Cabinet awaydays seem like a good idea at the time, but almost invariably end badly.
From Blair to Sunak, Brown to BoJo, they’ve been held at least annually by just about every prime minister in modern times.
The aim: a brainstorming session without distractions or prying photographers, reporters or TV crews. Well, that’s the idea.
The reality, however, is that like most family get-togethers there are personality clashes, squabbles about what to eat and what to wear, disputes about who takes centre stage – and even backstabbing and walkouts.
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“Pretty ghastly – and not very useful” was the withering verdict of Tony Blair’s chief of staff, former Washington diplomat Jonathan Powell, in a memo included in newly released official papers.
And former Blair aide David Miliband, later foreign secretary and now an international aid charity chief, complained that no company would run awaydays in such a haphazard fashion.
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This time, around the table at the latest cabinet awayday were two senior figures facing official investigations: a Tory chairman engulfed in a tax scandal and a deputy prime minister reportedly facing no fewer than 24 bullying allegations.
What could possibly go wrong? Lots of embarrassed shuffling of feet and staring at the shoes by all present, at the very least, no doubt.
Chequers, the 16th-century mansion in rolling countryside at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, is a favourite with most prime ministers for their awaydays. It’s their official country retreat, after all.
But sometimes grumpy cabinet ministers have been forced to take a train journey to a key political battleground such as the West Midlands or, more recently, a so-called ‘red wall’ constituency.
The most disastrous cabinet awayday was in June 2018, when Theresa May thought she’d persuaded her cabinet to back a Brexit deal, but within days David Davis and Boris Johnson had dramatically quit.
But as well as high drama there has been low farce: cabinet ministers told by Mr Johnson to bring maps showing their plans for their department and a one-page slide illustrating their aims.
Awaydays like this have been compared to the Tory “Thought Camp” in the TV satire The Thick Of It, held in a country hotel and attended by hapless cabinet minister Peter Mannion.
Surprisingly, considering Tony Blair was renowned for so-called “sofa government”, with key decisions taken by a small, informal group of allies and cronies, he started the trend, in 1998.
It was Mr Powell who laid down the rules, declaring in one memo released to the archives on the sartorial issue of woolly jumpers or suits: “TV will film people arriving and going, so there can be no woolly jumpers.”
Peter Mandelson, who famously denies mistaking mushy peas for guacamole in a Hartlepool fish and chip shop, demanded “something nicer than sandwiches” and got his wish when a buffet was laid on.
Mr Powell’s memos also reveal the tension and rivalry between Mr Blair and Gordon Brown, even in 1998. He wrote to Mr Blair suggesting Mr Brown should lead off with a discussion on the economy.
“You said you did not like this, but I don’t see how you can avoid it,” he wrote. But Mr Blair was having none of it.
“No,” he replied in a handwritten note. “We should start with a general political discussion which I should lead, then in (the) afternoon economy.”
And in a 2000 memo, Mr Powell wrote: “The tradition of a TB/GB (Tony Blair/Gordon Brown) introduction and then one disjointed comment from each cabinet member is pretty ghastly – and not very useful.”
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In September 2008, Gordon Brown held what he claimed was the first cabinet meeting outside either Downing Street or Chequers. It was in the West Midlands, a key election battleground.
By sheer coincidence, surely, David Cameron had taken his Tory shadow cabinet there not long before. And it was later revealed that Mr Brown’s awaydays had cost taxpayers £600,000.
But the awayday that that will live long in political history was Theresa May’s at Chequers in June 2018 when she thought she had a Brexit deal that would keep the UK closely tied to the EU’s customs union and single market.
According to folklore, ministers were warned that anyone who resigned would have to walk a mile down the drive and get a lift home with the local taxi firm, whose cards had been left in the foyer.
Some good that did. Truly, the curse of the cabinet awayday had been established.
Recalling that historic day of back-stabbing a year later, Sir Robbie Gibb, Mrs May’s director of communications, revealed in a Daily Mail article how the drama unfolded.
“In the sweltering heat, the cabinet had gathered at the prime minister’s country retreat where, over eight long and sometimes fractious hours, ministers were talked through Theresa May’s proposals for how a new relationship with the European Union could work,” he wrote.
“It was by no means an easy sell and the atmosphere was tense.
“With discussions over, cabinet unity was toasted with a glass of Churchill’s favourite champagne, Pol Roger, and by dinner there was a real sense of coming together.
“Foreign secretary Boris Johnson made a brilliant and jocular toast to the prime minister – who interrupted to say ‘If only people could see how united we are now’.”
However, within 48 hours the Brexit secretary David Davis had resigned, followed by Mr Johnson, who launched not only a “Chuck Chequers” campaign but also a campaign to chuck Mrs May out of Downing Street and seize her job for himself.
It was Mr Johnson who held the most recent cabinet awayday, at a pottery in the heart of the ‘red wall’ in Stoke-on-Trent in May last year, just weeks before his cabinet shattered like broken crockery following the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid.
Liz Truss, of course, wasn’t prime minister long enough to hold a cabinet awayday. With Mr Sunak under pressure over Nadhim Zahawi, Dominic Raab and countless other woes, will he hold any more? Or will the curse of the cabinet awayday doom him too?
