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00:00I remember an amazing meeting with Tim Cook. He was just transfixed by this picture of the Queen
00:03and he was just like, I've been watching The Crown on Netflix, how amazing it is to be. I was
00:09like,
00:09well, do you want a quick tour? And so sort of whizzed him around all the kind of like
00:13rooms and so on. And then we ended up being late for the meeting.
00:19Welcome to In The Room, lessons from number 10, which is our summer series on what it's like to
00:24work behind that famous black door. I'm Cleo Watson, a former special advisor to Theresa May
00:29and Boris Johnson. And I'm Helen McNamara, the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary. This week,
00:33we're very excited to be joined by Jimmy McLaughlin, OBE, the former special advisor and
00:37Prime Minister's Business Director in number 10 under Theresa May and somebody that we both worked
00:42with. Jimmy had a hell of a job, I think it's fair to say. He sat in Downing Street in
00:47business during
00:47kind of Brexit, political turmoil and huge pressure on the government's relationships with employers,
00:53business, entrepreneurs and investors. Jimmy, thank you so much for being here today.
00:57Pleasure. Well, can we start with just a nice lowball here, which is what does the
01:02Prime Minister's Director of Business actually do?
01:05So essentially, the Prime Minister has sort of 70 working hours a week. And most of that is actually
01:12taken up with Cabinet and meetings that happen every week. And obviously, business leaders want
01:16to see the Prime Minister, but there just aren't that many hours to do it. So what your job is
01:20to do
01:21is essentially just meet with businesses of all shapes and sizes all day and kind of be the go
01:26between feeding back to the Prime Minister what the business community is thinking and also going
01:32from what the Prime Minister is thinking to the business community. And I think when I was doing
01:36it in particular, it was the Brexit years, right? So it was often quite important to be feeding to the
01:42business community where the Prime Minister's head was at, because there were certain things that
01:46couldn't be said publicly. And that was quite important to kind of communicate that. And
01:50actually, for the most part, none of those conversations leagued, which was pretty amazing.
01:54You know, unlike conversations with politicians in the Cabinet.
01:57The only bit of the building that was secure.
01:58That was secure, yes.
02:00That is entirely true.
02:00Exactly. So that was the main kind of role of it. And my particular focus as well was the kind
02:05of like entrepreneurs. And I was always trying to get people into the building that might not
02:10necessarily be in there. So, for example, the likes of BAE Systems and Tesco have quite
02:15big public affairs teams, you know, they're regulated quite a lot. So they need to engage
02:20with government. I was always trying to find the company like, you know, Gymshark, Ben Francis sort
02:24of famously coming into number 10, you know, a company that makes sportswear, you know, has no
02:29reason to kind of engage with government, particularly not regulated and so on.
02:32Starting from the garage.
02:33Exactly. And we, you know, my particular drive was always to try and find interesting people like
02:39that that we could kind of bring in that would give a very different view actually to what
02:42was going on out in the country and so on.
02:44What do you think when you think back to those times in those conversations, what do you think
02:47it is that business most misunderstands about government and vice versa, really? What does
02:52government not get about business?
02:54Business just doesn't understand politics and political reality a lot. And actually,
02:58I was thinking to a conversation that you and I had about this. Like we were, I was working
03:03with and talking to these guys around like the online sales tax, and they just couldn't
03:07understand why the government might bring in a 1% or 2% online sales tax, right? They'd
03:12already got VAT, like it's just going to be a cost on that, etc. And when you and I were
03:16speaking,
03:17the government had literally been talking about sort of bringing back the imperial system
03:21for weights and measures.
03:23A pint of champagne, if I recall, featured.
03:26Exactly. And it was like, yeah, guys, look at what they're doing here. Like a lot of this doesn't
03:31kind of necessarily like make sense. Like businesses are very kind of like, you know,
03:35you do A and then B happens, etc., right? Like inputs, outputs, etc. And government just isn't
03:41like that, right? Like there are so many different sort of stakeholders that a government kind of has
03:45to deal with. And they just don't sort of appreciate that, that kind of breadth of what,
03:50what governments and politicians are often trying to do.
03:52Did you have occasions though, where you had, say, a senior member of the cabinet or even the prime
03:58minister and a senior business person, and you actually found them thinking, yes, I have respect
04:04for you. I see where you're coming from. Not in the business world, you'd have been fired long
04:08before now. And in the political world, you're so type A, you wouldn't survive a minute in like the
04:14tea room.
04:14Often people say, well, what we need is, you know, more business leaders in politics, etc. But actually,
04:19quite often, it doesn't end up working that well when business leaders are brought in, right? Like
04:23the investment minister is always a kind of classic one of where somebody from the business world kind
04:27of comes in. And actually, it often doesn't work out that well, because there are just so many
04:32different factors, you know, a business leader is generally looking at profit, right? That's the
04:36primary thing that they are looking to do, how can they increase that, etc. There just aren't the
04:41kind of like massive things that, you know, politicians have to deal with on a daily basis.
04:46I think it's the irrationality as well, having seen people come in from outside and then be
04:50totally bamboozled by the deep irrationality of every aspect of working in government, she says.
