One year on...

Today, it’s been a year since I announced that I was becoming editor of LabourList. Cue a post reflecting on my job and the *how* of being LabourList editor.

I didn’t actually start the job properly until 1st September - I did a few days behind the scenes at the end of August and a lot of preparation work in my own time to ensure I was as ready as I could be for the job.

That “as I could be” is carrying a lot of weight there. When I announced, all expectations were that the first big thing I would face would be Labour Party conference. This is a huge event for LabourList - both commercially and editorially. My plan was to immerse myself in the role in the lead up to it - get to know my colleagues, how the organisation worked and the literal basics like how to upload stories onto the website.

Ahh, the best laid plans…

On the Friday of my first week properly in the role, Angela Rayner resigned, triggering a reshuffle. On the following Thursday, Peter Mandelson was sacked as US Ambassador. This reshuffle and this scandal – I believe – were the two incidents that truly doomed the Starmer premiership (this is not a political analysis post so I will write more about why I think that elsewhere in September) but they also set a pace for my time at LabourList that has been true ever since.

Being editor of LabourList is a lot of three things: Work, responsibility and fun. It’s also the kind of job where while I have a lot of my work in public that can lead to a perception that this is the majority of what I do. That the pieces I write, the appearances I make on TV and radio make up the bulk of my time but that’s not actually true. Because a lot of what I have done has been about organisational direction, sustainability, vision and management. And none of the wonderful things we have done that you can all see publicly would be possible without putting that work in behind the scenes. So here are a few reflections on three key areas that I think have made up the bulk of that behind the scenes work and why I think they are absolutely key to my role.

Taking over the (co)leadership of an already successful and established organisation like LabourList is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you don’t have to do the really tough work of establishing the brand. The fantastic people who edited LabourList before me had already ensured that we are the best (really only) place to read about what is really happening in Labour politics from a supportive but honest perspective.

On the other hand, I needed to stamp my own authority on the site and make it what I wanted it to be while respecting the huge contributions of those who had come before me. This did not mean rejecting what LabourList already was - quite the opposite. It meant building on it.

It was – therefore – really important for me to have a proper vision for what I wanted to do with LabourList and to ensure that it was a progression from what had come before but one that built on those strong foundations.

It is also really important that I was able to properly articulate that vision internally and ensure that it was one that gelled with my co-leader and where she was taking us in terms of the business and the staff in terms of what they wanted to achieve. A vision cannot simply be imposed from the top. It has to be something the whole organisation understands and works together on achieving.

A vision is almost the easy part. Especially with an organisation like LabourList. Our purpose is quite clear, we know who our audiences are, we know what our subject matter is and we know our topic inside and out.

But we also are fully aware of our limitations. I am lucky in that I have an incredibly talented and dedicated team, part of which I inherited, part of which myself and my co-leader have built together.

But LabourList is limited in terms of resources. And the most precious of these is time - not money (though that is limited too).

Given this, the most important thing to think about as a leader with a vision is how we deliver this. Without a really strong strategy an organisation will flounder. Will do things that contradict each other and will not pull consistently in the same direction. A strategy has to be a lodestar that can be returned to time and again to understand and interrogate why we do what we do.

This is why some of my earliest work was done working with my co-leader to develop a coherent organisational strategy that would be consistent with delivering my vision of LabourList but also work to ensure that the organisation would be on the strongest and most sustainable footing possible so that it would be strong enough to outlast me if needed.

(Now don’t get me wrong, I have no desire or intention to leave my current job. In fact, I frequently joke that I will be the Anna Wintour of LabourList. In it until I retire at 99!

But as anyone who has worked with me or been one of my clients over the years will tell you, one of my consistent refrains is ‘what if you fell under a bus?’ The idea being that any organisation has to be able to continue in the sudden absence of any member of staff because proper systems that catalogue decisions and processes are in place. Here my co-leader has been completely invaluable as she is of exactly the same mind and we have spent a lot of our time systematising the processes and procedures of LabourList.)

So a strategy has to give the organisation a sense of longevity but also be flexible enough to incorporate a different vision if needed. This is why both the organisational strategy – and the editorial and video strategies I have developed that flow from it – are practical working documents that can be referred back to consistently to understand working practice but accompanied by narrative that explains why we work this way and how this matches the vision.

Fundamental to the success of LabourList is our incredible team. This includes both my partnership as a co-leader with Ellie Ormsby but also the fantastic work done by Daniel Green and James Tibbitts on the editorial side and Laurie Wilcockson on the business side.

Sometimes as a leader it is my job to make decisions and I will never shy away from making these and taking responsibility for them. But it is quite rare that I have to make decisions that go against what my team wants or expects.

And that is because from day one we have worked in a way in which my team understands quite how much I value and respect their work and contribution. LabourList demands a lot of all of us. We give that – at least in part – because we are happy with the place we work and the value we know we give. My team is super-productive (in fact sometimes getting them to take downtime is my biggest struggle) and I think that’s because they are happy and feel that their work is respected and valued. I have no interest in glory hunting or claiming their well-deserved credit. In fact, quite the opposite (James has even had a go at me for not taking enough credit of my own!)

Our organisation has a purpose we all understand and believe in. Achieving that purpose matters to all of us and it’s why we are part of this team. We all also know we bring completely different strengths to our roles – and we respect those strengths and each other.

We’re all very different as people. That could go wrong and in more toxic atmospheres or more divided organisations I have seen it do just that. But at LabourList we understand that our differences make our whole offer stronger and it is in leaning into our own strengths and to each others’ that we all succeed together. We don’t get on despite our differences, we get on – in part – because we respect the value of what those differences bring us. We also have a bloody good laugh - an office quality whose importance cannot be underestimated.

I am not going to claim that everything is always perfect. It’s been a learning curve for me, for the team and for the organisation. We could do with another reporter. We could do with the money that would allow us to hire them. I could always do with more money, more time. I have daily frustrations that can annoy me unreasonably because they come when I am tired and working long hours.

But the truth is, I have not just got the job of my dreams, one year on, knowing all that I know, I still see this as the job of my dreams.

And that is an incredibly lucky position to be in.