How to lead a team of MPs

A calm plan to rebuild trust with the Parliamentary Labour Party and deliver visible wins

Derek Draper

For those who did not know him, Derek was a quick-witted, clever writer and political strategist. He was a contemporary of mine; we knew each other from our teens. He burnt bright and, very sadly, died from a Covid-related illness. I liked him very much despite spending more than half my life in savage disagreement with him. Politics is like that, particularly when you are young. In his later years Derek trained as a psychotherapist and wrote several books, one of his best being about time management and productivity. I’ve thought of Derek much this week and can’t believe my first memory of him is over forty years old.

Derek Draper’s best book should be reissued

Rereading Create Space reminds me: noise ruins judgement. Make space. Think. Meet the right people. Execute a few priorities. I have applied Derek’s methods to a plan for a leader to rebuild ties with the Parliamentary Labour Party after a bruising spat. Playful in tone, it’s serious in intent. Follow it and the Labour party and government will end up in a better place. Here’s to you, Derek.

The Problem

Trust in the PLP has frayed after three shocks in quick succession. The centre has looked noisy, not calm. MPs now worry less about policy and more about structure, process and culture. Own that; then fix it.

Rules of observation

• A PM borrows power from MPs. Repay it with attention, fairness and delivery, every day.

• Never surprise your side; if someone must be surprised, let it be the opposition.

• Brief your MPs or they will brief the media.

• Trust is a ledger. Kept promises credit it. Broken promises diminish it.

• Make sure the people who speak for you, speak for you.

First principle

Create space before you act. You cannot rebuild trust with a crowded diary and a racing mind. Set aside time to think, to listen and to decide. Then move.

How to use that space

1. Space to think: take two quiet hours this week with no phones or visitors. Name the three outcomes MPs must feel in the next 30 days. Write them down. Keep the list short.

2. Space to connect: hold small, closed-door meetings by region, with no more than ten MPs in each group. You speak last. Each session ends with one promise you can deliver inside a fortnight. Keep a log and report back.

3. Space to do: sit on the No. 10 morning team call and set expectations. You need not do this forever but it keeps you in the zeitgeist and alert to the current daily flux.

4. Space to be: your tone sets the culture. Calm, fair, consistent. Admit what went wrong, state the fix, set the date. Then keep it.

Five moves in five days

1. Publish a one-page PLP compact
   You pledge early notice on policy shifts, fair access to ministers, timely replies, zero tolerance of anonymous briefings. MPs pledge to raise concerns privately first, respect collective decisions, focus on constituency wins. Keep it human and short.

2. Make appointments feel fair and reset reshuffles
   Adopt a squad rotation approach so people know they can come back to government once they have been moved. On future reshuffles commit to a different approach. You sack everyone and you appoint everyone. You explain why you are moving people on and why you are moving people in. Name the criteria for success in advance.

3. Set a service standard from the centre
   All MPs get a holding reply to their correspondence and notes in 48 hours and a substantive reply in ten working days across all departments. Publish a monthly scorecard. If you or a minister misses a date, apologise once and set a new date. Then meet it.

4. Close the open chapters properly
   Give one clear line on each recent controversy: what was wrong, what you changed, what happens next. Move on. Use your parliamentary committee. They are your sounding board and early warning device. Hear what they are saying. Take their counsel and keep them close.

5. End the briefing culture
   Say privately to ministers and PPSs, then publicly if needed, that unattributed briefings end today. If anyone briefs, they leave their role. Pair this with a small rebuttal cell to kill false lines about colleagues fast. This is the tricky bit: if you do not know it now, your staff are briefing against MPs and ministers and it is not helping you. Ask Lisa Nandy and Bridget Philipson if you haven’t already.