04:56Particularly with all the change in the last 10 years, I don't know how anyone has had an
04:59effective kind of public affairs lobbying strategy when the ministers are just changing.
05:04You know, we may well be on to our 10th business secretary in just eight years. I mean,
05:09that's extraordinary when you think about it.
05:11Can we take you back into number 10, though? Can you remember your first day in the building?
05:16I can remember my first day. Um, largely, well, one of the things that happened on my first day was
05:22that you go through security, obviously, because you haven't been cleared and whatever. And I'd got
05:26a corkscrew at the bottom of my back. So I got flagged up. It's just like, what are you planning
05:31on
05:31doing with it? And then it was quite extraordinary. Like I was there for when the, uh, when Theresa May
05:40first kind of came in, I'd been sort of part of the campaign team and so on. And being behind
05:44that
05:44black door for the first time was like an incredible experience. And you felt like sort of the weight
05:50of history of the building, right? So that was the first time that I was, I was sort of there.
05:54And
05:54then I was appointed kind of a couple of weeks later with it. But one of the things that is
05:58strange
05:58about being a special advisor is there is no guide, right? Like there is no explanation
06:04of what your job is, you know, as the kind of head of business relations, you're essentially
06:09just given one of the world's most powerful email accounts and sort of told to get on with it,
06:13really. Did you sit down and think, oh, I might just call Google.
06:18There was an element of that, right? I mean, I'd been at the Institute of Directors, um, prior to that.
06:23So I'd, I'd got sort of a decent understanding. And one of the things I did was call my kind
06:28of like
06:28immediate predecessors as well and get their advice on it, right?
06:31Which is smart, by the way. So few people do that.
06:34I know.
06:34It's one of mine and Claire's absolute bugbears.
06:36Yeah, hubris.
06:37Yes. You think, oh, we're going to come in and we're going to do it differently. And they
06:40didn't get it right. And every change of, uh, number 10 has that. I always think the classic
06:45is, oh, we're not going to use the building as much for kind of like parties and receptions,
06:50et cetera. And basically every PM comes in and says, we're going to do it more. We're
06:53going to use the building more or they're going to use it less. It's going to be more serious.
06:57Or the absolute classic of, we're going to absolutely change this morning meeting. It's
07:00ridiculous to start with the media. We're definitely not going to do that. We're going to instead
07:06start with tackling a big systemic strategic issue that's facing the government every day.
07:10And that lasts for about two meetings. And then it's like, why the hell didn't I know
07:14what was on the front page?
07:16Yeah, it's so true. But it was, yeah, I guess like with, with, when I was there like that,
07:21the whole Brexit issue was such a big thing that people were desperate to try and get kind of
07:25any insight on where people were thinking and where the prime minister's head was at and
07:29the chiefs of staff as well at the time. So it was, you know, a lot of your work in
07:34Downing
07:34Street is done in the corridor. That was the thing that kind of like really,
07:37Yeah, we know that game.
07:38Amen. Amen to that.
07:40We're obviously called in the room, so we're going to-
07:42Not in the corridor.
07:43Not in the corridor, in the cupboard, in some cases. But you therefore got to be in some very,
07:49very interesting rooms. And I'm fascinated to know the dynamic on when the prime minister,
07:55particularly depending on, you know, her pomp and sermon at the start, when Theresa came in 2016,
08:00and then by the time she was leaving in 2019, when the prime minister sits down with a Tim Cook
08:07or
08:07Bill Gates or whatever, what, what's that room like? And who's in control? Who has the power there?
08:12Well, one of the interesting things at the beginning was we did these business dinners. So in the
08:16pillared room, we invited business leaders and we invited their partners as well, which was quite
08:22interesting. And I remember some of the business leaders getting kind of really fidgety. And I was
08:27thinking like, why, why on earth are they sort of, you know, like this?
08:30I need my hule.
08:31Yeah, right, exactly. But it was because we'd taken their phones off them, right, when they got in.
08:35Oh, of course.
08:36So these guys are not used to being separated from their phones for like three hours.
08:40Which is good for them. Screen time break.
08:44Exactly. And I remember one of these first dinners, I was sitting next to a banker and he was
08:48absolutely going for me over Brexit and what the whole kind of like disaster it was going to be.
08:53And I just remember when PM opened it up to conversation thinking,
08:56please don't go to him first. And like that, PM went straight there. But then he was all
09:01kindness and sweet. And that was like a big part of my job was to sort of be a bit
09:06of a pressure
09:06valve for these people. And business leaders, on the whole, generally very respectful of the
09:11prime minister. And they would be different with me and the other business team. But that was,
09:17there would always be deference. I don't think I ever saw a business leader sort of not have
09:21deference towards the prime minister, even like towards the end, actually, even when she was sort of
09:25standing down and so on. I remember we did a round table at London Tech Week. And I remember
09:31thinking, gosh, you know, people are going to turn up and whatever. And actually they all,
09:35you know, Demis and all those guys still came and were still really respectful and so on.
09:40There's some deep mind.
09:40Yes.
09:42I'm so pleased I got that reference.
