Most jobs in politics don’t have job descriptions. MPs, ministers and prime ministers all have to find their own feet and make the job their own. Because their jobs are about creating and managing change based on a mandate granted directly from the electorate, it would be impossible to draft a job spec with meaning. To a large extent the same applies to role of Special Advisor (SPAD), because they have to adapt to the working patterns of their boss.

I was a SPAD based at the Cabinet Office, working to a ministerial team headed up by Hilary Armstrong. I found the job to be a mixture; part academic, part speech writer, enforcer, gate keeper, political booking agent, eyes, ears, and by the end a trusted friend. Working for someone as experienced as Hilary, who had been on the front benches for 18 years and the longest serving Labour chief whip, I was often a student too.

A SPADs hours are very long and if you want recognition, public profile, or much in the way of thanks you’re barking up the wrong tree. Weekends disappear and week days are punctuated by immovable events like debates in the House, speeches, policy launches, cabinet committees, and media appearances so there is never, ever, the opportunity to delay – work has to be delivered on time and to standard. It taught me a lot about the meaning of stress!

The privilege of the job is undeniable, and I have never forgotten the opportunities it gave me to contribute to policy and political decision-making. It was also great fun, it’s amazing how surreal some of the experiences are when you spend a lot of time at a minister’s side.

My contract tied me to both the Ministerial Code of Conduct and the Civil Service Code of Conduct, and contained numerous clauses listing the ways I could be fired that had no bearing on my performance; things like my boss being fired, resigning or reshuffled, or a change in administration or prime minister. But the thing that kept me most tightly anchored to the straight and narrow was my own values coupled with efforts to live up to the standards set by my boss.

There are 77 SPADS scattered across government and many are like me in 2006 when I got the job; have an area of expertise but are adaptable, politically committed and experienced, loyal, desecrate, and hungry to learn.

I was there for less than two years before being spat back out into the real world. I think the template of my experiences is a pretty good one and you can point to others who have followed the same trajectory – Matthew Taylor (SPAD to Tony Blair), now CEO of the RSA and Stephen Hale (SPAD to Margaret Beckett), now CEO of the Green Alliance.

I have two observations, based on my experiences, for keeping the use of SPADs most effective:

SPADs should be brought in for a few years but move on before the onset of complacency or burnout. Sometimes, but not always, a SPAD can be so closely associated with his or her boss that after time they become almost a ‘Super SPAD’, who officials and politicians know wields too much of their bosses power but sometimes without the restraint or experience.

The best SPADs I worked with had a decent track record of local activism before becoming a SPAD and often experience in another profession. Loyalty to your boss has to be matched by a desire to bring about change and a working knowledge of how to achieve it. If your sole reason for being is loyalty to one person you will soon lose site of the big picture and stop being a team player in the broader sense.

Unsurprisingly I’ve been asked a lot about the McBride incident. The truth is that I can’t imagine what drove him to, or what culture accepted, the kind of thought process that led to that happening. The call for tighter regulation is politically understandable in the present climate but would it have worked in this case? Would someone who’s moral compass allowed those emails to be drafted be restrained by further guidance? I’m not sure. If someone has to learn that it’s wrong to lie and smear from a job contract, I posit that the horse has already bolted and the opportunity for early intervention has long since passed. Just because there isn’t a job description for politicians doesn’t mean they shouldn’t put as much effort into hiring the right people, with the right character for the job, in the first place just like every other employer in the country.