Why Yorkshire's man in the Treasury has returned home to work for Tracy Brabin

But after a career of telling other people’s stories – first in journalism and then as a senior Government communications officer before his latest job with the country’s only female metro mayor – Appleyard is now opening up about his own journey and why he has swapped a jet-setting life at the heart of power for a new challenge back in his native Yorkshire.

Born in Scarborough, 40-year-old Appleyard grew up in York and was first inspired to become a journalist from watching Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner reporting on the Rwandan genocide.

"I was watching this press conference and he had the US State Department press secretary on the ropes. There was this one question that has stayed with me ever since. It was ‘How many acts of genocide does it take to be called genocide and for the world to act?’ That guy to me was like a superhero. I just decided straight away I want to be like that guy. When the kids at school wanted to be Premier League footballers or astronauts, I wanted to be him”

Appleyard followed his dream and became the first person from his family to go to university – studying public relations and then journalism in Leeds.

He initially worked in Leeds for Adfero, a company which wrote stories for business websites, and spent his weekends heading to London to do shift work for The Independent. He eventually moved down to London and worked for The Guardian before going on to edit Surveyor Magazine.

But with print journalism facing a crunch from the global financial crisis and the growth of the internet, Appleyard said he realised the career path he was seeking felt impossible.

"That thing Elsner was doing when I was a kid felt so far out of my reach that I wanted to pursue a different route where I could still tell stories and resonate with people and do some good, but maybe do it in a different way.”

He ended up getting a job as a press officer at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government during the coalition years – taking unlikely inspiration from acerbic comedy The Thick of It about often-hapless politicians and advisers struggling with various PR disasters to make the move.

"I was quite intrigued by that,” he says. “It looked like a newsroom in many ways and that is probably what appealed to me."

"I didn’t really know about the Civil Service as a working-class kid from Yorkshire, you don’t really hear about those type of opportunities. It was a huge privilege – I did so many things that reflecting on, I can’t believe happened in my life during an extraordinary chapter in British political history.”

Speaking the day before Kwasi Kwarteng delivered what is now acknowledged to have been a disastrous Mini-Budget, Appleyard admits there were definite similarities at times with the BBC comedy that helped inspire his move.

“It is exactly like The Thick of It,” he laughs. “There are many moments in the back of a car trying to think what the press notice is going to say on a random visit to Stalybridge or something.”

One of his first roles was getting the Devolution Bill through Parliament that helped create the metro mayor roles and was then tasked with the Northern Powerhouse work that was being driven by Chancellor George Osborne at the time.

He went on to lead the department’s regional communications.

"It was a real culture shock for someone of my background. I guess I suffered from imposter syndrome and I was aware I had overcome some institutional snobbery and was lucky to get where I was.

"For a while I was definitely trying to fit in. But a different lived experience is actually a strength and when you are working on something like regional communications definitely an advantage. I knew the areas we were talking about in those ivory towers of Whitehall.”

He credits former Northern Powerhouse Minister James Wharton for empowering him. “He was the first politician who really believed in me. I quickly clocked I could help the work become more credible and making sure the language we used was more straight-talking and less pompous than the Whitehall speak.

"Later on in my career I would be challenging Chancellors and other senior ministers to get up North and see the places we were talking about. That was really fun – being out on the road, seeing businesses and talking to real people. It was obviously important because they would bring it back to Whitehall and the better of them would then apply that to policymaking.”

After being seconded to the press office for Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry and then in the Prime Minister’s office in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum during the transition between David Cameron and Theresa May, Appleyard ended up working in the Treasury where he became Head of Strategic Communications.

“My first day at the Treasury, walking in as a working-class kid from Scarborough and passing the Churchill Room where he gave his famous Victory in Europe speech was a real moment. I had to pinch myself.”

Appleyard was also seconded to New York to act as the UK’s spokesperson at the United Nations working with Ambassador Karen Pierce.

"That was quite a mind-blowing experience with the things I was interested in and motivated by. Sitting in the Security Council behind our ambassador as she lambasted the Russian delegation over what was happening in Syria was quite something.”

He also took responsibility for the Treasury’s communications for Covid support schemes – frantically writing out the Government’s press announcement on furlough as Rishi Sunak was announcing it on television.

"I had to Google the word ‘furlough’. My heart was racing and it felt quite exposing. That was the scale of the challenge and the pace in which people had to do what felt like the impossible. The quote I had written, ‘We’ll do whatever it takes’, was the front page of every newspaper the next day and that was the mantra throughout.”

Appleyard praises Sunak as both a “fantastically competent Chancellor and a genuinely nice person to work for”.

Sunak did receive some criticism for Treasury spending announcements about major Covid spending involving pictures of him and his personal signature but Appleyard defends the approach that was taken.

"I think in hindsight it is easy to pick things up but at that time it was an unprecedented moment and I think we're all deeply proud of what was achieved in the Treasury on the economic support side during the pandemic.

"It was unheard of and it dwarfed international comparisons."

Last winter, he was seconded to head the Cabinet Office’s communications team for the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow.

"I was in the room with Biden, I was in the room for Obama’s arrival which almost brought a festival-like feel to a diplomatic conference – it was quite something. People were whooping.

"I felt at times I had more in common with the protesters outside urging for climate justice than perhaps some of the delegates in attendance.”

The event ended dramatically, with Cop26 president Alok Sharma fighting back tears after the global deal was watered down at the last minute.

"There was a real emotional attachment to what they were setting out to achieve,” Appleyard reflects.

“People had worked tirelessly towards the goal of the survival of our planet. It felt like there was a real cynicism from some parts of the media that maybe wanted it to fail. So it was a really highly-charged atmosphere.

"The thing that will stay with me from that was the pep talk we got from David Attenborough on the eve of the conference. It really reaffirmed to me that you have to be at the table to enact positive change. That is probably why my time in Government was so long. I’m quite a pragmatic person but you really have to be involved in order to try and make some positive change.”

But despite his successful career in central Government, Appleyard moved back to Yorkshire in August to take up his new role with Tracy Brabin.

"I’m a proud Yorkshireman and I had achieved everything I felt I could. When I saw the opportunity to return home and build my career of public service back in Yorkshire it was a no brainer.

“Some people said to me that regional Government will be quieter but that’s a total nonsense. The most motivating factor about being here is I feel what I do is closer to the people I serve. If you are driven by public service, you want to be as close as possible to where the action is happening. That’s been a really refreshing change.

"Tracy is an empathetic person who has a human touch and I consider myself lucky to be working with her.”

Appleyard was also a social mobility champion within the Treasury to try and open it up to more people.

"Looking at the demographic of my colleagues, there was a type. Even as a white man – just from being a Northerner and not from private school I stood out.

"There are some remarkable individuals trying to open it up. There is some fantastic work from the Social Mobility Foundation.

"It is certainly something I want to get involved with up here in Leeds to open doors for people. It is a responsibility from somebody who found themselves in the right time at the right place to encourage others that they can do this too.”

His own story ends with a simple message: "I'm really chuffed to be back home."