Joining us in the studio despite his appearance on Monday and I appreciate, you know,

off-com advised against it, but he's back.

Charlie Rowley, former government advisor, special advisor.

Well, yes, yes. what's the difference between an advisor and a special advisor well yes it was a title did you just add the special i was it i was very

special well i never felt i never felt um a particularly special or actually gave any kind of

advice to you perfectly honest with. I don't think so.

It was to Michael Gove at the time, who was perfectly capable of making the decisions himself.

I'm sure. Do you go into work thinking what advice can I profit today?

I mean, is that how it works? A special advisor?

I mean, are you part of a brainstorming thing? How does that work? We have a lot of people on, former government special advisor. We don't often stop to consider what that entails. And you're telling me pretty much nothing. Pretty much nothing in my case. So party position, right? Exactly. It's the political. So you're not paid for by the taxpayer. You, well, that's... You are, because you are in a government role. You're paid by the taxpayer. You're in the department, the official government department, but you are there to provide the political element of that. So where somebody might have a particular problem that does relate to government business, it's not just the hard and fast campaigning or slogans that you'd expect from a political party. But whether civil service isn't able to maybe

help or support the minister in that way because it's deemed too political or you have to

insert the political element to what the government is doing. That's when you are there as a sort

of the crossover to do that.

So did you, would you go into work, so Michael goes in his office, you're in your office,

would you drop him an email saying, did you call him Michael, Secretary of State, Minister,

do you want to pop in, I've got some advice for you? I mean, did it work like that?

We had,

well, Michael was very good because there's a former journalist here at the Times and now back as editor of The Spectator. I think he sort of ran his ship almost like an editorial. So every

morning you'd have a meeting, the whole team would be in, it would be brainstorming, what are the

issues of the day, what do we need to get through, what did people from the department put in his box last night, then he needed to sign off or what issues there were. He was very good at the turning around the box, actually. It was a daily thing. You took it very seriously. But for me, it would be more sort of the, you know, before he went to the House of Commons and he was doing a speech or it was his question times in the

in the Commons he'd have all the official briefing and all the... What position was here at the stage? So he, well I was with him being a couple of departments, we start off in the Department for Environment, then we moved to the Cabinet office and the Cabinet office was where it you're attached to Downing Street, essentially, aren't you? Absolutely, and it was during the Brexit No Deal preparation, so Boris was Prime Minister, and there was the threat of not getting a deal after he'd sort of succeeded from Theresa May. And then after the Brexit years, it was straightened to COVID. So, you know, that was a department that was really at the

the coal face of it. The common denominator in all of these events is Charlie Fowell. It's all my

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