📜 The squeaky wheel gets the grease

You’ve got to ruthlessly prioritise

I was working for David Cameron's post-Coalition government. They finally had a majority and the focus was on delivering on the manifesto commitments. Everything was very focused towards that, and sometimes public affairs people would come to me with quite left field requests. You just say, ‘look, if this doesn't fit with what we're trying to do, I can't make the time for you’. You’re not going to give up even 30 minutes for a ‘get to know you’ coffee unless that person is going to be a tier 1 contact. As a special adviser, you’ve got to be nimble with the time you’ve got; you’ve got to ruthlessly prioritise.

Just don’t do it

I had people who tried to harass me or bully me to get what they wanted–calling and shouting at me because I wouldn’t give them information about parliamentary process. It's a stressful job. You want people to collaborate and help you out. Anyone who's going to make a problem for you is not someone that you're going to be inclined to help. Making unreasonable requests and being aggressive… just don’t do it.

The best public affairs people come with something to offer

People don’t appreciate how long things take in government, or the process that you need to go through to get to a certain point. Really good public affairs people have enough contacts within government and within the wider sphere that they do understand those things, and have some good intel which helps them build a picture of what’s going on in government, what’s going on around a certain issue, and what the blockers are. The best ones then come into government with something to offer on that basis, not just something to ask.