Chapter 4: Get With the Programme

“Julia have you got a minute?” Sylvia Atterbury called from the door of her office. Julia Fain sat down at Sylvia’s invitation. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s a little bit embarrassing.”

Julia felt she knew what was coming.

“I wondered if you had got any further on regarding taking on a sponsorship? You know how important the Party see sponsorship as a way of delivering a stable society where men have the appropriate supervision. It’s not their fault that their decision making is weaker than women’s but you know the Party feels that women have a duty to step up and make things easier for them if possible.”

Julia sighed. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea. It was more that she hadn’t felt the need and she hadn’t got around to it.

“The PM has asked for a review of all senior staff, identifying their sponsorship status and while I know you’re fully on board with what we are trying to do, there’s always a worry about the Civil Service these days. I mean all that trouble over Brexit when it turned out some departmental staff were actively going behind the Government’s back to Brussels...”. Sylvia turned towards Julia with a ‘please take this as an instruction’ look on her face. “It really would be helpful if you could see your way to putting a sponsorship arrangement in place before I have to let the PM have my response.”

“Well, Minister,” Julia thought she had better be formal. “To be honest, I haven’t had a live-in relationship with a man – or anyone else, come to that - for a while and I haven’t felt the need. I mean the tax break would be good of course and some help around the house would be useful but I quite like having the place to myself and I don’t want to have to spend time managing a sponsored male when there’s so much here that needs doing here in the Department.”

“That’s admirable Julia, but it will cause a problem. There’s no point in being highly effective at what you do if people are wondering whether you’re really on their side or not. I’d like to be able to tell the Cabinet Office that at least you have it in hand and there’s some prospect that you’ll have a sponsored male by the end of the year. Sometimes, when we are ambitious, we have to take on things that don’t fit exactly with our plans.”

The most annoying thing about what Sylvia had to say was, thought Julia, that she was right. If you wanted to get on in Government once upon a time you only had to show you were dedicated to following the rules and providing absolutely impartial advice to Ministers. These days, though, the expectation was that you were there to get what the Minister wanted to be done, done. Even so, it was all very well for Sylvia, what with all the work going on around the Department, Julia just felt that she didn’t have time to find a man to take into sponsorship.

After she had finished with Sylvia, Julia went looking for Henry. He, she knew, would be able to pull together the things she needed. “Can you dig me out a DOSA Sponsorship Introductory Folder? I need to have a look at it.”