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Intro: [00:00:00] You are listening to Parliament Matters, a Hansard Society production supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Learn more at hansardsociety.org.uk/pm.

Ruth Fox: Welcome to Parliament Matters, the podcast about the institution at the heart of our democracy, Parliament itself. I'm Ruth Fox.

Mark D'Arcy: And I'm Mark D'Arcy. And in this special episode, black books, half Nelson's and the darkest of political arts.

Ruth Fox: We talk to political journalist Seb Whale about his new book on the secret world of the Westminster whips.

Mark D'Arcy: Tell us, first of all, Seb, how easy is it to get former whips to talk about the, kind of, the inner secrets of what really goes on in that whole complex of offices in Parliament?

Seb Whale: It's difficult and I was fortunate in a way in that I'd already had experience with this because I wrote about Whips for the House magazine about [00:01:00] five years ago, and though I managed to speak to maybe five to 10 whips at the time, including a couple of former chief whips, I also had a lot of rejections.

And so when I approached this project, I was thinking, oh God, what if there's like a WhatsApp group for former whips and a message goes out not to speak to that Whale bloke about his book. So I thought one way of getting round that would be, well, every MP who's still alive and who served in parliament is able to speak, has dealt with whips to some degree.

So my initial approach was to literally go through all the lists of elections from about 1974 onwards and try and get in touch with everybody who I could reasonably get a hold of. So some people are in the Lords, you know, some people are on LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever it might be. And so that was one way that I went about it.

As it so happened, I think that this project came about at just the right time because there have been various trailblazers along the way who I think we'll speak about later, but the likes of Giles Brandreth, obviously more recently, Simon [00:02:00] Hart, the former Tory Chief Whip who's spoken about whipping, and so people are just starting, even those who held out on the omerta front, like Andrew Mitchell for example, who in his autobiography wrote about being a whip. It just felt like the right time to be doing this project. However, there were some people who still, you know, would speak to me, but they had their absolute limits. So the way I got around that, I ended up speaking to, I think 64 whips. So 64 people who passed through the whips office. And obviously because I was spreading far and wide in terms of my targets, if some people gave me one little bit of what happened during Margaret Thatcher's whips' office, other people gave me that little bit more.

So some obviously were slightly less discreet than others, and so I just had to piece together this world. Which is highly secretive, as you say, almost by within its nature. I mean, quite a few whips said to me at the end of the interview, oh, I haven't been any use to you. But I always think to myself, well, actually you've just corroborated this other thing that I've heard from somebody, or you've given me a lead into something else.

So it was really by [00:03:00] not being too targeted in who I went to speak to, that I was then able to piece together this world that is otherwise hidden behind a pretty thick curtain.

Mark D'Arcy: And part of the difficulty with the whips office is the mystique around it, fostered by things like the House of Cards, you know, the Michael Dobbs novel about a villainous chief whip that was then made into a TV series that was then picked up and Americanized by Netflix, and you have this demonic kind of air of evil around Chief Whips, keeping the whole black books, discussing everybody's adulteries and dodgy financial dealings that's then used to blackmail them into following the party line. And all this idea of how they operate that perhaps doesn't really compare to the reality.

Seb Whale: The truth is it doesn't really do them any harm for that reputation to be spread around the corridors of parliament, particularly when it comes to the new intake because ultimately the chief whip and the whips in general don't quite have as much at their disposal as they once did.

So their kind of fearsome reputation, [00:04:00] and the fact that they kind of have your career in their hands, does lend itself well to at least initial obedience on the, on behalf of the new intake. As you say, the reality is much different, but the whip don't necessarily help themselves by then keeping their world a secret. So, you know, they could well go out there and speak in public and dispute all these claims about what they get up to, but they don't.

And I think they do that partly for a reason. I think they deal with a lot of personal issues relating to MPs. And they don't wanna talk about that because, you know, naturally they want to keep these things within close quarters. But as I say, I think really if it was that much of an issue for them, to have this sort of fearsome reputation, they would've done something about it. And yet somehow I think they quite like really this House of Cards style portrayal that they might have.

Mark D'Arcy: And I suppose it's quite handy.

