Illustrious spin doctors who spilled the beans

With his new book, Unleashing Demons: the Inside Story of

Brexit, Sir Craig Oliver joins the ranks of history’s great directors of communications. He, of course, held that important office of state under David Cameron and is now one in a line of illustrious men who have provided posterity with the instant inside story.

I have other examples here, starting with Craig of Basingstoke, the ninthcentury chronicler. He was the first person in history to hold the title of “aide”, later being promoted to director of communications to King Alfred, after he had the brilliant idea of putting “the Great” after the king’s name. In his memoir, As the

Smoke Clears, Craig of Basingstoke throws new light on the event known as Project Cakes. He reveals that many of the king’s closest advisers suspected that the peasant woman, in whose house he took refuge, was actually a “plant” by the Danes, and that she engineered the cake-burning as a ploy to show that Alfred was out of touch with ordinary people. He adds, by the way, that, although the cakes were slightly overcooked, they tasted quite good.

The press adviser and director of strategy to King Canute was a man named Carig. His book, The Tide of

History, gives the inside story of Project Paddle. It was Carig’s idea that Canute should encourage sea bathing in England to help deal with the national obesity crisis. Treacherous courtiers – many of them seriously obese, as it happens – sabotaged this far-sighted plan by putting out misleading accounts of the episode.

In The Seal of Fate, rushed into print after Magna Carta, Sir Oliver Craig gives the first authentic account of the brainstorming weekend he organised in Runnymede to help the English barons draw up a list of modest proposals and tweaks to put to King John as part of Project Benign Reign. He reveals how the underhand tactics of a certain Baron May led to an entirely different outcome. Some people have assumed that Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor, has joined Strictly Come

Dancing for frivolous reasons, but this is far from true. I happen to know that it is part of his research for an important book on economic theory and policy, looking at the subject from an entirely new angle.

Dancing is a perfect setting for a study of stability. A couple doing the tango, where one of the pair is a professional and the other is a beginner, and where there is always the danger of them stumbling, provides an ideal model for what economists mean when they refer to the problem of achieving equilibrium in a duopoly. Where better to understand the causes of an economy overheating than on the dance floor after a vigorous Charleston? Another matter he will be considering is whether the Office for Budget Responsibility might operate more effectively if it adopted the methods of the judges on Strictly. Perhaps the OBR could actually be taken over by those judges to give it some muchneeded pzazz. And, on the same subject, does the IMF need more oomph? Sources tell me that Mr Balls is looking at a complete overhaul of Britain’s currency and exchange rate system, following Brexit. Would there be long-term benefits in having sterling tied to the value of the sequin? Or would it be better to have an entirely new currency, such as the floating tulle? These things will be occupying his mind as he plunges into the cha-cha-cha. I’m not at all bothered to read that, at the young age of 26, Kate McWilliams has become an airline captain. I was immediately reassured when I saw her photograph and noted the four bands on the sleeves of her uniform jacket. With pilots, a uniform is absolutely essential. If I was on a flight and the captain came through to the cabin wearing jeans and a jokey T-shirt, I would want to de-plane immediately. Similarly, I prefer doctors to wear white coats and, ideally, a stethoscope. Even if it’s not much used these days, the stethoscope is a stylish adornment: it suggests medical panache. In an ideal world, all schoolmasters would wear sludgecoloured tweed jackets – leather elbow pads optional. And if all estate agents dressed in shiny, midnight-blue suits, at least I’d know where I stood. The only uniform which is never reassuring is the high-vis jacket. In fact it’s unsettling. Whenever I see one, I start to speculate about what possible hazard the wearer could be guarding against. Often, the only threat I can imagine is that he might stab himself with his clipboard.