Our man with the Commons touch

HE MAY have the looks of a mischievous schoolboy, but James Slack has a touch of the Machiavelli about him. He must have.

He loves the sly, slightly sinister world of Westminster politics: the nod, the wink; the spin and counter-spin; the 'You might say so, but I couldn't possibly comment' atmosphere in which the lobby correspondent works.

Not that anybody's ever said that to him. It's rare, even, that he gets the tap on the shoulder as he's prowling the corridors of power and the invitation to walk down a quiet side corridor to listen to the latest 'whispers'.

"Maybe it was like that in the old days," he says. "But I think it is a bit different now." Instead, he gets most of his tip-offs from phone calls, or by chatting to politicians in the Members Lobby.

But even so, he insists, there remains about Westminster politics an air of intrigue that is intoxicating.

"It's the intrigue, the drama, the off-record briefings and 'deep background'," he says. "You know so much that you never actually get to write about. I like that. They say knowledge is power. It's exciting."

It's that world of intrigue, of plotting, spin and backbiting that he will be bringing to life in his new weekly column for the Evening Press that begins tomorrow.

He'll be going behind the scenes of Westminster life; getting beneath the spin, commenting on the absurdities of Westminster protocol, bringing to life the House of Commons at Prime Minister's Questions.

What he won't be doing is dishing the dirt on the local MPs he hobnobs with every day in the course of his work - the likes of Hugh Bayley, Anne McIntosh, John Grogan and John Greeenway.

Quite apart from the fact he gets on very well with them all and regards them 'almost like friends', it is more than a lobby correspondent's job is worth to betray trusts, he says.

The relationship between journalist and politician remains one of mutual dependency - and it is founded on trust. Trust, on the journalist's part, that what an MP is telling him is the truth and not spin: trust, on the MP's part, that secrets he or she does not want to come out are not going to be spilled.

"Trust is the most important part of the relationship you have with MPs," James says. "You get to know a lot about them. Stuff that they would not necessarily want in the paper.

"But all our MPs are very straight and tell it exactly how it is."

James has been reporting from Westminster for the Evening Press for over a year. He began his job as parliamentary correspondent on February 26. Two days later came the Great Heck Rail Disaster.

"One of the first jobs I had to do was to get a statement from Tony Blair about what had happened," he says.

It was a far cry from reporting on council meetings, which is what he had been doing until a few days earlier as a reporter for an evening newspaper in Nottingham. But it was a taste of the big stories to come: the election, foot and mouth and, most recently, the death of the Queen Mother.

It is, the 27-year-old who hails from Sheffield admits, a dream job for somebody who's as fascinated with politics as he is. Not that he always has been. As a boy he harboured dreams of being a sports writer. He was a fan of Sheffield United, and contributed regularly to the Blades' fanzine.

Then he went into the Sixth Form and started an A-level politics course - and he was hooked. "I realised I didn't want to be a sports reporter after all. I wanted to be a politics reporter."

He studied history and politics at Lancaster University, did a spell as local government correspondent for the Mansfield Chronicle and Advertiser, then moved to the Nottingham Evening Post as industry correspondent. "They already had a very good political reporter. Industry was a way of making contact with all the local MPs without being the political reporter."

It was a time of serious industrial decline, and he reported on some big stories. "I closed ten factories and three coalmines in the two years I worked there!" he says.

Then came his big break. A news editor from the Post had landed a job at Westminster. "And when a job came up she put me forward for it. It was really a case of being in the right place at the right time. It's a hard place to get into, Westminster."

It was a shock at first to find himself rubbing shoulders with the likes of Alistair Campbell and the BBC's political editor Andrew Marr at briefings in the Downing Street basement.

It wasn't easy, as a young 26-year-old fresh from regional papers, winning acceptance in the overwhelmingly middle-aged world of the Westminster press lobby, either. It's not the kind of job you just walk into, he says. "It takes time to be accepted. It's a very slow process. You just have to keep your counsel while people get to know you."

He was soon in the thick of things, though - first with Great Heck, then covering the election. He was at Millbank, the Labour Party's London HQ, at 5.30am when Tony Blair's election victory was confirmed.

The atmosphere, he says, was oddly muted. "They were definitely not celebrating. They were saying 'we've been given a mandate to do a job' rather than 'hooray, we've got in again'. A shattered-looking Blair walked up on to the stage surrounded by celebrities like Ross Kemp, and it was all a bit strange."

One of the things he most enjoys about Westminster is seeing all-powerful ministers being put under the cosh at parliamentary select committees. The committees are one of the few opportunities humble back-benchers have to put ministers on the spot. He particularly enjoyed the savaging of Transport Secretary Stephen Byers over Railtrack.

"Anne McIntosh was there, on very good form," he says. "Byers was sweating, wringing his hands."

The undoubted highlight of the parliamentary week, however, is PM's Questions - what James calls the "30 minutes of theatre on a Wednesday afternoon."

From the way PM's Questions go, you can tell what sort of a week the Government is having, he says.

So how is Tony Blair doing, on the evidence of recent Questions?

"I would say there is more disquiet now than at any time since I've been here. Backbenchers are certainly feeling braver. He's still an incredibly successful Prime Minister, but having a tough time at the hands of his own backbenchers rather than the opposition."

So with his love of politics, does James harbour any ambitions to be a politician himself?

"Definitely not! I think I'd rather be on my side of the fence! I've never fancied myself as a public speaker!"

What a wuss. Perhaps not quite so Machiavellian after all.

Updated: 10:31 Thursday, April 11, 2002