Ruth Fox: And you said there Seb that the whips don't have as much at their disposal as they once did. And your book traces the changes in the powers of the whips and the sort of the roles that they now have.

What do you think [00:05:00] is the biggest changes that have taken place.

Seb Whale: There's loads of different components to it I think are really interesting. One of my most enjoyable things for me going through the book when I was writing it, is the increasingly incredulous responses of the new intakes to the whips' induction briefings that they give out at the start of every parliament.

And you begin with Humphrey Atkins, the then Tory Chief Whip in 1974, sort of scaring the life out of Malcolm Rifkin and co. And then about 20 years later, when John Major in 1992 wins a quite a small majority, but majority of the new intake have different aspirations when they come to parliament. No more of the knights from the shires, the people who are quite happy there to have jobs during the day, turn up at Parliament at night, drink some champagne and vote and go home again. And then you've actually got people with quite strong political convictions, obviously in relation to things like the European Union and things and other such subjects.

So they're more boisterous. At the same time, the Chief Whip used to have quite a role in even appointing peers, knighthoods, positions on [00:06:00] quangos. This has been more centralized, which is a common theme that Number 10 has assumed quite a lot of these responsibilities. Then you've got things like the change in Parliament's hours.

You know, that was quite a key cog in particularly in the opposition's arsenal of weapons to hold a government to account or just to wind them up, frankly, to keep them there until the early hours. So that's another thing, because also, you know, for the whips that kept everyone together, and that's another theme that that emerges over the course of the book you have, Portcullis House was created turn of the millennium, ironically, with, Ray Powell, who was a Labour whip, he helped quite a lot in that coming about, which gave lots more office space to MPs who otherwise were sitting on each other's laps to do their constituency casework. But we also fragmented the shared areas that they used to, or congregate. So you had people coming in with more aspirations, more political convictions, who perhaps hadn't done national service, hadn't served in the army, all these kind of things that generations ago [00:07:00] politicians had done and had more of an idea of what they wanted to do at and with Westminster coalescing with the whips, losing their some powers of patronage, and then also the modernization of parliament, which I think many people would welcome nonetheless, has taken away aspects of the control that the whips had over the operations of Parliament. And so it's very interesting for me to have charted the way in which those two things happened simultaneously, and then also politics becoming increasingly fractious.

I mean, also social media's changed things. You know, there's several instances during the book of whips, let's say, having an MP up against the wall and telling them what they need to do. If you did that these days, it wouldn't take much for an MP just to be able tweet it out. This just happened to me.

Or go straight to a reporter and the whips don't have quite as much hold over them as they once did to be able to stop them from doing that.

Ruth Fox: Wasn't there that story a couple of years ago of, [00:08:00] was it Chris Bryant was taking photographs and tweeting them in the lobby when he alleged that Conservative whips had got Conservative MPs up against the wall effectively on a vote.

And that all ended up on social media. Now I think it turned out that they were exonerated of bullying, but that's a sort of example of it's not also just your own side that's watching.

Seb Whale: Exactly. Yeah. That was on the fracking vote that eventually brought down the, well and other things, that brought down Liz Truss and yeah, so, so much has changed in the last 50 years with regards to the whips, but I think that can be overstated.

I think we can say that too much. You know, the whips still can decide how your career is gonna progress in Parliament.

Mark D'Arcy: And one of the striking things that comes through in the book, and you go through almost 50 years of moments of extreme whipping, the Callaghan government's ongoing struggle to survive, the Maastricht vote, the various travails over Brexit, the fall of Liz Truss.

As you just mentioned, all sorts of incidents we'll come onto in a minute, but one of the things that's really striking is this idea that for entry into the [00:09:00] junior levels of government, at least, the whips approval is pretty critical for the prospects of any MP. The whips will have a lot of influence on who becomes parliamentary under secretary for paperclips and enters the government that way.

Now, are they loyal in the Commons? Do they speak well? Are they good on their feet? All those kind of questions will come up for at least junior ministerial appointments.

Seb Whale: Yeah, and I really get the impression that particularly during, say Margaret Thatcher's day, that they more or less, you know, they wrote the list and she just ticked, they really did have that level of control. As ever with these days, the other thing I didn't mention earlier is that of course there's just been a pooling of influence, I think with regards to the whips powers. So when it comes to the influence and predominance of special advisors, you know, their influence on proceedings, particularly in number 10 and number 10 is now its own department, isn't it?