09:44We might talk a bit more about that, about what it felt like at the end, actually, because you saw
09:48the whole of the power arc. So give us a bit of like, what was it feeling like for the
09:53special
09:53advisor team right towards the end of Theresa May? Before you do, I was smiling when you said the
09:57pillar dream. So the pillar dream is the room above the cabinet room in Downing Street. It's very grand.
10:01And the first time I heard someone talk about the pillar dream, I misheard and thought they said the
10:05billiard dream. So I was quite junior at the time. I thought, well, I just must be wrong.
10:12And where is this billiard dream? I spent ages and ages wandering around trying to find the
10:18billiard dream.
10:18But of course, that's one of the bits of advice that you're given when you first start is because
10:22of the security issues, there is no floor plan. You know, any other business that you would kind
10:26of walk into, you'd be given that. And you're just told to kind of wander around the building,
10:30you can get lost and figure it out.
10:32And they're all really helpfully got very confusing names. And then sometimes numerical
10:35ones, which have made no attention. It's like, G36. There's not 36 rooms on this floor at all,
10:41but this is G36.
10:43I remember an amazing meeting with Tim Cook. And this was just after the Prime Minister had
10:47come in. And they were about to sort of announce that they were opening their Battersea office.
10:52And this was a big deal, right? It's going to be Apple, world's most valuable company.
10:56Straight after Brexit.
10:57The biggest site outside the US, etc.
10:59So it was like a really big meeting. And so what he was in the room next to them,
11:04the cabinet room. So my job was to sort of go in and kind of, you know, warm these guys
11:09up a little
11:09bit and so on. And it was amazing because he was just transfixed by his picture of the Queen.
11:14Remember that picture of the Queen smiling?
11:16Yes.
11:17And he was just like, you know, in his sort of South Alabama drawl, you know, just being like,
11:21I've been watching The Crown on Netflix, like how amazing it is to be. I was like, well, do you
11:26want a quick tour?
11:27And so sort of wisdom around all the kind of like rooms and so on. And then we ended up
11:31being late for the meeting
11:32with the PM. But I was just like, it worked really well.
11:36Isn't that so important though? Show all the kind of British cultural exports and this is what you're
11:41investing in.
11:41I just thought this is soft power personified with arguably the world's leading corporate CEO.
11:46Here we are taking on a tour of the building. It's Netflix. It's the Queen, like all of this.
11:51And the meeting went really well.
11:53That always is one of the things when people say, oh, you know, we shouldn't work in number 10.
11:56It's this dilapidated old building. It's whatever. Actually, like the theatre and the power of it are
12:00really special.
12:01Exactly. The room that I always wanted for my sort of big business meetings was the small dining room.
12:07Classic.
12:07Classic, right. Really cosy. But that was where, because...
12:10It's wooden, but it's like got nice wooden panels.
12:13There was also a large dining room for people interested.
12:17Not a medium sized one though.
12:18But that was, you know, I was dealing with American businessmen looking to invest in
12:22the UK. They were in their 50s. And so that was the room where Thatcher and Gorbachev
12:27sort of thawed the Cold War. And so taking them in there was like a massive kind of...
12:32Because often the Department of Trade and so on would be working on these investment deals
12:36and then they'd be sort of brought into number 10 to kind of like seal it basically.
12:41And like being in that room would make that happen.
12:43What's the thing you're most proud of from your time there? Is that a fair question?
12:47Staying sane.
12:49That I'm here to tell you this story today.
12:52I think, you know, I'm really proud of sort of the different entrepreneurs that we got
12:57into the building and sort of the careers that we kind of helped boost with that.
13:01And I hadn't really appreciated that was going to be such a big part of the job.
13:05But, you know, I'm still in touch with the likes of Ben Francis and so on.
13:08And I know they see it as a really kind of like major milestone on their journey.
13:12And also is what it meant to those kind of thousand people that are employed in the West
13:17Midlands that he was invited there to go and kind of present to the Prime Minister and so on.
13:21So that's some of the stuff.
13:23There are some things that I worked on towards the end.
13:26And it's Tony Blair's kind of classic line about like you actually know what you're doing by the end.
13:31But there was lots of stuff that we worked on in that final London Tech Week in terms of AI
13:36scholarships and AI PhDs that we got in,
13:39which I like to think was like quite ahead of time and so on.
13:43So there was a lot around that that I'm kind of quite proud of as well.
13:47And then the trade trips as well and sort of taking the people on that.
13:51They were incredible.
13:53And like, again, making sure that different people were going on it, right?
13:56So it wasn't just the same and trying to make sure that we got a really interesting mix.
14:00And often those groups of people have stayed in touch and so on and kind of done business internally almost.
14:07Like it's not necessarily just about a trade trip.
14:09So those are some of the things that I'm kind of really proud of.
14:11Yeah, I did really want to ask you about the trade trips because I also just think there's something kind
14:15of delightful.
14:16The idea of a plane full of drunk journalists and the prime minister and his entourage and then the kind
14:24of top people in business.
14:25And as you say, some other interesting people and you.
14:28It is like a sitcom or something.
14:31It's like The Office, but in the air.
14:33How do those work?
14:34What are they like?
