Andy Burnham is poised to become leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, following his win in the Makerfield by-election, and he is already putting together the team that will go with him into Downing Street. James Purnell is his chief of staff. One of the bigger decisions still to be made, and one that tends to attract less attention than it deserves, is who will run communications at No. 10.

In.Comms asked me, along with others in the industry, for a view on what the next director of communications will need. This is what I told them:

“The next Downing Street director of comms will need to be able to work well with James Purnell and Andy Burnham’s long-standing aide Kevin Lee. I would not be surprised if No. 10 reaches out to key people in agencies who are known to Andy and his team, for specific advice. However, I would be surprised if he brought any agency formally into No. 10, as that is not the Labour way.”

That, for me, is the practical heart of it. A comms operation at the centre of government works best when the people running it know and trust one another, and can act as a team from the first day. Andy Coulson made much the same argument last week, calling for an operation run by grown-ups who understand the value of bringing the temperature down, and I agree with him.

There is a broader point, too. Communications at the top of government is about far more than presentation.  It is about ensuring a clear sense of direction and political focus of a government, so any communications must reinforce that sense of direction both externally with the public but also internally within Government so that civil servants understand how to align the policy solutions that they put forward. Without it there is confusion, a sense of drift and Government slow in delivery. That was the clearest lesson of the past two years, and I have no doubt the new team will have it in mind.