So while the whips, at least one whip will be on what's called bench duty, so they'll be sitting on the front bench in the chamber while debates and what have you are happening. They'll be making note [00:10:00] who made a good intervention, who, you know, if the minister struggled on their feet or wasn't able to adapt or fluffed their lines or whatever, and this will all then feed into the reshuffle machine.

Mark D'Arcy: You've got a very funny anecdote there about John Major as Prime Minister, having a look at the whips notes and the whips recorded that his opening joke fell flat and Major to his enormous credit then says, well, yeah, that's about right. But the whip's a bit nervous in that moment.

Seb Whale: One of my favorite anecdotes in the book.

That was, I just thought that was very funny. But yes, they are still very influential and powerful in the running of parliament, in the prospects for MPs' careers and also frankly, in holding the centre, number 10, to account. I think you've seen that recently with regards to Keir Starmer's administration with the whips, basically telling him, you know, if we look back to the summer and the disability benefit reforms that he was looking to push through, they basically said to him, you've got 120 old rebels here, you're not gonna get it through. Or if you are gonna get it through, then a lot of people are about to lose the whip. So they still have that currency a lot.

Sometimes I think because [00:11:00] of the House of Cards image the people have in their minds about whips, it's all about top down. The center wants this, so you must do it. And I think particularly these days, it really is a two-way thing. They will do as much as they can, but when they realize there's no hope, then they equally can say to number 10, you need to sort this out.

Ruth Fox: There's always an element of carrot and stick as far as the whips are concerned. But you said about the Conservative years with Humphrey Atkins as Chief Whip, that he'd scared the living daylight side of the Malcolm Rifkins generation. What would they be doing in that period to scare the living daylights out of them.

And, there are allegations that they have this black book locked away in a safe in the Whips office, which record all those misdeeds and the financial misdealing and the scandals and so on. I mean, is that true or is that just rumor mystique?

Seb Whale: No, it's true. And don't let whips tell you otherwise.

Ruth Fox: Have you seen it?

Seb Whale: Yeah. I mean when I was speaking to Whips about this, some were like, oh, I [00:12:00] can't talk about it, or you know, they were saying, well it's not, it's not a black book because it's not really a book.

Mark D'Arcy: It's off white.

Ruth Fox: It's an Excel spreadsheet now.

Seb Whale: Yeah. But I think, so to the first part of your question, why did they have, why do they scare the living daylights? Partly, you've gotta think about, so that Tory Whips office, I can think off the top of my head, so is Humphrey Atkins. And Jack Weatherill, who obviously went on to become speaker, both of those men had served in the Second World War.

And there is obviously something about, I mean obviously we are 30 years on now by the time that intake's coming in, there is a degree of gravitas naturally that they would have, and a hold and respect they would keep amongst MPs. I don't think actually Humphrey Atkins and Jack Weatherill, they were more on the quietly menacing side than on the grab you by the lapels side.

They were both quite

Mark D'Arcy: Or indeed anything else.

Seb Whale: Yeah. So I think that's a big element. You know, the Whips office kind of had respect, regardless of who they were, because of who they'd been [00:13:00] before they became parliamentarians. But then they also, you know, they could get away with a bit more back then, you know, that there was more, shall we say, things going on in corridors and perhaps veiled threats or not that veiled threats or bribes or what have you. Some people were offered knighthoods if they would vote a certain way. And with regards to the black book, there were, you know, rumors when the second MPs arrived that, oh, you know, if you step out of line, you get into their black book.

Now the black book was actually an intelligence gathering mechanism. So what it was, was note taking. So all the whips would go out and write the notes. So basically everything they picked up on their patrols of of parliament. And that could be just hearing that a group of back benches met in the tea room and they were talking about how they didn't like this or that amendment.

Or it could be, I heard via so and so that this particular back bencher is having an affair now. Obviously this seems intrusive. The way that the whips justify it is that they needed to be across all potential future [00:14:00] developments that might affect the party, the MP, and the Prime Minister. So if the minister was having an affair that might get into the press and then, you know, that might cause a scandal, then that might be a threat to the government in some way. So they would be indiscriminate with what they wrote down. So I think sometimes when we think of the black book, it's predominantly focused on what used to be called the dirt book, which is just, you know, so and so has a particular proclivity for this activity, or whatever it might be.