14:35I think I loved the recent footage of Elon Musk going with Trump to China where he was just kind
14:42of sitting around looking nonplussed a lot of the time.
14:46What's it like sort of running a school trip with some of Britain's most important CEOs on it?
14:51Well, exactly.
14:51You sort of – the funny bits were often like the briefings beforehand, right?
14:56Because you call all these business leaders in and I would sort of present to them like what we were
15:00going to be doing on the trip and these were the things that people needed to be aware of and
15:03so on.
15:04I was like, look, I know in your lines of work you're used to being the most important person in
15:08the room, but you're not on this trip.
15:10So, be where you need to be on time because if you're not there, we will leave.
15:15And everyone sort of laughed.
15:16And I was like, I've done three trade trips so far.
15:19On two of them, I haven't returned with a full cohort of business leaders.
15:23So, like, I'm not joking.
15:25I'll have to stop then.
15:27So, that was always a bit of a challenge, getting these people in the right places.
15:32And, like, my job on it was like I was partly briefing the PM about the sort of various kind
15:36of international business leaders she would be meeting out there as well.
15:39But then I was also sort of, as you say, a bit of a teacher for the kind of business
15:42leaders in terms of looking after all of them and so on and making sure that they were kind of
15:46getting on.
15:47So, they almost had, like, twin tracks when they were kind of, like, out there.
15:50So, it was quite different with that.
15:53And, yeah, I was always trying to make sure there were different kind of people coming along and so on.
15:56And the Department of Trade did an amazing job of kind of bringing investment deals.
16:00And I was always a bit skeptical, like, pre-number 10 of, like, how impactful these trade trips were because
16:07there would always be a big number.
16:09Attached 10 billion investment or whatever and 5,000 jobs created.
16:13And I thought, well, that's not just happening because of the trade trip.
16:16But, actually, it was a forcing mechanism to get stuff over the line.
16:19So, they were quite, like, they were important to do.
16:23And, you know, I think that, again, one of the things that will happen is, you know, Keir Starmer has
16:28had this in terms of he's been criticized a lot for doing international affairs and spending too long on it.
16:33But, actually, it is really important to do those things.
16:36Often as well because other people's countries are run very differently to Britain.
16:41And if you want to do business with China or the Middle East, like, actually, you do have to do
16:47it with the kind of, with the government there.
16:49And so, going out government to government made a real impact for these businesses.
16:54It would just open so many doors so quickly for them.
16:57And it sort of legitimizes them.
16:58Yes.
16:58Because one of the things I've been, I mean, I don't know how sensitive you'll feel to this, but when
17:03we worked in government anyway, obviously, so much of your time was spent trying to get the prime minister in
17:07front of various business leaders.
17:09And mine was worrying about who he was in touch with, whether they were potential party donors, whether they were
17:16party donors, what kind of conversations they'd be having, how closely guarded and sort of contained those kinds of meetings
17:23were.
17:24But, partly because, Helen will know about this, the good old revolving door and the access between business and lobbying
17:30and the government.
17:32I mean, do you think, having really worked on that on the inside, how shameless is the lobbying?
17:37And any sort of top tips for a new business that is trying to make headway with an incoming prime
17:45minister?
17:45Yeah, where to begin?
17:47I mean, I think there is a real challenge about how lobbying works.
17:54And I think it's changing quite rapidly, actually, because obviously you've got sort of private lobbying, which is going in
17:59and seeing ministers and special advisors, etc.
18:01But you're seeing more and more now public lobbying happening.
18:05And I think that is something that we're going to see more of.
18:08And I think it's particularly a post-COVID thing, actually, I was reflecting on this, that if you were a
18:14wedding venue, you would have no reason to kind of engage with the government, right?
18:19But because of COVID and what happened there, you've ended up, and I checked this this morning, I think there
18:24are two different wedding venue trade associations now that are set up and have probably been since COVID.
18:30And now they will lobby the government and so on.
18:33Like these won't be big organizations, etc.
18:36But you've just got a huge plethora now of kind of almost single issue trade bodies that have been set
18:42up.
18:42So I think it's quite tough to work out like where your priorities are.
18:47And you get so much kind of inbound in number 10.
18:51It's like, how do you make sure that you're getting on the front foot and doing the things that you
18:55want to do and meeting the businesses that you want to rather than just dealing with the requests that come
19:00in?
19:00From my experience of working with previous business advisors in number 10, you had a very different focus.
19:04Like you said, you were on entrepreneurs, you were on small businesses, you were on the people who wouldn't normally
19:09get in the front door.
19:10But you sort of decided to do that yourself.
19:13It's extraordinary.
19:13Whenever people think that you can't be powerful in these jobs, that's the sort of extraordinary thing to have done.
19:18Yeah.
19:19Well, I think two of the things that government and particularly number 10 has is the convening and the spotlighting
19:26power.
19:27And they are essentially free, right?
19:28And so you can do a huge amount of that.
19:31And I would often be having roundtables, getting people in, you know, so weren't necessarily meetings with the prime minister
19:37and so on, but just getting interesting people there because it would, you know, it would be great for their
19:41businesses to be able to say they've kind of gone into number 10.
19:44It's like working out like how we make more people successful, like what is happening further down the kind of
19:49business chain, as it were.
