“He’s ready for you now. Please come this way.”
No matter how comfortable you are in the presence of powerful people, and no matter how familiar you are with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the heart beats a little faster at this point. The mind readies for action.
“Ah Amol, very good to see you again. Please take a seat.” And then comes the killer line. “I take it you’ve met my special adviser …”
And — lo! — I had. Yes, George Obsorne’s special adviser — known in political circles as a Spad, a political rather than civil service appointee — was an old acquaintance. Lovely bloke, West Ham fan, partial to a Chardonnay, never anything other than courteous, smart grasp of policy and straight to deal with. But for the next hour or so he said a sum total of zero words. Nothing. Nada. Nowt.
This phenomenon is not only one of the most infuriating aspects of the modern media-politics nexus, but a joyless indication of where our public culture is going terribly wrong.
And it doesn’t have to be this way.
Nigel Farage speaks to members of the public over breakfast | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Nigel Farage is the most consequential British politician of his generation in no small part because he is a journalist’s perfect lunch companion: generous, fun, and indiscreet. He once had the very good grace to text me after our lunch meeting apologizing that we had to miss the cheese course because he was being hounded by paparazzi, who had been tipped off on his whereabouts by rivals within his party. We still got through a very good bottle at lunch. He even paid.
The rise of Spads-at-lunch is a symptom of this democracy-diminishing disease.
There’s no need to go that far — we’re used to picking up the tab. But this whole lunch lark can be very expensive — especially when the uninvited Spad turns up. If you think of one journalist spending, say, £90 on a meal for three instead of £60 on a meal for two, and multiply that additional £30 by all the lunches attended by superfluous Spads, I would say that the British hospitality industry is being subsidized to the tune of several million pounds each year by this pathetic and presumptive practice.
Politicians being flinty, austere types, it is generally assumed that we humble hacks have unlimited expense accounts and are happy to pay.
Alas, the real problem isn’t the blight on our expenses, but the rise of a PR-obsessive culture that diminishes the power and access of the media.
I would say this, wouldn’t I, but to hell with it: In countless spheres of public life, journalists are being kept away from the story by PR protectors, to the very great detriment of our common culture and shared public domain. The rise of Spads-at-lunch is a symptom of this democracy-diminishing disease.
The good news is that as a politician there are easy ways to make a journalist your friend, whether over lunch or not.
The aim of these meetings is to build relationships, exchange information and gossip, develop an understanding of mutual interests or potential points of conflict. This is best done between equals or at least near-equals; it is harder to do when a third, spare wheel is present, undermining the parity between journalist and politician.
The attendance of the Spad, you see, is counter-productive. It is a measure of the lack of familiarity and intimacy, and in turn makes it much harder to develop that very familiarity and intimacy both journalist and politician depend on. By introducing an ally, politicians present themselves as weak and anxious, two characteristics a journalist would enjoy attributing to them given half a chance.
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I’ve tried to see it from the politicians’ point of view. Perhaps they see a journalist as an enemy, determined to cause trouble. Having an ally in the room reduces the chance of mischief, ensures decorum and civility. And it would doubtless be useful to have a friendly witness to call on when the printed story ends up landing you in court. “I didn’t tell the editor of the Independent I was on a monthly retainer from the Qatari government, Your Honor, as my special adviser can doubtless tell you.”
That is the politicians’ defense. But they are in fact acting against their own best interests in inviting a third party along for the ride. The convention alters the dynamic of the occasion; the journalist is outnumbered and the proceedings take on an element of hostility.
When journalists meet politicians, both sides have an incentive to make sure the other has a good time.
I should warn you that I could start now to sound nostalgic for a time I didn’t live or work through, but if you read books about, say, cricket tours in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, or rock ’n’ roll or punk concerts, what is striking is the amazing access reporters got. Back then it was much easier to get backstage and catch a word with Mick and Keith, or whoever.
Today, sports stars, pop stars and even politicians are surrounded by armies of advisers and mountebanks whose primary role is to ensure not a single bad thing about them is said in the mainstream media, which they wrongly believe they can control.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt enjoying lunch at a Conservative Party Conference | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
But it doesn’t work. It may sound obtuse, but when journalists meet politicians, both sides have an incentive to make sure the other has a good time. This won’t go down well with most people I am friends with on Facebook but, aside from Farage, who is excellent at having a good time, the most impressive politician I know when it comes to dealing with journalists is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
For Hunt, the Independent was an unrelentingly hostile organ on the issue of junior doctors. And yet his response was to be unrelentingly constructive in his dealings with me and the newspaper. We developed a good relationship. He never once tried to stop us publishing a negative story. At the absolute height of the controversy over junior doctors’ new contracts, I had a cup of tea in his office, and we talked through the issue, and our coverage, man to man.
We are simple creatures. Gossip, conflict, irony, truth: These things are our currency.
This didn’t lead to our pulling punches on the issue, but it did encourage me to put in his side of the story, to correct some factual errors we had made, and to convey the context and complexity of what was basically an old-fashioned industrial dispute with a modern twist.
Journalists, or at least good ones, can smell fear a mile away. We are simple creatures. Gossip, conflict, irony, truth: These things are our currency, and the collective experience of our trade is that the supply of each becomes more plentiful when lunch is well lubricated. We’ll put it on expenses, so long as our interlocutors sing for their supper: That’s the deal.
Alas, thinking they are protecting themselves from being done over, modern politicians who invite advisers to lunch are immediately antagonizing the very rascals they need to seduce, and inhibiting their chance to make a probable ally of a potential enemy.
That this is a habitual practice at the very top of British government shows just how gripped by paranoia and insecurity our political class has become. I imagine Osborne would now happily rendezvous without his political bodyguard, not least because he no longer has one. That is the final irony of our Spad-with-your-lunch culture: It ensures that the best sources aren’t those at the top, but those who used to be.
Amol Rajan is editor-at-large at the Independent.