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Michael Cricks puts SPADS - or special advisors - under the spotlight.

Back in the spring of 2012 a public inquiry - the Leveson inquiry - shone a brilliant light onto the relationship between the professional lobbyist and the ministerial special adviser, or SPAD. Fred Michel was working for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation; Adam Smith was special adviser to Jeremy Hunt, who back then was culture secretary. The lobbyist and the SPAD texted day and night. So what is a SPAD, and what is his position in the pyramid of power?

With Peter Oborne, ex-SPAD Julian Glover, and Wilf Weeks who helped set up one of the most successful lobbying companies of the 1980s called GJW.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Thu 11 Jul 2019 13:45

Broadcast

  • Thu 11 Jul 2019 13:45