19:52So, yeah.
19:52Do you have like unfinished business from things you didn't get round to doing when you were in number 10?
19:58Yes.
19:58I've always thought that I would like to do it again, but I'm really enjoying building kind of a business
20:05and running the podcast and actually sort of getting my hands dirty myself.
20:10Like one of the things when I left number 10 was like, I didn't want to go into lobbying because
20:14I didn't want to sit and advise anymore.
20:16I like I wanted to build something myself.
20:19And that's been really interesting.
20:20So I think often spads tend to sort of, you know, they're either under 35 or over 50 because you
20:26can't do it with young kids, right?
20:28Like it's just takes over your life.
20:30Yeah, I would, you know, but I'd like to go back in and I think I would do it all
20:33very differently and have a whole different kind of skill set, etc.
20:35What knowing what you know now from running a business yourself?
20:39One of the most common questions, right?
20:41It's like, do you miss it?
20:41And it's hard when there's been these so many momentous days when their changeovers are happening and whatever.
20:48You can't help but sort of reminisce about it and so on.
20:51I do miss the trade trips.
20:52That's the kind of one bit I do miss.
20:55But I love being an entrepreneur and actually building something because so often when you're in number 10, right?
20:59Like, sorry to dispel the illusion of the all-powerful spad, but like some days you're really not that like,
21:05you know, you might as well be shouting into a hurricane.
21:07Tell me more about these trade trips.
21:09I'm so intrigued about all these big egos sealed inside a capsule for 12 hours heading to Japan or somewhere.
21:15I know.
21:16It was quite like remarkable, really, all these people who are, as you say, kind of used to being the
21:23biggest person in their company.
21:24And all of a sudden, you know, they're sort of a big fish in an even bigger pond.
21:29And, yeah, these trips were like hard work, right?
21:34Like, you were running off because you were still sort of dealing with Westminster and what was going on back
21:38at home, right?
21:39Which often when we were in Teresa's May time, you know, wouldn't necessarily be going that well and so on.
21:45And also, I can imagine just trying to explain that Brexit deadlock to a really successful business person who must
21:51just think, what the hell is going on here?
21:55And then there are people who are like writing letters to the European Union and splinter parties and all this
21:59kind of stuff.
22:00There's all that.
22:01And then you've also got the, like, theatre at the beginning of the trip of where all the lobby come
22:04up and ask the prime minister questions, right?
22:06And, you know, that was certainly not, I don't think it's any prime minister's favourite bit, to be fair, but
22:10it certainly wasn't Teresa May's.
22:12And they're all trying to get one up on each other, right?
22:15They want to get the news line, et cetera.
22:16And I remember one trip we were flying out early on a Monday morning and a journalist asked,
22:23Prime Minister, you were at church yesterday.
22:25Did you pray for divine intervention with your Brexit deal?
22:29And Teresa May just clocked him and said, no.
22:33Do you know what I prayed for?
22:34Serious questions from journalists.
22:36It was like, she could be brilliant with stuff like that.
22:40And, like, this journalist thought he'd got a great question and just, yeah.
22:44That's so great.
22:46Good for her.
22:47Miranda Priestley is Teresa May.
22:52So there was all that.
22:53And then, like, so you'd be really busy for the, like, 72 hours and so on.
22:56You'd be running off, like, two or three different time zones.
22:59And we were often visiting multiple countries, right?
23:01I remember on the Africa trade trip we started in South Africa, then Nigeria and Kenya.
23:06Like, it was full on.
23:07That was the famous dancing trip, which is all anyone remembers of that trade trip.
23:11Did you have a jig?
23:12No, but I can tell a funny story about it.
23:15Because I had to leave that trade trip early because I got a wedding on the Saturday.
23:20And it was quite important that I was there because I was the groom.
23:25And I remember my dear friend of ours, Tricky Jackson, saying to me, like, have you got the PM to
23:31read out a message at your wedding?
23:33And I was like, oh, no, I don't want to do that and whatever.
23:36And he was like, you might not want to do that, but your 120 guests will absolutely love it.
23:41And I was like, okay, fair enough, actually.
23:43It is a special thing.
23:44I had a nice telegram from her to read out of mine.
23:47Yeah.
23:47And I was like, just so you know, I'm a big deal if we want to.
23:51Exactly, right.
23:52And so I said, Tricky, okay, well, can you bring it to the wedding on Saturday then?
23:59And she wrote this lovely letter on the plane back and sort of, you know, thanking me for my work
24:06and service.
24:06But then the last line was, I know spending the week in Africa won't have been the ideal preparation for
24:13your wedding.
24:14But I do hope you got some first dance tips from me.
24:17I just thought that was a, like, wonderful kind of line.
24:20To the point where I think a lot of the guests didn't know whether it was a real letter or
24:26not.
24:26Like, they thought it was almost sort of a joke.
24:28Because it must have been so topical.
24:29It was just days after.
24:31Exactly.
24:31Oh, gosh, I'll never forget that dancing.
24:33God bless her.
24:35But it was funny, right?
24:36Because I remember having dinner that night with her and the team were having dinner.
