15:51

quite so bad as they would be. Well,

15:54

let's bring in someone else who's done exactly that job. So

15:56

Alex Allams, principal private secretary to Prime

15:59

Minister John Major. and

18:01

the permanent secretaries that head

18:04

civil servants in the departments.

18:07

And they will have been an opportunity

18:09

for the civil service to hear what

18:11

the Labour government, if it comes in,

18:13

intends to do. And that

18:15

will have enabled them to prepare briefing.

18:18

But I mean, one of the things

18:20

that, you know, the

18:22

civil service needs to be much

18:24

more flexible than it often is.

18:27

I mean, in 97, the briefing

18:29

prepared for Tony Blair was ridiculous.

18:31

It was two huge ring binders,

18:33

which Tony Blair never read. And

18:37

so I think that, you know, the civil

18:39

service does need to reflect

18:41

on exactly how a new prime minister,

18:44

a new minister wants to work and

18:46

be very adaptable. So what was in

18:48

those ring binders? Was

18:50

it sort of policy, you know, foreign affairs or

18:52

was it sort of this is how it works?

18:56

Well, it was absolutely everything. There was a

18:58

bit of how it works, but there was

19:00

equally the various

19:02

policies they had and the Labour Party

19:05

manifesto will have been studied or was

19:07

studied very carefully. And, you know, there

19:09

was briefing on what needed to be

19:11

done to implement each of the manifestos.

19:15

But then it covered absolutely

19:17

everything else from maybe

19:19

an appointment of bishops, for example, which

19:21

is something that comes under the prime

19:23

minister, but was not high on Tony

19:25

Blair's priorities, for example. I

19:28

think I think Alex makes a good point there

19:30

about the manifesto. I think the civil servants, particularly

19:32

in 97, Robin

19:34

Butler, cabinet secretary, were very keen that

19:37

the manifesto should be read

19:39

in minute detail and everything briefed on it

19:41

in these massive briefing packs, which were never

19:43

read. And I remember Jonathan Powell

19:45

told me once that something came

19:47

up and said, but, you know, you put that thing about

19:50

the trade unions in your manifesto. You said, you know, we

19:52

only put that in to keep the unions happy. We

19:54

actually need to have briefing on applying

19:57

it because we're never going to. And the other thing, just picking up on what we're

19:59

doing, using

22:00

them of being the obstruction. How do you get

22:02

over that? Each morning, they come

22:04

and plunk themselves down in an office and they're surrounded by

22:07

civil servants. How do you overcome

22:09

the suspicion? And actually,

22:11

if there's a change of government, there might be a bit more

22:13

of that because people think, well, you were doing the opposite a

22:15

week ago. How do you overcome that and win the trust of

22:18

a minister? Well, I mean,

22:20

obviously it depends a bit on the minister. I mean,

22:22

I was very struck in 97. I'd

22:24

worked for John Major for five years.

22:27

And when Tony Blair came in, I said,

22:30

I quite understand if you want to make a

22:32

change. And he said, no, no, we need your

22:34

experience. And within a couple

22:37

of days, it was clear that if he didn't

22:39

trust me, he made a terrible mistake because

22:42

I've been involved in all sorts of intimate

22:45

discussions about policies and people and

22:47

things like that. I mean, I

22:49

think it's very important

22:51

that the private

22:53

secretary has a good

22:55

idea of how to

22:58

interact with the minister. And to some

23:00

extent, that means being very

23:02

flexible. It means understanding what the

23:05

minister wants and making it absolutely

23:07

clear that you are there to

23:09

support him or her. And

23:11

it's something where,

23:14

I mean, clearly at sometimes it

23:17

doesn't work. And at some points,

23:19

sometimes there are real difficulties, but

23:21

I think the best private secretaries

23:24

are capable of just

23:26

showing a new minister that they

23:28

are on their side, that they

23:30

want to make sure that their

23:32

policies are implemented. Let's

23:34

jump over the other side of the fence

23:36

now and speak to some former ministers. To

23:39

complete our set of Allens, we've got

23:41

former Conservative Minister, Sir Alan Duncan. Hello,

23:44

Alan. Hello, hello. Hello,

23:46

Allens. All the Allens. And an

23:48

honorary Alan today, former Labour Minister,

23:50

Dame Margaret Beckett. Margaret, how are

23:52

you? All right, thank you. Good

23:55

to have you with us. So let's start with you, Margaret, because we

23:57

were sort of talking about that big change over in 97. a

32:00

formal advice has to come from the

32:03

civil service. And it's the civil servants

32:05

who actually will be responsible for implementing.

32:07

And so I think that, I

32:10

think Sue Gray will be very important in

32:13

establishing how number 10 works, how

32:16

the special advisors interact with

32:18

the prime minister and with the private office. And

32:20

she's got a huge amount of experience in that.

32:23

And I think she'll be very good at it.

32:25

Mark, Rebecca, you're standing down at

32:28

this election, but you have a

32:30

lot of experience in government. Have

32:32

you had shadow cabinet ministers, shadow

32:34

ministers picking your brains, bending your

32:36

ear, trying to get some advice on how

32:39

to make it work? To a degree, yes.

32:42

And one of the things that I say to all

32:44

of them is recognize that

32:46

you have a very nice person who

32:49

is a diary secretary who

32:51

is enthusiastically trying to fill

32:53

your day in 15-minute chunks, who

32:56

will probably not think to leave a

32:58

space for you to go for a pee or

33:00

have a cup of tea or anything

33:02

practical like that. So

33:04

one of the things that you need to do is to

33:06

make sure that you are in control of your

33:08

diary and not them. Otherwise you will not have

33:11

a life. I

33:13

mean, if you have an accident, it's probably what you have. Head

33:15

up. Head up. What

33:20

about you, Alan? Your advice beyond

33:22

toileting? Yeah, no, Margaret's absolutely

33:24

right about the diary. You must control it. Don't

33:26

let it control you. I've got one piece of

33:28

advice for Kia Stama, should he become prime minister,

33:30

which looks as though that's going to happen, is

33:33

one of the things that always struck me about

33:35

being a junior minister is that never ever in

33:37

the course of an entire parliament

33:39

did a prime minister ever have team

33:41

meetings with junior ministers. A

33:43

cabinet is not even a proper team meeting the

33:45

sectors of state. So I think Tony

33:47

Blair occasionally towards the end would call in the whole

33:50

health team, call in the whole DTI team,

33:53

whatever it was. Now, this has never happened. I

33:56

mean, can you imagine a company where

33:58

the chief exec doesn't. decades

36:00

ago, it's the die is cast. Right,

36:02

now you've listened to Politics Out the

36:04

Boy bits, head on over to How

36:06

to Win an Election with Peter Man

36:08

some Paulie McKenzie, Daniel Finkelstein and for

36:10

one week only US pollster Frank Luntz.

36:12

But for now from me Matt surely

36:14

it's goodbye.