Intro

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair gave hand-me-down shirts to his chief of staff Jonathan Powell, Jacinda Ardern’s chief of staff reveals the former New Zealand PM loves crime TV, and Arthur Sinodinos still can’t call John Howard by his first name. These are just some of the personal revelations to come out of a new book called The Right Hand: Conversations with Chiefs of Staff to the World’s Most Powerful People. Its author, Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks, speaks with Reged Ahmad about the influential and unelected powerbrokers who have had a front-row seat to history