24:42And we were talking about how it had gone, you know, properly viral, like global viral.
24:48And I was of the opinion that I thought it was a good thing.
24:52And, you know, what was she supposed to do?
24:53Stand there kind of stiff and wooden and whatever.
24:56You got all these kids, like, around and so on.
24:58And, yeah, I mean, I thought it was great.
25:00And I think, you know, didn't she, that conference season went on and danced to it as well.
25:04Dancing Queen.
25:11That wasn't it.
25:12We were in the back room, right?
25:13That was not the plan.
25:15She just did it, right?
25:16Yeah, she was going to come on to the song.
25:18We all knew that.
25:19And we weren't expecting her to, like, tap dance on.
25:22It was so great.
25:24So, yeah.
25:25But the trade trips were very exhilarating.
25:30Lots of adrenaline.
25:31And, yeah, people would have a drink on the way back as well.
25:34I know there's some sort of famous kind of different stories about that.
25:37But, yeah, it was very good.
25:40And you would be pleased that it had gone really well, right?
25:42Yeah, I have heard tales that people have been known to crawl off the plane at the end.
25:47I'm sure, too, he's made him do that.
25:49Or you, obviously.
25:50What was your worst experience in Number 10?
25:52It's talking shouting into hurricanes.
25:54If you look back on it now, let's go to the pit.
25:56The day after Grenfell, like, was, like, horrendous.
26:04That's the Grenfell fire in June 2017.
26:07It was difficult because it was just post-2017 election, which had not gone to plan.
26:12Lots of special advisors had left.
26:15And I remember being in that morning meeting with the PM and just thinking, you know, just how awful and
26:22terrible it all was.
26:24And, you know, the government had let people down and whatever, right?
26:28Like, it was just the worst thing that could kind of happen.
26:32And then we didn't get the kind of immediate response right with the PM not going down and so on.
26:38And, yeah, it was just a terrible day.
26:41And there's nothing really comes close.
26:44I don't have any other really bad days.
26:45But that one, I just felt terrible.
26:47Terrible.
26:48Yeah, I recognise that.
26:50Yes, absolutely.
26:53You did experience the kind of chalk and cheese of prime ministers.
26:57Theresa May is sort of cautious and perhaps dithering.
27:02Boris Johnson is more chaotic, but in business talk, more of a disruptor.
27:08You know, for Andy Burnham, what do you think business would actually prefer?
27:12I think it's difficult because the business community wants stuff to be done, right?
27:17Like, and I think one of the differences between Theresa May and Boris Johnson, or one of the biggest differences
27:23with Theresa May, was that she hadn't run an economic portfolio before.
27:28So, actually, she didn't have sort of big connections in the business community.
27:31And so that was always one of the things that I was very conscious of and why I was always
27:35trying to push it to the top of the agenda was that she had to meet these people.
27:39Whereas Andy Burnham will come in, having been mayor of Manchester for close to a decade, and will have a
27:46kind of whole set of business people already that he listens to, takes advice from, and so on.
27:52And that was also one of the different, you know, Theresa May wasn't very porous in terms of, like, the
27:58people that were communicating with her.
27:59Whereas with Boris, you know, somebody could have probably already been lobbied.
28:03By the time he'd come down steps, he'd already been lobbied 15 times via WhatsApp and whatever that day.
28:09So that was always, like, a different challenge because you didn't necessarily know what was happening with that, right?
28:14Nigel Farage recently has made a big song and dance of the fact that he says none of Keir Starmer's
28:19cabinet have run a business.
28:22Do you think that's actually a problem?
28:23I think it's a problem that none of them have.
28:25Yes.
28:25I don't think you need everyone to have run a business or have private sector experience, but I think you
28:30do need people that understand business.
28:32Obviously, the Conservative Party is seen as the party of business and so on.
28:36I would say that that would be a challenge sometimes for the business community because these people would have quite
28:41strong views already about business and what business needed, etc.
28:45So in some ways, the business community, I think, prefers dealing with the Labour Party because it's more of a
28:49blank canvas in terms of it.
28:52But I think that just so much of government is about priorities, right?
28:58And what are you going to put at the top of your agenda to kind of make it happen?
29:03And business inevitably just falls down the Labour Party's agenda.
29:07It's just not intrinsic in it as much.
29:10You know, far more likely to speak to the unions, for example.
29:12So I think it is a challenge that we aren't persuading more people with private sector experience to get involved
29:19with politics across the board, actually.
29:23And I'm not quite sure how we change it.
29:26I think there is something interesting happening in the business world, to go to that for a second, of where
29:30you used to have to spend your whole career in business to sort of make the wealth.
29:35Now, because of the internet and access to global markets, you can do that much quicker.
29:39So there are a number of entrepreneurs now that have made millions of pounds by their mid-30s.
29:44You know, actually, at the start of the century, that wouldn't have really been possible.
29:48And I think you've got a lot of those people now looking at politics and thinking, well, the country's not
29:53in a great space.
29:55Like, you know, I've made my money.
29:57Like, should I get involved, et cetera?
29:58And actually, I think, you know, credit to the Labour Party and the Labour government on this.
30:03They have brought a lot of entrepreneurs in, in different guises.
