Spad

SPAD Special Advisor

A successful stint as a spad can be a crucial political apprenticeship - as many of the current crop of professional politicians including the Miliband brothers, David Cameron and George Osborne can testify - so long as they stay in the dark.

The hit BBC sitcom satirising the inner workings of Whitehall and the so-called spads contains "more than a grain of truth", the head of the cross-party public administration select committee has warned.

No. 6.—Spadonas or spads, the first wing-quills of the chick, clipped at about six months.

RAW OSTRICH FEATHERS / Primes, Wings, White Feminas, Spads, Etc.

“What d’you mean—‘feathers’,” asked the tanned young public school man who volunteered to trot me round, “spads, second-after-chicks, fancies, natals, black butts, adults, juvenals, byocks, chicks, primes, feminas, or what?”[…]The first white ones we call spads.[…]Two or three months after that clipping we pull out the spad quills.

An improvement was noted in the demand for femina wings, spads and long bodies;