I think that is a component. As I say, don't let whips tell you otherwise. Because it definitely was, I've heard it from the horse's mouth several times. But also it was about gathering as much intel as possible. It's important for the chief whip to be aware of any potential threat to the government and therefore also the Prime Minister who will find out from the chief whip. They justify it to preempt disasters and to facilitate what is ultimately their job, which is two-way communication between the rank and file and the upper echelons.

Mark D'Arcy: Now, in the book you go through rollicking accounts really of all sorts of classic whipping battles across the years.[00:15:00]

Everything from the survival struggles of the Callaghan government to the trench warfare over the Maastricht Treaty and beyond, which is your favorite? Which do you think amounts to being the most classic of those paddles?

Seb Whale: Those two that you just mentioned. I think 74 to 79 is one of the most extraordinary parliaments, certainly of modern politics.

And as someone who obviously knew the component parts to go through the various stories and sequences as they happen. And the unbelievable things from John Stonehouse's disappearance to the ambulance coming in, bringing in dead or dying MPs to vote and being checked over by the whips. You know, it's, it is absolutely extraordinary.

And in the background, and the big feature of that chapter was the rivalry between Walter Harrison and Jack Weatherill. Walter Harrison being the legendary Labour deputy chief Whip. And thanks to you, Mark, I had this brilliant exchange between the two of them that you revealed in a BBC Parliament documentary in 2004. It was on the 25th anniversary, wasn't it? Of the vote of the confidence vote.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. Which brought [00:16:00] down, uh, James Callahan.

Seb Whale: Yeah, exactly. And you know, from a writing perspective, that period required probably the most in-depth research, but it was the most fun to put together because it was such an extraordinary color.

Mark D'Arcy: Of course, one of the things about the Weatherill Harrison relationship was that they were actually in an odd way, very close as antagonists, you know, deputy chief whips for the opposing sides in those battles.

Seb Whale: Yeah, and I think that that was something that endured well beyond their time in Parliament.

I mean, by the time of the vote of no confidence in 1979, one of them had served for 13 years in the whips office and the other one for 12. So they were very experienced hands, both sides. You know, when Jack Weatherall disappeared from view in the Commons, the Labour whips would shout out to the rest of their team find Weatherill.

Because if he was missing something was afoot. They were planning some kind of subterfuge or some kind of ambush in parliament. And you know, Walter Harrison notorious for his incidents with Jack Straw, in which he got quite physical trying [00:17:00] to convince him to agree with his view on a political, uh,

Mark D'Arcy: He was a practitioner of the American adage that when you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

Seb Whale: Indeed.

Mark D'Arcy: Literally rather than metaphorically.

Seb Whale: Exactly, and I think that as Deputy Chief Whips, they had to interact with each other, quite a lot through what's called the usual channels. They would negotiate over things like extra supply days as they were called then. And ultimately it came down to this showdown of 1979 when with the Labour party umming and ahhing over whether they were gonna get in this particularly sick MP to come down. They had the confrontation that you reported, Mark. But, you know, 25, 30 years later before Walter Harrison died, I spoke to you, Mark and I spoke to James Graham, who wrote the play This House about that particular Parliament, and he said about how he went to visit Walter Harrison. And Walter still had correspondence from Jack Weatherall going back years, and they were still close to that day.

And I remember you telling me that you spoke to Jack Weatherill. He was [00:18:00] then a peer in the House of Lords and he said to pass on his best wishes to Walter, whom you were going to visit. I believe the Conservative whips are trying to bring down the Callahan government in any way they possibly could, and the two Whips office were going at it Hammer and tongs.

But at the center of, it was a deep respect between two of the ableist whips on either side. And I think for a piece of drama, there's a reason that This House was a tremendous success. And I think it's because of that central drama between these two characters who were fantastic whips and embodiment, I suppose, of, of everything that we think about whips.