30:07So they had Poppy Gustafson of Darktrace as the investment minister.
30:11James Timpson of Timpson's came in as the prisons minister.
30:15You've had Alex De Pledge, who's won a number of successful scale-ups advising Rachel Reeves.
30:20You've had Matt Clifford there, who was there under Rish Sunak as well, the chair of Entrepreneur First.
30:26So I think, you know, they've done quite a good job of that in terms of, like, trying to fill
30:31in the gaps around it.
30:33But I do think on the politician side, it does make a difference having people that run businesses.
30:38It's really interesting, isn't it?
30:39But I think the other thing that's happened to us, because I completely recognize that business people have started to
30:43realize this is the thing that matters.
30:45And also that if they want it to be different, they're going to have to engage in that arena.
30:49You can't just sit and fold your arms and say it's all rubbish.
30:51You actually have to get more actively involved.
30:53And I think, well, I think like you, I think and I hope that that's happening more.
30:55I think so. Yeah, I think there's a, I think there's a real recognition of that, that, you know, people
31:03have got to sign up for their tour of duty, right?
31:05Like going to public service and so on in different ways.
31:08And I think, you know, the government and the civil service, like I said, has been more creative with the
31:14ways that are bringing those people in, right?
31:15Because it is difficult.
31:16Often business leaders are running, you know, they can't drop everything at, you know, drop of a hat to kind
31:22of run in and go and help government, et cetera.
31:24And I think that's probably one of the big areas that often gets kind of like misunderstood between the two
31:29of them.
31:30Well, and also you're asked to kind of join an advisory group and a panel on something and you think,
31:34fantastic, maybe this is going to be really helpful.
31:35And you realize that not all advisory groups actually advise, you know, produce things that happen.
31:41It's interesting.
31:42So obviously now a lot of my life is about jobs of the future and the skills of the future
31:46I talk about.
31:46And I think one of the biggest things that I would kind of advise youngsters about is one of the
31:54growing areas is getting stuff done in government.
31:56Like understanding that I think is going to be a real skill of the future and really important for people.
32:01Yeah.
32:01Oh, hurrah for that.
32:02We did your first day earlier on.
32:06Can you remind us of your last day in Downing Street?
32:09Yes, I can.
32:12So it was I'd done sort of the transition period of about three or four weeks and I'd sort of
32:18agreed with Andrew Griffith, who was the sort of Boris's new kind of chief business advisor that I would leave
32:26at the end of the week.
32:26And so it was quite a sort of enjoyable time, right?
32:32Like it was it was strange, really, because it's so often the last day is a sort of sad and
32:38miserable day.
32:38But actually, I was sort of going out on my terms and so on.
32:43And yeah, it was just good.
32:45I was able to do like a proper handover, like, you know, things that would just be a given in
32:49like any other world.
32:50Like I was able to sort of give all my contacts across all the kind of details, make all the
32:55kind of key introductions and so on and kind of bring the new team up to speed.
32:59And, you know, it was it was it was it was great.
33:03And I sort of walked out the last day and sort of video called my wife kind of walking.
33:07I'm free.
33:08Yeah, basically.
33:08We were just about to have our first baby as well.
33:11And it was like mid-August.
33:13So I was like, great, we're going to go and have a couple of weeks on a beach just before
33:21we're about to go off on this amazing new adventure.
33:22So it's really happy.
33:25And you'll remember, because we had a number of conversations around at the time, right?
33:29I was quite keen in some ways to stay and thought I should.
33:34And you don't get the opportunity to to do public service very often.
33:39You know, you should try and stick it as long as you can.
33:40I felt I owed it to the country and the party, like with the knowledge that I had.
33:46And but, you know, I'd sort of run my race like I'd done my three years.
33:51And it was just shattered, basically.
33:55I mean, those three years in particular, and like in terms of dog years, those were three extraordinary years.
34:00It's about doing 100 years of peacetime.
34:02It was absolutely extraordinary.
34:04Well, the baby arrived a few weeks later.
34:06And then, you know, when you start seeing friends again a few weeks after that, everyone was just commenting like,
34:11gosh, you're the only person that's had a baby and looks better.
34:16I'm sleeping more, I'm more rested.
34:18So like it was and I was just like, well, I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do
34:23next with my career.
34:24Basically, you know, I thought, well, I just need a bit of headspace to work it all out and so
34:27on.
34:28And, you know, I thought, you know, just been business advice to the prime minister.
34:31This will be relatively sort of straightforward.
34:33Oh, boy, did I call that wrong.
34:35Like it was not easy to work out what I kind of wanted to do next.
34:38And sort of had we known there was a pandemic coming.
34:42There's a lot we've done differently.
34:43There's a lot we've done differently.
34:46But I was sort of like, you know, I didn't want to do lobbying.
34:48I was getting offered lots of interesting jobs with that.
34:50But I was so set.
34:51I had this thing of where I didn't want to go in and have to lobby my successor.
34:56That was just a thing.
34:57I did not want to do that.
34:59Do you know, it's striking how many people have that.
35:01I do not want to meet my successor over the table.
35:03Or even worse, somebody who works for my successor over the table.
