"At the beginning of 1997, there were 38 special advisers in government. However, the number in December 1999 stood at 74." Judging by all the fuss that has surrounded the government's use of advisers, I suppose these bald statistics from the latest report from Lord Neill's committee should be rather shocking. The number of unelected advisers has nearly doubled? What a dreadful affront to democracy. My immediate reaction on reading the numbers lacked, I fear, the appropriate moral outrage: "Seventy-four special advisers? Is that all?"
These recruits from outside the Civil Service have become part of the hysterical debate over "control-freakery", "Tony's cronies" and the argument that Tony Blair is an authoritarian, presidential figure riding roughshod over all opponents, with the help of his wily advisers, paid for by the taxpayer. Yet the proposals for the future of the House of Lords (due next week), of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and of electoral reform (still a factor in Blair's future calculations) have all been drawn up by non-Labour luminaries - namely Lord Wakeham, Chris Patten and Lord Jenkins respectively.
Because some of the advisers speak to journalists, they have become part of another myth about the government - that it is dominated by spin-doctors, deploying magical powers over a craven media. In my view, it is a myth that the government enjoys a good press. The Mail, Telegraph and Sunday Times are not friendly. As for those newspapers and magazines that are meant to be broadly sympathetic, I am reminded of an observation from Lady Falkender in the 1970s. She said that while Labour journalists seemed always to be leaning over backwards to be fair to the Conservative Party, Conservative journalists always seemed to be leaning over backwards to be fair to the Conservative Party.
The Tories get an awful press these days, but her point was a wider one: about the instinctive even-handedness of those who wrote for the liberal press. Today, in spite of his famous spin-doctors, Blair does not have cheerleaders in the media as Margaret Thatcher once had.
Nor is all-important government activity conducted secretly, with sinister special advisers being the conduit of any valuable information. This is another misconception. Every day, there is a cascade of publicly available material - far too much of the damned stuff - which offers much more insight than conversations with special advisers: interviews on radio and TV, parliamentary debates (an underrated source of information, as ministers are candid in the Commons on the usually accurate assumption that no one is listening), more interviews, articles, white papers, green papers, more interviews.
Take some interviews from recent days. Robin Cook pushed the boat out on the euro on the BBC, Stephen Byers did the same in the NS. Meanwhile, Jack Straw reiterated his hostility to electoral reform in another BBC interview. All give a much clearer idea of the dynamics in the government than private whisperings.
This week's report from the Neill committee should help to calm everyone down. Broadly, the committee approves of special advisers. Senior civil servants interviewed by the committee were supportive as well. Again, there have been many exaggerated reports about the tensions between civil servants and the advisers. Yet one of the most interesting quotes in the report comes from the former cabinet secretary Lord Butler: "I took the view that it was not reasonable to ask people who had worked closely with some advisers, on whom they relied to a considerable extent reasonably and rightly, to have the support completely removed from them when they came to office. I also comforted myself by the knowledge that the odds are stacked in favour of the Civil Service."
Some of those criticising the special advisers, such as former Labour ministers, should remember what life was like without them. In his diaries, Richard Crossman despaired of ministerial isolation. He felt as if he were in a "padded cell", while civil servants ran his life. More widely, the unelected civil servants were blamed for curbing the radical cutting edge of previous Labour governments. Now those critics are targeting advisers for undermining the noble neutrality of the Whitehall machine. As the current cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, put it to the Neill committee: "I do not think the senior Civil Service of 3,700 people is in danger of being swamped by 70 special advisers." So much for a Blairite takeover.
The largest increase in special advisers has been in Downing Street itself, but this is a building that is only just keeping up with the modern world. In their fascinating book The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, Anthony Seldon and Dennis Kavanagh reveal, for example, that e-mail was a recent innovation in Downing Street.
For the Prime Minister to keep fully abreast of what is happening in the much better-resourced Whitehall departments, he is going to need more personal advisers, rather than fewer.
The Neill report proposes that a limit should be placed on the number of advisers, with some flexibility built in (for example, some cabinet ministers could have several more advisers than others), and that a special advisers' code should be drawn up.
I doubt if these proposals will make a big practical difference, but in establishing some rules and guidelines they will help to demythologise one of the more transparent and open areas of government. What is more, when the Conservatives return to power, they will have acquired their own army of advisers. Like all the government's other constitutional reforms, this one is here to stay.
