Number 10 is iconic, the mirror smooth door a symbol of political power. Entering Downing Street is like entering another state: passports are checked, bags x-rayed, and access strictly supervised by guards who are dressed in Kevlar and armed to the teeth.
Homerton’s recent trip to Downing Street took 25 students representing Changemakers, the Homerton Politics Society and the History and Politics Tripos behind the black door. On arrival selfies were the first order of business, although these were interrupted by the coming and going of Ministers, including James Cleverly and Steve Baker.
Homerton alumni Myles Stacey, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, welcomed us, escorting us up a steep Georgian staircase into a meeting room above the Cabinet Office. Myles’s story is unusual for a SPAD and unusual for this government. His mother moved to Britain from Kingston Jamaica in the early sixties, where she met his father, a migrant from Ireland. Myles grew up in Warrington, his background decidedly working class. With the support of his family he made it to Homerton College to study History and Education, Cambridge, then to Oxford, and then into government where he became known as Boris Johnson’s foremost British Caribbean adviser, and was awarded an OBE for voluntary and charitable services to the Black community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Myles is a ‘Red Wall’ Tory, his job to represent: to be in the room on behalf of the working-class voters who lent the Conservatives their support in 2019. His role is all the more important as 65% of the current Cabinet went to independent schools, and given just how many of Rishi Sunak’s top team were born and raised in the south of England.
The discussion took place in accordance with Chattem House Rules, but in general terms and without breaching confidentiality the topics included the virtue of patience in politics, the necessity of sacrifice, and the importance of ‘being in the room.’ Chattem House Rules meant that Myles could be candid, something that many of our students appreciated. For Minnat Allah Mohammed, a first year History and Politics student, the trip was worthwhile as it gave her an ‘insight into the inner workings of the government and the types of manoeuvres involved in getting politics done’. Leonas Pausch, President of Homerton’s Politics Society and Changemakers Ambassador, commented, ‘walking through the door of 10 Downing Street and conversing with Myles felt like tapping into the heartbeat of the nation.’
Some students asked broad questions about political purpose and values. This aspect of the discussion was particularly important for Changemakers Ambassador Jason Si who comments that ‘the visit and the conversation reminded me of the significance of holding onto our values and striving for a brighter future.’ Others took the opportunity to present forensic critiques of particular policies. But an important part of the visit was the experience of being at the heart of government, or in the belly of the beast – depending on your perspective. Changemakers Ambassador Abiel Ma described the experience as ‘awe-inspiring, truly extraordinary.’ For third year History and Politics student Sophia Liversidge, visiting Number 10 was both ‘fascinating and one of the most surreal and exciting experiences I’ve ever had.’ The uncanny nature of the visit was picked up by several students. Perhaps, as third year History and Politics Student Sam Eastoe puts it, it was the experience of ‘looking around the rooms where people who change lives every day get to work.’ Or perhaps the unreal quality was heightened by the fact that Downing Street is a place, for most of us, that we only ever experience on television, or recreated on film.
On the way-out Myles took us through the Thatcher Room, Margaret Thatcher’s office during the 80s. Today, the room is dominated by a portrait of the former PM. Thirty years after her ouster, Thatcher is still very much in the room. Discussions continued on the way home. During our visit there had been a lot of emphasis on the significance of being at the centre, influencing Ministers, having access. And rightfully so, as the COVID enquiry has demonstrated the deleterious consequences of the exclusion of women and people from minority communities from decision making. But maybe ‘being in the room’ is not the whole story. After all, there are ways of including people which are demeaning or tokenistic, and there are plenty of politicians who have found themselves in office but out of power. There are also ways of influencing government from the outside. Returning to Thatcher, during her premiership she may have won the economic argument, but it was the gay liberation groups, the women’s groups and the Black liberation groups - not least the Race Today Collective - who won the social argument despite their deliberate exclusion from the centres of state power. After all, Number 10 does not exist in a vacuum. In a democracy what goes on in government is tied, in one way or another, to what goes on in the country.
Whatever the political lessons, the visit was quite an experience. Third year History and Politics Student Jack Deasley comments ‘if you had told me a couple of years ago that someone like me would have been into Downing Street, I'd have laughed at you. Homerton College has afforded me this truly surreal experience, one I'll be forever grateful for.’ And for Changemakers Ambassador Kogulan Vipulan, ‘this visit was yet another example of Homerton enriching my degree experience and encouraging me to make an impact.’ Hopefully, Myles will not be the last Homerton student to find a place in Number 10.