35:08The humiliation of that.
35:09You get one of those texts if you're the successor or you have to send it.
35:13You're saying like, hi, mate, can I have a chat?
35:15And you think, oh, God, no, I don't want to do this.
35:17But it's quite interesting.
35:19So what I did next, he says modestly.
35:22But I basically went off to study at Stanford for a couple of months.
35:25And getting away from Westminster was like brilliant for me.
35:28Like really needed to do that.
35:30And we had two months out there.
35:32And my wife's condition on taking our new baby out there was that we rent a camper van at the
35:38end of this trip.
35:38And so we had this sort of week without any mobile phone signal or anything.
35:43What that week was, though, was the first week of March 2020.
35:46And so we had not realized quite.
35:49We knew COVID was a thing at the end of February, but we had not realized how much it ramped
35:52up.
35:52And so we went home.
35:55And my wife's a doctor.
35:56So she was like, yeah, I've got to go back to work.
36:00And I became a stay-at-home dad.
36:03So I had gone from Downing Street to diapers.
36:05And was with this kind of situation with this five-month-old where we couldn't see anyone.
36:08Too young to kind of watch TV.
36:10So all we did was listen to audio, basically.
36:13And we sort of had breakfast with the Today program, lunch with World at One, dinner with Einstein baby.
36:21Exactly.
36:23And basically during this, I thought, is there something I can do to help tackle the unemployment crisis coming up?
36:27And I thought back to a conversation I used to have at Number 10 quite regularly, which was I would
36:32get the phone call from Debenhams or Wilkinsons in the morning saying, we're about to go into administration.
36:37We're going to make 10,000 people redundant.
36:39And I would go in and tell the PM this great news at the ATM meeting to kick it off.
36:43And she would say, Jimmy, all you ever tell me about is job losses.
36:47But when we look at the employment stats at the time, we're at record high levels of employment.
36:51So where are all these jobs coming from?
36:53And I was like, well, it's entrepreneurs creating one or two jobs a day.
36:56But that never gets written up into a jobs announcement.
36:59So that was the start of Jimmy's Jobs for the Future was I'm going to interview entrepreneurs about where they're
37:03creating jobs.
37:04And that was the sort of essence of where it started.
37:08I thought I might find my next job, but I didn't.
37:11Let's say you were called up by Andy Burnham and you've got 30 seconds to say you've talked about growth
37:18in every postcode.
37:19If you're really serious about this and to him and his new business advisor, this is what you should do,
37:25guys.
37:26Yes.
37:26Well, I would keep the sort of economic teams in place, the business and the science teams generally.
37:33I think Peter Carl and Liz Kendall have done a good job.
37:36And I think Kanishka is excellent as an AI minister.
37:40And they are making real progress in that area because AI is going to be the thing that makes a
37:44big difference over the next few years.
37:47And the British government is actually doing a pretty good job.
37:49They've got some good people in there and they are doing good work.
37:53And I just would not meddle with that, right?
37:55Like it's not an issue at the moment, which is at the forefront of the public's minds necessarily.
38:00But a lot of good work is going on there.
38:02So I would keep that team together and keep the plans in place.
38:06But it's going to be fascinating to see what they do.
38:08Because Manchester has had an amazing business and growth story over the last decade.
38:12And actually kind of a lot of the planks laid by Howard Bernstein and George Osborne sort of 10, 15
38:19years ago.
38:20So, yeah, there is real hope on that.
38:23If they can bring more of that into every postcode, which I do think is a line that they might
38:28regret at some stage.
38:29You've met or interviewed some of the top names in politics and business, Tony Blair, Tim Cook.
38:35If you could have anyone in charge of running the UK, in your experience, who would it be and why?
38:42Well, my other piece of advice would be to read the Tony Blair book on leadership.
38:47And I read that book and I just thought, gosh, this is a real manual for how to do government.
38:52Far better than his kind of autobiography that he did like immediately post Downing Street.
38:56All those kind of political autobiographies I don't think teach you that much.
39:00It's often sort of...
39:02They usually teach you the guy thinks the guy did a good job.
39:04Exactly.
39:06And so, but reading that book from Blair kind of, what, 20 years on from when he left office
39:11is really useful and has got a lot in there.
39:14And he is, he's advised leaders all around the world now and so on.
39:18So I think that's really good.
39:19I'm not sure he'd be quite right to come back running the country necessarily.
39:23Although you look at America like he's still a spring chicken almost.
39:26But that's what's so ridiculous, right?
39:28We have all, you know, everywhere else has prime ministers a bit older and we kind of junk
39:31ours quite young.
39:32Yeah, I wonder whether that will change.
39:34That's one of the things that I wonder might change in the next couple of decades.
39:37Whether, partly as you get an older population as well, whether our sort of wanting young
39:43politicians, et cetera, will change.
39:46I mean, we might get them young, but we age them pretty hard.
39:49Thanks for listening to this episode of Lessons from Number 10.
39:53Remember to follow the show on your podcast player of choice and review us.
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40:31The executive producer is Rod Ardohali and the producer is Sam Durham.
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40:42Thanks for listening and see you next time for more Lessons from Number 10.
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