Thirty-day delivery the PLP can feel

Parliament: guarantee ministerial time for MP’s meetings and check who is not pulling their weight. Make this a career defining issue for your ministers.
Policy: land three quick, visible actions on living costs, policing and the NHS.
People: make it known what being a good colleague looks like and apply it consistently to your advisers and ministers. Sack the bullying special adviser who has caused near irrepaiable harm. I will give you his name. Give every MP and peer a current special advisers directory within 72 hours; update it monthly. Stop staff telling your parliamentary colleagues “we are not in the business of sharing special advisers’ details”; we are. MPs need a direct route when a minister is busy. Bring your special advisers in and be clear about their role: they are to involve MPs in all aspects of Labour in government and act as the go-between with civil servants when decisions are made. They should be accessible; be the minister’s eyes and ears with the PLP. They should ensure the local MP is made aware of all ministerial visits and is listened to in advance.
Process: No surprises. Issue a simple ‘grid and grip’ note each Monday: what is coming, who to contact and how MPs can help.
Feedback: get the whips to run a monthly pulse survey with questions on message clarity, issue follow-through and mood. Review it personally at the Wednesday morning whips meeting and let it be known to ministers that you are taking an interest.

Ninety-day structural fixes

Whips reform: separate discipline from pastoral care; give one whip a duty of care brief with a quarterly update to the PLP committee. (NB this is a new world to me!)
Information flow: by now your pulse surveys, engagement with the parliamentary committee, whips and bilateral MP meetings should have improved the communications culture. Here is the test: Can you recall most MPs by name and know their key issues?
Talent pipeline: how are your PPSs doing? Are they attending regular ministerial meetings; have they been into No. 10 for evening drinks; how many Labour members on select committees have met your ministers to discuss their report recommendations; did you drop in to any of those meetings? Etc.
Culture: ensure that new staff member who gets you to write handwritten notes and sends flowers has what they need. How many wedding and birthday videos have you recorded? Did the CLP secretaries enjoy their visit. Etc.

Every MP and activist from 1994 has several letters like this from Tony Blair

Operating rhythm from the centre

Morning: you chair the start the day call for this first month, set expectations, confirm owners and dates.
Midday: hold a daily PLP engagement slot.
Evening: what landed with MPs, what slipped, what changes tomorrow.
Weekly: scorecard on PLP engagement; three green actions beat ten amber promises.

How we will know trust is rising

• Pulse survey scores improve on clarity, fairness and follow-through.

• Ministerial response times meet the service standard three months in a row.

• Attendance at PLP meetings rises; hostile questions at the end fall as information improves.

• Media hits citing senior Labour sources drop; backbench-led positives rise.

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Watching

The majesty of Albert Finney in two great movies this week. In Miller’s Crossing he barely needs to raise his voice. Power sits behind a desk in all its silent menace. The Coen brothers give every character their own blade sharp lines and Finney’s Leo makes them sound like law. Opposite him, Gabriel Byrne is the quietest man in the room; a side eye from those big black saucers is all it takes. Both this film and The Dresser are about performance and power and how language sets the pecking order.

Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, The Dresser

In The Dresser, Finney is Shakespearean on and off stage. His “Sir” blusters, bullies and pleads, then lets a hairline crack show. Tom Courtenay answers with exact timing and diction; every syllable is placed with care. Where Byrne wins by silence, Courtenay wins by precision.

Both films give Finney centre stage and the followspots; the old theatre limes light his darkest moods. In a world of Marvel movies with little memorable dialogue, these scripts feel fresh. The films share a simple truth about performance: speak well, act well and bring out the best in your supporting cast.

Reading

Create Space is Derek’s plainspoken guide to better leadership in a noisy world. It asks leaders to make room to think and connect. It is not a grand theory book; it is a practical manual drawn from coaching rooms and real jobs. The emphasis is on routines that keep you honest, service standards that prove your intent and a calmer centre that follows through.

Derek was a provocateur in the best sense, generous with his time and sharper than most in separating signal from noise. He loved argument, laughed easily and cared about people doing their best work. If this book and my tongue in cheek note helps anyone govern with more clarity and care, it honours him.