Mark D'Arcy: And this extraordinary moment where Jack Weatherill felt he was honour bound not to take part in the vote that dislodged the Callaghan government by one vote. And Walter Harrison let him off the hook because he didn't want to destroy his sparring partner. It was just an absolutely bizarre moment in many ways, and one that they never let on for years afterwards.

Seb Whale: And, hugely consequential, you know, that affects in a sense the future of the country. That decision. So yeah. Remarkable.

For me, Maastricht. When I look at those [00:19:00] chapters now, I think they're possibly some of the strongest in the book for understanding how whipping works, because sometimes we say that, you know, something was heavily whipped. What does that mean? What does that actually mean in practice?

And I think that really goes into the detail of how the whips office and it's various tentacles of course, because you know, the whips know who your friends are because of all this intelligence gathering. They know who you listen to or they know who you might be threatened by. So if you are a potential rebel on Maastricht, the whips, they were getting in touch with your local Conservative Party association or with your friend in the House of Lords, or your friends in finance or whoever it was to put maximum pressure on you.

To do quote unquote, the right thing. And I feel that with Maastricht, you get a sense of how the whips office operates, which, when all the cogs are turning over, it can be a pretty overwhelming thing for those who are trying to hold the line and vote for what they think is right. And also I think it is an example of very successful whipping, but it's also interesting [00:20:00] because I think the aftermath of that vote is similar in the sense to the whipping on Iraq for Labour, lived on well beyond 92, 93, 94, to a certain extent that fed 20 years later into the untenable debates of the mid 2010s over Brexit.

Mark D'Arcy: And that's a very important point here, that it's not necessarily just the result of a particular vote on a particular day.

The methods used to get that vote, the level of coercion involved. I mean, sometimes you get a situation where people who've rebelled against their government go home that night and sleep the sweet sleep of the just, whereas those who've been coerced into voting perhaps against their beliefs, never really quite forgive the people who coerced them.

Seb Whale: Yes, I think that's part of the issue. I think it fostered a lot of resentment and even for those who didn't participate in Maastricht, they kind of saw what went on there. And the men of Maastricht, as some of the brexiters like to refer to them, they also, it's interesting to think about the later years in Brexit, where they actually learned from the men [00:21:00] of Maastricht, I should say men and women really, because there were plenty of,

Mark D'Arcy: And one of the oddities here was David Davis was one of the Tory whips, coercing people to vote for Maastricht. There's this moment in your book where you describe him saying, well, if you want to see the Prime Minister, it'll be a pretty short, sharp meeting, to ministers, implying basically they'd be to resign if they weren't gonna vote with the government. And yet years later, he's a prominent Brexiteer and it's one of the reasons why I suspect some of the other Brexiters never really quite trusted him because of the methods he'd used to get the Maastricht treaty through in the first place.

Seb Whale: Yeah, I think that's right. And the sort of a thinly veiled threat to Liam Fox about his future in the party as well, when he signed an early day motion encouraging UK to leave the exchange rate mechanism. So yes, there was bad blood on all sides and it really got worse throughout that Parliament.

So it just shows you, going back to the example when we're talking about Starmer's administration, when they were trying to get through disability reforms, yes, they might have been able to push it over the line, but what then? A lot of [00:22:00] poison in the veins. And that's the delicate balance with whipping is yes, okay, you can show your might and get and show your strength in the short term, but what consequence will come after. And of course, everyone's always wiser after the fact, but Maastricht is an excellent example of successful whipping but also highly consequential.

Ruth Fox: One of the factors we haven't talked about, Seb, is the influx of female MPs into the Commons, how that's changed whipping. So first of all, you get more female whips for a start. That changes the nature of the whips office, but also the kinds of methods we talked about of male MPs being persuaded by male whips, wouldn't work the same way with female MPs. So how does that come through in your book? When do you think the sort of changes start there?

Seb Whale: New Labour would be a big start. I mean, you could even go a year before that when the Tories, while they have surpassed Labour electing women Conservative party leaders, Labour had their [00:23:00] first female whip in 1964, Harriet Slater. And it took another over 32 years in 1996 with Jackie Lay joining to break the mold in that sense.

And, one of our colleagues said to me that, that did change the nature of whipping because as you say, the likes of David Lightbound, this notorious six foot, three, 20 odd stone, Tory whip wouldn't burst into the ladies' bathroom like you would the men's bathroom to haul out an MP. So that did start to change.

