The Scotsman

By Hamish MacDonell

29 November 2006

Jack McConnell could be about to lose one of his closest advisers, possibly as soon as next May's election. Labour insiders have revealed that Rachel McEwan is considering her future as the First Minister's "gatekeeper" and has told friends she is thinking about quitting to return to university.

Ms McEwan has been the First Minister's speech writer and policy adviser for five years.

The special adviser, who is in her mid to late thirties, wants to do a part-time masters degree in the philosophy of international relations at St Andrews University and possibly seek a job in the private sector.

Friends said Ms McEwan had yet to start looking for any other work, so the date of her departure was uncertain.

She might leave after the election in May or, if Labour is returned to government, she might work on until the start of the university year in the autumn.

Ms McEwan has come in for intense criticism behind the scenes from some Labour MSPs angry at Mr McConnell's reliance on her and at the almost presidential way she has cultivated the First Minister's image.

But it is understood that, if she leaves, Ms McEwan will go on her terms and is neither being chased out nor being asked to go by Mr McConnell.

Friends of Ms McEwan said yesterday she felt five years in the frontline of Scottish politics was enough and it was time to do something different. "It's been five years; it's time for a change," said one close colleague.

She is one of Mr McConnell's "inner circle" of trusted advisers. Along with Douglas Campbell, Mr McConnell's press spokesman, Ms McEwan has known the First Minister for many years and is trusted completely by him.

It is understood that another special adviser, Laura Greatrex, is being groomed to replace Ms McEwan and will take her place by Mr McConnell's side if Labour wins the election and he returns as First Minister.

Ms Greatrex, 32, was appointed last year from one of Mr McConnell's favourite charities, Project Scotland.

She is a Labour Party member and spent several years with the party in London before joining the Executive.

There has been regular speculation that Ms McEwan might exchange her role in the shadows for a more prominent political life as an MSP.

However, although she has stood in elections for Labour before, she has done so out of duty and does not appear to want to go down that route, at least for the foreseeable future.

She will have to find work fairly soon, though, if she is to maintain the lifestyle of a special adviser, earning between £60,000 and £80,000 - as she has done for the past few years.

Ms McEwan has been involved in everything Mr McConnell has done, even on those occasions when things went badly.

Once, in the summer of 2004, it even appeared as if Mr McConnell might turn against her.

This was during the debacle of the First Minister's decision to turn down an invitation to attend the D-Day 50th anniversary commemorations in Normandy in favour of a celebration golf dinner in St Andrews.

The outcry forced Mr McConnell into an embarrassing U-turn, and afterwards he let it be known that he believed he had been badly advised.

Both Ms McEwan and Mr Campbell were blamed by Labour colleagues for the public relations disaster, and no-one really knows who was ultimately to blame.

For failure on a presentational issue, the responsibility should have fallen on Mr Campbell, rather than on Ms McEwan. Both advisers survived, but were tarnished as a result.

She is constantly at Jack McConnell's elbow, whispering suggestions and directions in his ear or guiding the right people towards him in a crowd.

But anyone trying to spot her on television footage or in newspaper photographs will find it difficult: she has managed to stay at the top of Scottish politics for five years now without ever becoming a public figure.

Ms McEwan has been Mr McConnell's closest aide since he became First Minister in November 2001, but after five years, has decided it is time to move on.

She is undoubtedly one of the most powerful women in Scotland, and it could be argued that her close relationship to the First Minister makes her the most influential woman in the country.

She and Mr McConnell knew each other from his days on Stirling Council in the 1980s. He trusts her implicitly, which is why he has allowed her so much influence when others in the Labour Party have sniped at her behind her back.

Tall, bespectacled and, until recently, a heavy smoker - despite her boss's crusade against tobacco - Ms McEwan has never appeared flashy or ostentatious. Always soberly dressed, she is gregarious and personable with people she knows but wary with those she does not.

Ms McEwan has been at the heart of everything the First Minister has done for the past five years. If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it is Ms McEwan, but there is little chance of her exposing them.

She believes with almost simplistic faith in both the New Labour project and Mr McConnell's premiership. The conviction with which she argues Labour's policy platform, particularly in economics - can verge on the messianic.

In a sense, she provides the ideological conscience on Mr McConnell's shoulder, with Douglas Campbell, his press adviser, providing the more realistic and practical advice on the other.

Scottish Labour politics is rarely harmonious, and Ms McEwan's detractors have been both vocal and brutal.

She acquired several uncomplimentary nicknames over the past few years, with "plank" (as in thick as two short ones) one of the most blunt and insulting.

Part of this comes simply from her being in a such a position of strength and influence - sitting in on private meetings with senior politicians from around the world and earning up to £80,000 a year for the privilege - but part of it comes from the feeling that she is actually neither bright nor quick enough to be in the job.

Opinion is clearly divided. One Labour MSP described her as "very ordinary" and "not as sharp as you would expect in that job".

But another said yesterday: "She is very bright and very able and I think she adds something to Jack's team of special advisers."

Ms McEwan came to the job of being Mr McConnell's special adviser from the Labour parliamentary research team and from being an educational adviser.

Now she is considering a switch to a mixture of academia and the private sector, a plan, friends insist, that she has been nurturing for some time.

"She has been mentioning this for the past few months or so," one colleague said. "It is not a spur-of-the-moment thing."

Ms McEwan's departure will inevitably fuel speculation that she is being forced out by Mr McConnell in response to the rising tide of back-biting and bitchiness behind her, but this does not seem to be the case.

She is so open to friends and colleagues about the reasons for her departure and the length of time she has been planning this, that it seems unlikely there is anything else behind it.

Originally from Ross-shire, Ms McEwan is now in her mid to late thirties with young children.

She rose from being a Labour Party research officer to become the First Minister's gatekeeper, his diary compiler, speech writer, policy adviser and sounding board.

She has been with him at almost every meeting and event, and even had the job of reporting to Mr McConnell first thing in the morning when he was on holiday, telling him what had been going on in his absence.

It has not always been an easy or rewarding job. Ms McEwan has been sniped at by colleagues and blamed in the press when things have gone wrong.

If she does go, she will no doubt be relieved that someone else will have to handle all that, and more, in the future.