“The Blue Labour pitch has developed, and not neccessarily to our advantage,” Morgan McSweeney to All-hands Spads meeting, next week.
I would characterise the County Durham results as 'not encouraging' for the Labour Party
May 2, 2025 at 1:23 PM
“The Blue Labour pitch has developed, and not neccessarily to our advantage,” Morgan McSweeney to All-hands Spads meeting, next week.
just use your fucking private office, use your spads, use your staffers, anything but Chat fucking GPT
March 13, 2025 at 12:21 PM
just use your fucking private office, use your spads, use your staffers, anything but Chat fucking GPT
Genuinely impressed how Dan Hodges has seamlessly transitioned from taking dictation from Conservative Home Office Spads to...taking dictation from Labour Home Office Spads.
Truly a man for all seasons.
archive.ph/lEDiR
Truly a man for all seasons.
archive.ph/lEDiR
archive.ph
December 1, 2024 at 2:50 PM
Genuinely impressed how Dan Hodges has seamlessly transitioned from taking dictation from Conservative Home Office Spads to...taking dictation from Labour Home Office Spads.
Truly a man for all seasons.
archive.ph/lEDiR
Truly a man for all seasons.
archive.ph/lEDiR
Starting a spud van in Westminster and calling it Political Hot Potato. Park it near the Red Lion so it can get the spads after they're pissed up. Van tagline! Spuds 4 spads.
October 3, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Starting a spud van in Westminster and calling it Political Hot Potato. Park it near the Red Lion so it can get the spads after they're pissed up. Van tagline! Spuds 4 spads.
Or: could it be that I have the same opinion as…literally every other commentator who talks to officials, ministers and Spads? 🤔
You mean from Stephen Bush? Yeah Stephen has a semi-psychotic/hard-intellect dislike of Starmer. He posits that Starmer was never into or cared about the detail of policy or delivery implications. I’m not close enough to argue this, but in comparison I’m not sure any of the last 5 PMs were either?
July 5, 2026 at 11:36 AM
Or: could it be that I have the same opinion as…literally every other commentator who talks to officials, ministers and Spads? 🤔
Shrak spads🦈🦈🦈
December 25, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Shrak spads🦈🦈🦈
also for ministers, MPs and SpAds
November 3, 2025 at 8:45 AM
also for ministers, MPs and SpAds
A very interesting link between Anti Trans activist groups and the world of think tanks, PR and SPADs.
September 1, 2025 at 11:56 AM
A very interesting link between Anti Trans activist groups and the world of think tanks, PR and SPADs.
1000 Spads pls
There is so much more the centre of government could do to be effective - including significantly bolstering the Prime Minister’s team.
But a starting point should be far more political appointees, rather than layering more SCS jobs on top of the Cabinet Office.
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
But a starting point should be far more political appointees, rather than layering more SCS jobs on top of the Cabinet Office.
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
President Starmer? PM to beef up Downing Street to get a grip on chaos
New department would form part of a wider ‘reset’ being mulled over by Sir Keir Starmer’s team
www.telegraph.co.uk
July 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
1000 Spads pls
Thinking of launching a petition to ban politicians, civil servants and SpAds using the phrase 'at pace'. Who's with me?
April 28, 2026 at 10:55 AM
Thinking of launching a petition to ban politicians, civil servants and SpAds using the phrase 'at pace'. Who's with me?
🔴 NEW: Special advisers accepted hospitality from lobbyists and businesses 700 times + since Labour took power
Glastonbury tickets, Taylor Swift, UFC fights + more
SpAds sit outside the UK lobbying rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-700-fr...
Glastonbury tickets, Taylor Swift, UFC fights + more
SpAds sit outside the UK lobbying rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-700-fr...
The 700 freebies: how lobbyists and businesses courted Labour's special advisers
A Democracy for Sale investigation reveals the scale of hospitality accepted by ‘spads’ – and how little the public is allowed to know about it
democracyforsale.substack.com
August 29, 2026 at 8:28 AM
🔴 NEW: Special advisers accepted hospitality from lobbyists and businesses 700 times + since Labour took power
Glastonbury tickets, Taylor Swift, UFC fights + more
SpAds sit outside the UK lobbying rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-700-fr...
Glastonbury tickets, Taylor Swift, UFC fights + more
SpAds sit outside the UK lobbying rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed🧵
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-700-fr...
The Soufflé Doesn’t Rise Twice is also the title of my upcoming erotic thriller set among young Labour spads.
The Starmer re-elect is dead. The souffle does not rise twice, the prime minister does not come back from that kind of approval rating, or indeed the level of hatred he inspires in the country now.
November 15, 2025 at 12:05 AM
The Soufflé Doesn’t Rise Twice is also the title of my upcoming erotic thriller set among young Labour spads.