But obviously with 1997 you have now 101 female Labour MPs come in and you know, one back bench chair said to me that the House of Commons was transformed by one thing and it was women. And, you know, partly it was people of a more sort of modern disposition looking round at people wearing hats to make points of order and, you know, being drunk in the chamber and thinking, well what on earth is all this about?

So they were a big kind of force for change and as you say, with women coming into the whips office. Someone who served in the Labour whips under Tony Blair in his second term said that she was, you know, they'd often put women in the corridors to [00:24:00] try and sort of diffuse some of the tension that was often there.

And she had to sort of intervene as well when one of her colleagues, Bob Ainsworth and an MP were coming to blows in the whips office. So women helped to kind of diffuse the overly masculine element to the House of Commons and I guess move whipping from kind of intimidation towards more persuasion really.

I mean that's, you know, oversimplified because some people would say the like of Hillary Armstrong wasn't afraid of the dark arts, but I think women coming in, younger people coming in, people with aspirations for Westminster did change the nature of how Parliament works and you know, their expectations were different, and what went before wouldn't be stomached anymore.

Mark D'Arcy: And I suppose another point is that the arrival of women in the Whips office meant that there were more women getting on that first rung of government. Because very often service in the whips office is a precursor to ministerial office.

If you do well as a whip, you might well get promoted to a ministerial rank. And because women were not getting [00:25:00] into the whips office for decades, very, very few women ministers therefore followed.

Seb Whale: Yeah, and it's really interesting. I spoke to Edwina Currie about this, and she's quoted in the book saying that she actually made advances with regards to wanting to join the Whips office, as did Anne Widdecombe.

I know another female MP at the time who was told that she had the wrong chromosome, so it was an issue. And Edwina Currie, she made the point that they were obviously undercut because even the Prime Minister is quoted, I cite a newspaper article where the Chief whip and the Prime Minister see the Whips office as kind of a destination to future ministerial office.

And so if you haven't passed through the Whips office, you haven't got the grounding in parliamentary procedure and everything taken through bills that that beres you. But also you haven't built up the kind of camaraderie of the people who are backing you at reshuffles. So. Apparently the main obstacle, as it were, I mean, it's a bit unfair because I'm sure there were others in the eighties there were other people quoted as not wanting women to join the Whips office, but one of them was David Lightbown, [00:26:00] and it was after he left the whips office in 1995, and I think he died about six months after that.

But after that, because the Tories also used to choose who went in the Whips office. So each whip would have a black ball, if a name was put forward and it wasn't agreeable to them, they could have vetoed. And seemingly that held out women from joining the Whips office. And yeah, I think it's fair to say that they were impeded as a result.

Ruth Fox: Where do you think we are now with the Whips office then? Because we've had a number of parliaments with very big turnovers, not least this most recent one of the general election last year. We've got a parliament where a quarter or less have got any experience predating 2010. So that's not just the MPs, that's also the ministers and the whips themselves.

We've got people in the whips office who have barely any experience of parliament at all parachuted in there quite quickly in their careers. They haven't built up that knowledge of procedure. These are not political figures, like the ones you talk about in the book in the fifties and [00:27:00] sixties, who'd had a sort of a prior career and experience in the war that gave them a sense of gravitas and respect. So we're in very different territory. How do you think that's gonna play out in terms of the future of whipping?

Seb Whale: It's a really important point, and I think you need those whips of longevity. I mean, the Tories used to have this model of, you'd have perhaps, let's say a third to a half of the whips office who would remain indefinitely. They were lifers in the whips office. There were people who were, you know, quite, quite born to be there. Perhaps someone like your Patrick McLaughlins. I appreciate, he did go on to become a Secretary of State, but he did about 17 years, I think, in the whips office.

And then there'd be the young up and comers who you'd gradually introduce you to go, oh, they're a bit of talented. That's, you know, Nicki Morgan, or Anne Milton or whoever it might be. And you'd blood them in the whips office. But the Tories who had this model, which Labour, which is a theme throughout my book as well, were envious of. Indeed they kind of have a bit of a complex, I think about their whipping system compared to Tory's, at least historically speaking, that really went out the window. [00:28:00] And I think Tories have had 12 Chief whips since Patrick Mcgaughlin left in 2012. And over the same period Labour have had three, so Labour have had more stability there.

