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Rodney Lowe, Grit in the Oyster or Sand in the Machine? The Evolving Role of Special Advisers in British Government, Twentieth Century British History, Volume 16, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 497–505, https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwi038
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People Who Live in the Dark: The History of the Special Adviser in British Politics. By Andrew Blick. Politico's, London, 2004. xvii +363 pp. ISBN 1842750623, £25. The Heat of the Kitchen: An Autobiography. By Bernard Donoughue. Politico's, London, 2003. 392 pp. ISBN 1842750518, £25.
‘Rent boys’ and ‘Hitler youth’ were amongst the more colourful descriptions of special advisers in the national press between 1997 and 2003, when Alistair Campbell was at the height of his power as Tony Blair's chief press officer and then director of communications and strategy. They are also ones which, given the nature of British adversarial politics, have sadly been encouraged by both main political parties in opposition despite the fact that each has employed such advisers when in office. The purpose of Andrew Blick's book is to achieve a rather more balanced picture by placing this permanent development in Britain's unwritten constitution into historical perspective. Its most potent manifestation has been the grouping of a small number of advisers within a No. 10 Policy Unit, without which no prime minister has functioned since 1974. The origin and initial role of this Unit were first disclosed by Bernard Donoughue, its initial head, in Prime Minister (1987). Both are further embellished in his autobiography with details of his childhood and later career, spent respectively in poverty and in the City.
