The BBC reminded us today that Labour calls Special Advisers (like McBride) Spads.
A few years ago we were told that Spads stood in railway speak for “Signals passed at danger.”
Is this connection intentional?
About John Redwood
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.
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10 Comments
No, I don’t think it is; but it is seriously true!
Look at the train wreck!
Neither spad is a *good* thing and both speak of inherent dangers being undertaken.
I think they have not thought about it.
Duplicity (of words) I mean
What is wrong with calling them what they are, a number of words come to mind.
Spad was not one.
Call them what you will, they have turned government into a media charade, and the cabinet into a bad comedy turn. Like King Phillip III of Spain, the Prime Minister has been burned by his own servants, and his budget has gone out of control. And like the King, the legacy is going to be very expensive for us all.
I was thinking the same thing.
David T Breaker
http://www.newsjunction.co.uk
The BBC report that Sir Gus O’Donnell said that McBride was “no longer employed as a special adviser” and had “not received severance pay”. This wording is very specific and intriguing. McBride may no longer be employed as a special adviser but is he still a paid civil servant? McBride is said to have resigned, why then should there be any mention of severance pay which is normally paid when employees are dismissed? If he resigned or is still employed he wouldn’t be entitled to severance pay. Have we got the full facts here?
John
“McBride may no longer be employed as a special adviser but is he still a paid civil servant?”
Good point, Mr Tomkinson. Too many weasel words ; I fear we are not being given the full facts. What Sir Gus O’Donnell needs to confirm, clearly and without equivocation, is whether McBride has left the Civil Service (i.e public employment) and when.
Why so many ‘SPADs’ anyway? We didn’t vote for them, we voted for politicians. Surely if a minister isn’t capable of mastering his or her brief then surely they shouldn’t be minister in the first place.
Well said about SPADS. The only argument for having SPADS (and the Spectator view that many more are needed) is incompetence in MPs and Ministers. If that really is the problem, then SPADS is not the solution.
When the railways got very worried about SPAD’s, they invented TPWS (Train Protection Warning System) to reduce the risk.
Do we see any equivalent move in Downing Street ?
I won’t hold my breath.
Now that is hilarious. Seriously, you must have great dinner party conversation.