But one of the issues you had on the Tory front. When I spoke to some of the, the sort of, I guess the more grandees before the last election, they had an issue because they just didn't wanna be whipped by MPs who'd been there for six months. They felt that the whips office had lost its gravitas. So to get that back is difficult.

And I think that's why I say, you know, Mark Tami and Alan Campbell, both new Labour veterans who have this foothold, both in understanding how government works and how the government whips office works, and perhaps that kind of slightly intimidating nature for newcomers that the Chief Whip needs to have.

So it's difficult because the whips keep Parliament running, really. They are the grease of the parliamentary machine. And so if both offices are kind of stocked with newcomers who are still trying to figure it all out anyway, then it's a bit like having interns running your [00:29:00] news desk.

It's more prone to errors, however. But I do think, my impression is that the Labour whips have done a pretty solid job. So Alan Campbell's met with Hillary Armstrong and Ann Taylor. Ann Taylor being the first woman to serve as a chief whip under Tony Blair and then Hillary Armstrong who succeeded her.

And they discussed ways in which, you know, lessons to be drawn from the new Labour years, because obviously, you know, having a huge majority, you might think, oh, that's fine, you can get votes through. But actually, how on earth do you make 411 people, as they originally were, how do you make them all feel valued? How on earth can you offer a career path to 411 people? How can you make sure they're all okay? And they're adjusting to life in parliament? Yeah, it's a different whipping challenge. And in these contentious times, even though they have that huge majority, nothing's for certain.

Ruth Fox: Anyway, I should just say Seb, in the interest of transparency for our listeners, Ann Taylor is my boss because she's chair of the Hansard Society.

And she is across, listeners will be, who may be familiar [00:30:00] with this, will of course, know that she's also the female whip that stars in This House, the James Graham play, because she was in the whips office in the 1970s.

Mark D'Arcy: Can I talk about one of the other things, perhaps one of the ultimate challenges that a whips office face, and that's a leadership election.

Because heaven knows there were enough of them in the last period of Conservative government. And the Whips office traditionally is supposed to be neutral, but sometimes that neutrality is colored by some members of the whips office being on one side and some on another side. And there are all these tensions that erupt when there are rival candidates running for leadership.

Or when you've got a Prime Minister facing a challenge that could end their leadership.

Seb Whale: Yeah, it's a bit of a nightmare. Obviously the leaders have their own points of view and the chiefs have their own point of view. So Ted Heath in 1975 was dismayed when Humphrey Atkins said he was gonna remain neutral in the contest that followed.

And I think Heath kicked up such a fuss that Jack Weatherill in the end was kind of employed to sort of monitor the numbers, but they were outwardly neutral. And the reason for that Humphrey Atkins's position, which was the same as Tim Renton's position [00:31:00] and others, is that, well, if I show my cards now, then how can you come to me when you know where I'm at or what my views are?

How can I be seen to be a neutral point of kind of refuge or interest for you if I've already shown my cards.

Mark D'Arcy: You mentioned Tim Renton. He was the chief whip when Margaret Thatcher was in the dying phase of her premiership, and he was thought by some to be one of the arch plotters against her as Chief Whip.

Seb Whale: Yeah, I mean, you know, the fact that Tim Renton abstained in the first round of the leadership ballot in November, 1990, speaks volumes because you know, the prime minister and the chief will speak all the time. They're supposed to be very much in sync for that kind of relationship to work.

It's gotta be a frank relationship. It's gotta be a relationship on trust. And I suppose ultimately you would imagine there's gotta be a relationship in which one side backs the other ultimately. And he admitted in his memoir that he abstained in the vote. And then I spoke to people like George Young, who was the number three in the office at that time and he voted for Michael Hesseltine. [00:32:00] And the Whips office was seen as kind of the big quote unquote conspiracy against Margaret Thatcher that, you know, that brought about her fenestration. And again, that fostered a lot of animosity among conservative mps for, for, for years to come. But that was a, that was an interesting and fairly rare, at least in recent memory situation, where the chief Whip and the Prime Minister really were not on the same page.

