The lessons of crisis management that I learned the hard way

‘Ministers and staff should focus on what they can do, and not worry about the things they can’t’

Afew days ago, I wrote a 10-point guide to crisis management. Among them were these: make the big moments count; ensure a strong centre; deploy a strong team; throw everything at it; use experts well; take the public with you and show empathy; and give hope but not false hope.

We have just had a big moment, and all those other qualities are required as never before. The thought of the Prime Minister lying in an intensive care unit is a shocking one, not least because my two most important points for crisis management – clear strategy, and strong leadership – have been so directly challenged.

However, there are two other rules in crisis management: the unexpected happens when you least expect it; and however large the setback, you must seek to find opportunity.

Already, two important things have happened. First, nobody now can be in any doubt about the danger that Covid-19 presents and there is no excuse not to heed advice on social distancing and staying at home.

Second, it will engender in reasonable people – the vast majority – a better understanding of how difficult are the challenges facing government. The ministers now stepping up to seek to fill the leadership vacuum will have far more goodwill than might ordinarily be the case. I was conscious of this as I listened to Michael Gove on yesterday morning’s media round, wanting him to do well and tweeting afterwards that I thought he had done so. This was a first for me, on both counts!

There has been a tension at the heart of Government communications, evidence perhaps of unwise concealment of the true nature of Mr Johnson’s condition. The situation became unsustainable when Dominic Raab revealed under pressure on Monday that he had not actually spoken to Mr Johnson since Saturday.

Now that there can be clarity over Mr Johnson’s condition, other ministers and civil servants must embrace their added responsibility.

Though the Blair government never had to deal with anything quite like this, there are some principles of crisis management which we learned the hard way, and which I offer in a spirit of genuine helpfulness.

The most important is that ministers and staff focus on what they can do, and not worry about the things they can’t. There will be a temptation to focus on the Prime Minister’s health which they should resist strongly. The Prime Minister is the most high-profile of many thousands in hospital, and thousands more who are ill. The job of Government is to act on behalf of all of those people, and unless those running the Government seek to detach themselves from the emotion aroused by their own leader being seriously ill, they are less likely to meet those challenges.

At the weekend, there was some jockeying among key ministers and continuing briefing against advisers and civil servants. This has to stop. They must, all of them, adopt the Harry Truman approach: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

They should be honest about their own strengths and weaknesses, and play to the former. Looking in from the outside, I would build a team around

Dominic Raab in charge of strategy/ structures, Health Secretary Matt Hancock in charge of NHS capacity and logistics, with another Cabinet minister, perhaps Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, taking charge purely of testing and ventilator procurement, with Mr Gove and Chancellor Rishi Sunak as all-purpose government spokespeople.

Finally, a word on the Opposition. Keir Starmer, too, who must see the possibilities that present themselves. This crisis lends itself to his skills and his personality; serious, collegiate, forensic, on top of detail. The Opposition must, on behalf of the people, continue to ask robust questions of Government. They too cannot become distracted from their role in a national crisis.