There’s room in the Cabinet for new ministers with passion and drive

British politics offers the greatest opportunity in a generation but there are seven rules to follow

So you’ve made it. By this afternoon you, the bright stars, including more women and ethnic minority Members, will have emerged from the turbulent and scrambling mass of ambitious fresh MPS to become ministers in Her Majesty’s Government. And the circumstances of today’s politics mean that, more than usually, the Conservative Party will look to you to provide hope and leadership for the future.

Once you’ve sat at your new desk and admired the impressive red boxes, you have to work out what to do now. Here is my advice on how to be a good minister and be part of a Tory revival.

First, be passionate and enthusiastic about your new role, even if you knew nothing about it before. Junior ministers who say “this is OK, but really I should have been the Chancellor” are not going any further. I became minister for disabled people with no previous interest in disability and Welsh secretary when I had rarely been to Wales, but both jobs changed my own life and experience for the better – and hopefully I helped a lot of other people too. I wouldn’t have missed doing them for the world.

Second, this involves working really hard and mastering the detail. Most of us can’t be a “stable genius” by watching TV and getting angry at it, so Donald Trump must be an exception. Believe it or not, there can be senior ministers who think they can coast a bit and leave the detail to others. They get found out – within a year a good minister should have a deeper understanding than anyone else of their brief. This is now your life, which is what you wanted, so plunge into it.

Third, learn to use the great talent in the British Civil Service. Yes, some of them can be difficult or incompetent, but more of them than you might think are talented and hard-working people who respond to a minister who cares about them as individuals and gives a clear lead. I took this to an extreme and married one of them, but if you’re already married please don’t do that.

Fourth, for the first six weeks listen to everyone who wants to tell you something and go outside London to do most of that listening. I never met anyone who doesn’t love being listened to. Then draw up a private plan of what you can achieve in the next two years. That’s the time frame within which you will either be promoted to something even more important or dismissed as hopeless.

Fifth, exploit all means of communication, new and old. You are a minister in 2018, not 1818. Use social media to get the country talking about what you’re doing and to involve others in your work – hold question and answer forums on Twitter so you are in contact with people you might never otherwise meet. Ask them for ideas and invite the best ones to your office. Make your department the centre of a network of thinking rather than of remote administration.

Sixth, in spite of the above, never neglect Parliament. Agree to see any MP or Lord who wants to talk to you, from any party. Show endless courtesy to the opposition and make friends among them, but put in the hours of preparation to crush them in formal debate. Then you can get the respect of all sides. One of the best examples of this approach is David Lidington, now a central figure in the Government and deservedly so.

Seventh, and crucially, remember you are a Conservative. You are part of Britain’s most enduring political tradition, rooted in belief in freedom, enterprise, sound finance, and in national identity as the prime focus of our collective loyalty. You should not be captured by any pressure groups or influenced by passing fashions to go against that.

Yet it is also your responsibility to broaden the reach and appeal of Conservatism. In my own career, some Tories were surprised when I brought forward the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, because it involved a lot of new regulation.

But we decided that the principle of extending opportunity to all overrode that. Just as disability rights did not have to be abandoned as an issue for the Left in those days, so care for the elderly, safe and affordable housing, effective public transport and a cleaner environment do not have to be surrendered to the disasters of socialist planning today.

Learn from what Michael Gove has said and done over the last six months, with plans for animal welfare, protection of the countryside and the banning of trade in ivory. While some look on this in amazement, he is demonstrating that conservation, stewardship and long-term thinking are natural parts of Conservative follow William Hague on Twitter @Williamjhague; read more at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion attitudes. Go out there and do the same, on mental health, prison reform, knife crime, homelessness, trains that don’t run on time and showing this is the best country in which to set up an innovative or high-technology business.

If you, the new ministers, can do this, you will soon get to the top. There isn’t so much talent in politics that somebody who can do these seven things gets ignored. For you, the desolate wasteland of current British politics is the biggest opportunity in a generation.

Liberals are failing to revive. The SNP might have passed its peak. Ukip has served its purpose. It is Corbyn’s Labour that is by far the greatest threat to the future of Britain, not Brexit as my much-respected former colleague Michael Heseltine argued over Christmas.

But do you look across at the Corbyn front bench and think they are brimming with innovative ideas, fresh thinking and practical answers to the country’s problems? No, though they are the current vehicle for complaining about legitimate discontents, they are based to an extraordinary degree on old-fashioned ideas, hate-filled prejudices and ignorance of the modern economy. Their resurgence last year is completely reversible by a government that performs really well.

If you also do your jobs well, one of you will spend part of the 2020s leading the process of putting that great danger out of business. If you don’t, well, Theresa May has other bright hopefuls she can accelerate ahead of you next year.

So good luck being passionate, approachable, innovative and hard working. And above all, don’t you dare mess it up.