Mark D'Arcy: Yeah. And of course, later on in the demise of Liz Truss, you have the chief whip at the time, Wendy Morton, resigning over the bungled handling of a vote on fracking, and that was the final straw that ended Liz Truss's premiership, which perhaps was on a downward slope already, but certainly that was the thing that seemed to crystallize the problem she had in her premiership.

Seb Whale: Yes. Extraordinary story what happened that day. Because I mean, I spoke to Craig Whittaker, who's the Deputy Chief Whip, and I spoke to Wendy, who's the Chief Whip, and they both said it was an exemplary whipping day. Now for those of us who know about Chris Bryant taking photos in the lobbies of all the commotion going on and how it ultimately [00:33:00] led to Liz Truss's demise, that might seem a bit rich, but their point was they knew what the numbers were.

Eight Tory mps, even though this was a confidence vote, as the whips office had issued, it was on a very clever Labour motion basically to try and reverse or oppose the government's stance on bringing back fracking. And the Tory whips office were like, well, we can't allow Labour to take control of the order paper.

This is an absolute confidence issue. Three line whip vote against. They were very confident that they had the numbers, but somehow, Number 10, which both Craig and Wendy said had been more and more interventionist in terms of what the whips were doing, I believe that, one senior member of her cabinet was ringing them up and complaining about the optics in the chamber.

So they, again, you've got friction between whips office and senior cabinet ministers and officials. And in number 10. And eventually somehow the message got back to number 10, I believe it might have come from Graham Brady, the then chair of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, who believed that up to 20 Tory MPs [00:34:00] could rebel and thus lose the whip, which would be not ideal.

So anyway, disaster ensued, and then Wendy basically threatened to resign, and Wendy and Craig Whitaker had agreed our report in the book that if one of us goes, both of us, so then they had this huge back and forth with Liz Truss in various different offices around Parliament in which they once more threatened to resign unless she issued a statement from number 10 saying that basically it was their fault, their cock up. Which I believe at one or two in the morning did ensue.

Mark D'Arcy: Their being Number 10's cock up.

Seb Whale: Exactly. So you can see the relationship between party leader and the whips office is very important. And when it is fractured or there is a perceived issue between the two sides, then I think you can feel that bleed out into parliament.

I mean, you know, you could go back to Brexit and Theresa May and Julian Smith. I think Julian Smith clearly he was her chief whip from 2017 to 2019 and he looked increasingly haggard trying desperately in vain to get, I remember it well, this [00:35:00] bill over the line, but he was also knew privately that there was no way this was going to happen without assurances over the backstop and without wishing to go into all that again.

I think number 10, often think, well you are the whips. I think that's what happened with Keir Starmer this summer. My impression is that number 10 was like, well, you are the whips. So you know, if there's a 110, 120 rebels, then you know, what are you gonna do about it? And think for the whips office, say like, well no, it doesn't quite work like that, this has to make sense and it has to be for the good of the party.

Mark D'Arcy: And I do wonder actually if some of the dynamics we've just been talking about could be playing out again. Amazing to relate that someone who's got such a massive Commons majority won so recently could be in trouble, but there is this feeling out there that Starmer is position is no longer totally secure.

And you're kind of now wondering what his whips might end up having to do.

Seb Whale: No, indeed. And you know, part their jobs will be to be across any threat to his leadership. And it is extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary that we are sat here when he's won 411 MPs last year's election, and normal times that would give you [00:36:00] at least two terms, right?

But these aren't normal times, and so the whips will have to be across those threats and that would partly be why they were like, well, we can't allow for 120 rebels on the disability reforms. Because you know, if you bring that about, what could that lead to that could bring down the government potentially?

So yeah, the whips have their work cut out at the moment, that's for sure.

Mark D'Arcy: Well, well said. Thanks very much indeed for talking to us. Your new book is going to be out by the time our listeners hear this podcast. It's called The Usual Channels. I nearly said The Usual Suspects, but there's a bit of that as well in it, the Usual Channels, and it's published by Buyback Publishing and it is a fascinating and indeed, occasionally rollicking read.

So thanks very much indeed for joining us on Parliament Matters.

Seb Whale: Well, I can't thank you enough.

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