Part 1
Matthew Hancock, appointed on Tuesday, is now the ninth Secretary of State to be custodian of Culture in under eleven years. See how many of these you recognise:
Jeremy Hunt was David Cameron’s first Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, remember how he was lightening quick to offer his department up to the treasury in the first round of ‘austerity’ cuts. Presumably this showed he was made of the right stuff as he soon got whisked off to become Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In this case ‘soon’ was after 2 years 4 months in the job, which makes him comfortably the longest serving Culture Secretary since Tessa Jowell who served six years under Tony Blair (Gordon Brown ripped through James Purnell, Andy Burnham and Ben Bradshaw in a fraction under three years).
Maria Miller stepped in after Hunt for 1 year 8 months; she had a slightly less onerous job than him as the Olympics were not under her purview. Sajid Javid managed 1 year 1 month. I’m afraid I genuinely don’t recall John Whittingdale at all but I’m sure his 1 year and 2 month reign was a triumph. Midway through her 1 year 6 month tenure Karen Bradley managed the transition into being Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I hope The Right Honourable Matthew Hancock gets his gonks and family photos and coffee machine out on his desk quickly because form suggests that unless he’s decisive he’ll be off before he’s had a chance to choose what glories from the Arts Council collection to hang on his office wall and make himself at home.
The business of government is a peculiar business, indeed it rarely resembles any business I know. How would we look upon a business that appoints someone to a role they are almost entirely unfamiliar with and which they haven’t applied for, leaves them in that post for approximately eighteen months, until they are almost beginning to get a feel for the lie of the land, then ships them out for another job, which they didn’t apply for and know almost nothing about? How would you look upon a business that does this not as an aberration but apparently as a matter of policy? I’d look upon them and think “you’re no threat”.
I hate the term ‘reshuffle’ when applied to Government, somehow it exposes too explicitly the game playing nature of politics, it also suggests a randomness, a limited set of options that might just bring us better results if we play these same cards in some different order.
Part 2
To be honest I’m also not that keen on the term ‘reshuffle’ applied to Stan’s Cafe. Here things are different, the Secretary of State has been in post for over 26 years and in this situation departments can get stale and complacent, inflexible, narrow and set in their thinking; in this situation there’s every chance that everybody would benefit from a change, fresh thinking, new energy and different perspectives. So the question came up at the last meeting of the Stan’s Cafe board “Is James Yarker still the best person to lead Stan’s Cafe?”
The Charity Commission asks this question of all organisations led by their founder who are applying for Charitable Status. It’s a fair question, they need reassuring that the charity is to be run for the benefit of the nominated beneficiaries and not its founder.
In their great wisdom and having considered many options the Board of Directors decided I’m still delivering the goods and so a reshuffle has been avoided, for now.
Of course one of the main reasons a reshuffle isn’t required is that the shuffle was done in 2015 when Roisin joined us as joint CEO. The Secretary of State now has twice the brains and twice the energy, we are hydra-headed and we are a threat!
Part 3
But surely there is one business that everyone acknowledges is more crazy that politics and changes its leadership at an insane rate as a knee jerk response to any temporary downturn in performance or popularity, surely the post of football manager is less stable than being a Secretary of State in Her Majesty’s Government…
Alex McLeish, Chris Hughton, Lee Clark, Gary Rowett, Gianfranco Zola, Harry Redknapp and Steve Cotterill. Birmingham City 7 managers since November 2007.
Martin O’Neill, Gerard Houllier, Alex McLeish, Paul Lambert, Tim Sherwood, Remi Garde, Roberto Di Matteo, Steve Bruce. Aston Villa 8 managers since August 2006.
Tony Mowbray, Roberto Di Matteo, Roy Hodgson, Steve Clarke, Pepe Mel, Alan Irvine, Tony Pulis, Alan Pardew. West Bromwich Albion 8 managers since October 2006.
… all of our local teams have had FEWER managers than we’ve Secretaries of State for Culture in the last decade and WE’RE the ones continually being urged to think more strategically!