When my friend James Lyons told me last summer that he was going to take a gap year, I knew it wouldn’t be a normal career break. It’s common enough for successful men around 50 to take some time out from busy, stressful careers to re-evaluate, reflect and just get some sleep. I know bankers who have gone back to university, consultants who’ve gone travelling and private equity guys who become surfers.
James Lyons is usually the first to see where the story is going
But that was never going to James’ mid-life break from the norm. He’s the most intensely focused person I know. After 15 years together as political journalists at Westminster – where he usually beat me to the story, by getting up earlier and working harder than me – I opted for a quiet life running a think-tank and he went to run NHS England’s communications operation during the pandemic.
So my first guess about the Lyons gap-year was the Royal Marines had finally reduced their height requirement for him – he’s barely 5’ 2”, bless him – but apparently they’d decided he was “a bit too aggressive for us.” That only left Government as the place for someone who actually enjoys 16-hour days and 24/7 dedication to the job at hand.
Hence James’ year as Keir Starmer’s latest communications chief, which is now drawing to a close. Inevitably, Downing Street staffing changes capture the attention of political journalists, because the No. 10 staff are regular contacts for the Lobby and, as in James’ case, former colleagues.
Whether or not the wider public is remotely interested in the career trajectories of special advisors is another question. Now that I’ve retired from the Lobby trade, I always take a certain grim pleasure in watching Lobby hacks segue into the “this actually matters to the real world honestly because direction of government or Prime Minister’s strategy or something” bit of their piece about back-office personnel changes.
The reality of political communication is generally far distant from the things that political correspondents write about – most voters neither know nor care who’s in cabinet, never mind the names or fates of the people who work for them. And the reality of Government communications is about vastly more than keeping Lobby correspondents well-fed with colourful anecdotes about the PM’s plans and thinking.
So for a year I’ve largely missed out on drinking sessions with my old friend while he spent his days and nights working to put the oil-tanker of Government communications on a new course, steering into a world where – sadly – newspapers and broadcasters matter less and more people get what passes for news from Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Reddit. Presumably it won’t be long before ChatGPT also starts ranking as a news source too, God help us.
There’s irony in a former newspaper hack driving that agenda, but as I say, James Lyons is usually the first to see where the story is going and make sure he’s in right place for it. From my vantage-point as a corporate consultant, I’m not at all surprised that big companies are looking with interest at the way he drove the Whitehall communications operation to retool for the AI age.
The success or otherwise of that Lyons communications agenda is hugely more important than a single advisor’s job – if Government can’t communicate effectively to the population it governs, policies become much harder to deliver. Because democratic governments ultimately rely on consent and co-operation, not coercion, to get things done. That’s an overlooked lesson of the pandemic, incidentally. Lockdowns – for better or for worse – happened not because people were forced to stay indoors for fear of prosecution. They happened because people were persuaded to do so. Communications isn’t – just – “spin”. It can have true power.
And obviously, it also matters for politicians’ careers too. If you can’t tell and sell a convincing story about yourself, what you’re doing and why, you’ll always struggle for popularity and struggle to persuade the electorate about your policies.
Which, of course, brings us around to Keir Starmer. As James Lyons ends his gap year in No 10, the Prime Minister will soon have had four communications directors in barely 15 months in office. Good luck to the next one in telling that story.
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