Book Review: How to Be a Minister: A 21st-Century Guide by John Hutton and Leigh Lewis

June 17, 2015
How to Be a Minister: A 21st-Century Guide by John Hutton and Leigh Lewis (Biteback, £18.99)

It’s not easy running the country, or even running a part of it through a government department. From civil wars with cabinet colleagues to losing the keys to their ministerial red boxes, secretaries of state can face a bewildering array of setbacks. The bulk of How to Be a Minister, whose authors are a former Labour minister, John Hutton, and a former permanent secretary, Leigh Lewis, is presented as a step-by-step handbook for these beleaguered souls.

This conceit allows the authors to pack in invaluable tips about the daily workings of government. Politicos will pore over the section on getting what you want from Number 10 or the comparisons between the radical arrangement of New Zealand’s government building and our more traditional architecture. But at times it can grate. For example, few readers beyond those who actually are ministers will be interested in the exhortation to “take some genuine holiday. You deserve it.”

In a rather brief second section, Hutton and Lewis lay out a smattering of proposed reforms. Some of these, such as opening up advisory roles for departments to competitive tender, would have borne longer discussion. Still, it’s a good chance to hear people who actually wielded power discuss frankly how it could be wielded better. Each man has clearly thought hard on his long career before producing an account of good government which is worth reading for its delicate balance of the technical with the human. That goes double, of course, if you plan on climbing the greasy pole yourself.