Special: Becoming A Minister Part 1 – The first day

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There is no job quite like that of a government minister – and no training manual for how to do it. So what happens on the first day in the job? How can ministers manager the demands on their time? Are particular skills needed to get the best out of civil servants? Is there a trick to working with Number 10? What is the best way to handle a multi-billion pound departmental budget? And how can ministers master the art of navigating parliament? In this special six-part series from the Institute for Government, former ministers and civil servants reveal what it is really like to hold ministerial office and how to do the job well. You will hear all about the challenges, confusion, decisions and drama of a job which really is like no other. Presented by Tim Durrant, with Beatrice Barr. Produced by Milo Hynes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I was in Japan and the phone rang in my hotel room and they said would you hold for the Prime Minister.
0:20.0	Anybody who's fault in election or indeed sat through one knows how exhausting they can be
0:25.6	and my seat was always hard fought so there was no respite and you feel just about you've come to the end of your energy levels
0:32.6	and it's one of those amazing things about the body and aspiration that the minute you're told or invited to be a minister, you suddenly find all this energy.
0:40.3	Hello and welcome to the first episode of our special Inside Briefing series, Becoming a Minister.
0:46.3	In this series, former ministers and civil servants reveal what it is really like to hold ministerial office and how to do the job well.
0:53.3	You will hear all about the challenges, confusion, decisions and drama of a job which really really like to hold ministerial office and how to do the job well.
0:54.1	You will hear all about the challenges, confusion, decisions and drama of a job which really
0:58.5	is like no other.
1:00.6	My name is Tim Durant, program director for ministers at the IFG.
1:04.5	On this first episode in the series, we're looking at ministers' first days in the job.
1:09.6	No minister forgets the phone call from number 10 when they
1:11.9	offered their first job in government. After they hang up, work starts immediately and quickly
1:16.6	takes over everything else in their lives. We've spoken to four former ministers about that
1:21.3	first conversation and those first steps into the department. We'll hear what the prime minister
1:25.5	asked them, how they reacted, and what they
1:27.7	said to their civil servants on day one. And we'll find out what MPs are really doing while reshuffles
1:32.2	are happening, including which former minister had to take a call from Downing Street in a public
1:36.8	toilet. Let's hear from Jim Murphy, who was Scotland Secretary at the end of the last Labour government,
1:42.0	but his first job was in the Whips office.
1:49.2	When the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, rang him to offer him a job, he couldn't quite believe it.
1:58.2	It was peculiar when I was appointed a whip in that I was in Japan and the phone rang in my hotel room and they said
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