Tiny, arguably pedantic note: SpAds sit outside UK *Parliament* lobbying rules; SpAds (+ Perm Sec) are captured by Scottish Parliament lobbying rules.
August 29, 2026 at 9:42 AM
Tiny, arguably pedantic note: SpAds sit outside UK *Parliament* lobbying rules; SpAds (+ Perm Sec) are captured by Scottish Parliament lobbying rules.
A lot of the “the hero Sue Gray versus the dastardly Spads” stuff on this website seemed not to have grasped that the “staff” she was chief of…are Spads!
October 6, 2024 at 12:07 PM
A lot of the “the hero Sue Gray versus the dastardly Spads” stuff on this website seemed not to have grasped that the “staff” she was chief of…are Spads!
1/17 the ‘youth’ of spads 🧵 Robert Hazell at @conunitucl.bsky.social and I wrote a book on spads over a decade ago. We looked at about 600+ spads (1979-2013).
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-a...
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-a...
March 17, 2025 at 8:00 AM
1/17 the ‘youth’ of spads 🧵 Robert Hazell at @conunitucl.bsky.social and I wrote a book on spads over a decade ago. We looked at about 600+ spads (1979-2013).
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-a...
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/special-a...
"oh but what if policymakers or SpAds want to read The Economi-" let me stop you right there, nobody is actually reading it
September 30, 2026 at 10:29 AM
"oh but what if policymakers or SpAds want to read The Economi-" let me stop you right there, nobody is actually reading it
I find it absolutely staggering that neither civil servants nor SpAds told David Lammy or Starmer.
If only to cover their backs. But that’s what this suggests.
Let’s find out what the civil servants and SpAds have to say…and any email trail/ messages
bsky.app/profile/pipp...
If only to cover their backs. But that’s what this suggests.
Let’s find out what the civil servants and SpAds have to say…and any email trail/ messages
bsky.app/profile/pipp...
BREAKING: Downing Street says that neither Keir Starmer nor David Lammy knew that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting - and lays blame with Foreign Office officials for overruling the decision.
April 16, 2026 at 6:43 PM
I find it absolutely staggering that neither civil servants nor SpAds told David Lammy or Starmer.
If only to cover their backs. But that’s what this suggests.
Let’s find out what the civil servants and SpAds have to say…and any email trail/ messages
bsky.app/profile/pipp...
If only to cover their backs. But that’s what this suggests.
Let’s find out what the civil servants and SpAds have to say…and any email trail/ messages
bsky.app/profile/pipp...
Fire the Spads and the Lords.
November 16, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Fire the Spads and the Lords.
SpAds sit outside the UK's lobbying transparency rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed at these 700+ events - or whose interests were being pushed.
Lib Dem MP @luketaylorld.bsky.social says SpAds should "definitely" face the same lobbying rules as ministers and permanent secretaries.
Lib Dem MP @luketaylorld.bsky.social says SpAds should "definitely" face the same lobbying rules as ministers and permanent secretaries.
August 29, 2026 at 8:28 AM
SpAds sit outside the UK's lobbying transparency rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed at these 700+ events - or whose interests were being pushed.
Lib Dem MP @luketaylorld.bsky.social says SpAds should "definitely" face the same lobbying rules as ministers and permanent secretaries.
Lib Dem MP @luketaylorld.bsky.social says SpAds should "definitely" face the same lobbying rules as ministers and permanent secretaries.
My reading is that they have just received the first OBR pre-measures forecast. Of course HMT officials knew this was likely but seeing an actual number in an OBR spreadsheet makes it real to the Spads!
September 28, 2026 at 8:49 AM
My reading is that they have just received the first OBR pre-measures forecast. Of course HMT officials knew this was likely but seeing an actual number in an OBR spreadsheet makes it real to the Spads!
Also urgent Downing Street SpADs meeting called for 2pm.
May 22, 2024 at 12:57 PM
Also urgent Downing Street SpADs meeting called for 2pm.
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji)
Labour spads looking at the massive increase in support for the Greens, "obviously this means we need to be even more like Reform".
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Green party reaches 100,000 members for first time after Polanski becomes leader
Green party in England and Wales has had near-50% rise in membership since since Zack Polanski took over last month
www.theguardian.com
October 13, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Labour spads looking at the massive increase in support for the Greens, "obviously this means we need to be even more like Reform".
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Huge numbers of Labour policy spads read @samfr.bsky.social’s Substack, where the exact scale of the repair job was written in black and white. What actually happened is those people were cowed into silence by a set-up that valued polling over policy.
November 8, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Huge numbers of Labour policy spads read @samfr.bsky.social’s Substack, where the exact scale of the repair job was written in black and white. What actually happened is those people were cowed into silence by a set-up that valued polling over policy.