‘Yes, Prime Minister’: Some thoughts and reflections on the Connections UK 2018 Megagame

I have been attending Connections UK for some years and have usually been given an umpiring role in the megagame that takes place on the first day. This year I hadn’t, which somewhat surprised me … but before the first day of the conference I was informed by one of the umpires that I had an important role to play in the megagame. He did not elaborate, and I arrived with no idea what the megagame would be about nor what my role might be.

After registering and being given my ID badge, I joined the other attendees in the reception hall for a much-needed coffee and croissant. I paid a short visit to the main hall where the megagame was to be played, and as I looked around it soon became apparent that the subject of the game was going to be something to do with the UK and the time in which the game was set would be the present or near future.

During coffee we were asked to visit the table set aside for game role allocation … and it was at that point that I was informed that I was taking the part of the Prime Minister of the UK! I went straight to the long table set aside for the Cabinet, sat down in the PM’s chair, and began to draft some notes for my first Cabinet meeting. I was introduced to the young UCL lecturer who was to be my Cabinet Secretary (he turned out to be an excellent choice by the organisers, and I came to rely upon him a great deal during the game for both the support he gave me and the way in which he ensured that the Cabinet Office functioned so efficiently), and then my Cabinet.

My Cabinet … well I’d never met any of them before, and I had no idea about their capabilities and real-life experience. I was extremely pleased to see that I had almost as many female as male colleagues as my experience of running any form of committee has taught me that women tend to work in a far more cooperative way than men, and that their presence on a committee tends to communicate that trait to their male colleagues. (This may seem to be a sweeping generalisation, and there are – of course – exceptions to this amongst both genders, but that is my experience … and it was borne out yet again during this megagame.)

When my Cabinet was assembled, and I took a deep breath before speaking to them for the first time, I was suddenly aware that almost everyone in the hall – including many members of the various departments and ministerial teams – were listening to hear what I had to say. At that point I realised that what I was about to say could well determine how well – or badly – the day would go. In brief, this is what I said:

• I was Prime Minister and my role was to be primus inter pares (first amongst equals) BUT that ultimately it was my head that was on the line.
• I warned them to be very wary of the media and not to talk to them as leaking of any kind would be dealt with.
• When incidents and crises began to occur – as they undoubtedly would – to make sure that they knew their ministerial team and that their PUS (Permanent Under Secretary, the head of their ministerial team) was keeping them well informed.
• I would usually chair the meetings of the Cabinet, and that the Home Secretary would act as my Deputy Prime Minister in my absence.
• That I would give each of the Cabinet members a fair hearing during meetings (which would be conducted under Chatham House Rules), but that if I made a ‘T’ sign with my hands, their time was up.
• Decisions made in Cabinet were binding on us all, and that if a member was not happy with a decision, they could resign … but that was not a course of action I would recommend if they wanted any future in politics!

The look on the faces of my Cabinet as I finished talking was memorable, and I think that they got the message that although this was a ’game’, I was going to treat it as if it was real. I hope that this set the mood for what happened during the rest of the megagame … and from the verbal feedback I had afterwards, I think that I was reasonably successful.

The Cabinet dispersed to meet their teams, and I was able to have a chat with my Cabinet Secretary about what I wanted from him. As noted above, he turned out the be an excellent right-hand man.

The game started with several low-level crises, but as the tempo of the game increased, they became more and more difficult. I will not detail all of them, but they included wide-spread flooding in parts of the UK, the death of a senior member of the Royal Family, terrorist and cyber-attacks on UK infrastructure as well as on UK citizens who were abroad, serious overstretch in the emergency services, and increasing tension in Eastern Europe.

As a Cabinet we were just about able to cope with the domestic crises, but as it became apparent that the Russians were behind the ratchetting up of the tension in Eastern Europe and some of the ‘terrorism’ and cyber-attacks within the UK, we moved to a more passive/aggressive posture. In other words, we enhanced military support to eastern NATO countries and practiced a full-scale Cabinet evacuation to a secure bunker.

As tensions rose, so did the level of problems that we had to find solutions to. The discovery of listening devices in the Cabinet Room and the arrest of a four-man team of Speznatz in Portsmouth precipitated matters, and we – the Cabinet – moved to the secure bunker, along with representatives (usually the PUS) of the ministerial teams. I think that I shocked my Cabinet colleagues when I ordered that all means – however extreme they might be – should be used to extract information from the captured Russian Special Forces Team. I asked that it be done by contractors and that it should take place outside the UK. I then told the Cabinet that this was a decision that I alone would make, and that they bore no responsibility for it.

As events moved closer and closer to the possibility of open conflict with the Russians, I received a message that the President of the Russian Federation wished to speak to me on the telephone. There then proceeded to be what can only be described as a farcical situation. Although he was physically in an adjoining room, the phone link just would not work properly. At one point I said ‘Hello, Vladimir’ … and was greeted by a recorded announcement that the person I wanted to talk to was not available and that I could leave a message after the tone! (One hopes that in real-life, this could not happen!)

Once we did manage to talk, we were able to de-escalate the situation, with both sides agreeing to pull back … although I suspect that we withdrew more than they did! At this point the game ended, and we moved to the de-brief.

Memorable events are difficult to summarise as there were so many. What I can state is that the members of the Cabinet – and their ministerial teams – all performed very well indeed. Several were outstanding, particularly the Minister of Transport, the Culture, Media, and Sport Secretary, the Business Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary for Defence, the Environment Secretary, the Health Secretary, and – of course – the Cabinet Secretary. I will not mention them by name, but I would more than willingly work with them again.

I would also like to thank the organisers of Connections UK and particularly Jim Wallman (who has known me for thirty-eight years!) and his team who produced what was an excellent megagame. I must also thank the Red Team, who generated enough problems to keep us on our toes all the time. In a conversation afterwards with ‘Vladimir’ I discovered that when we moved to the secure bunker for the second time, the Red Team began to wonder if we were actually going to go to war to prevent further Russian pressure on the Eastern European NATO states … and that was why the ‘phone call had been made.

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As an aside, on the second day of the conference quite a few attendees actually greeted me with the words 'Good morning, Prime Minister' ... which would seem to indicate that I must have had some impact on the previous day's events!