Ministers reflect: top tips for new ministers

Theresa May’s first reshuffle is now complete and, as we’ve been charting over on the live-blog, there are plenty of new faces joining the Government benches, as well as ministers who have been promoted or moved sideways into new departments. For some it will have been a shock: “I think I burst into tears, quite frankly, it was such a surprise”, said Baroness Kramer of her appointment in the 2013 reshuffle. It can also be “very daunting” (Tim Loughton) and there is little time to ease into the job, as Jo Swinson outlined: “It was a very short time period before doing oral questions… you’re thrown in at the deep end and you just have to get on with it.” There’s a huge amount to take in, but the top ten pieces of advice we heard from ministers were: Prioritise. By far the most commonly mentioned advice in our interviews was to “have a small number of clear objectives and pursue them” (Andrew Mitchell), and to “be absolutely clear about what you’re trying to achieve” (Hugh Robertson). As recent events have shown, you don’t know how long you’ll be a minister for, so don’t spend it reacting to everything thrown […]