When the Whips lose authority, the end is nigh
Just up the road from Downing Street, there used to be a theatre in which farces were often performed. Formerly known as The Whitehall, it will shortly re-open, renamed as The Trafalgar. The management may have decided that the previous name would now cause confusion. If you want to see a good farce, why not just contemplate the heart of Britain’s government?
When the new Prime Minister takes over, there will be no task more urgent than restoring seriousness to Whitehall and Westminster while also protecting institutions from unnecessary changes. Although there have been abuses, the blame should fall on inadequate individuals, not on arrangements which had usually worked well over a long period.
That certainly applies to the Whips’ Office, which has recently been under fire. The UK’s Parliamentary system generally provides strong government. Its critics would claim that this is a form of elective dictatorship, and they have a point. But it is also clear that whether it be strength or dictatorship, it could not function without Parliamentary discipline. On most issues, the overwhelming majority of MPs who support the government must be willing to accept that they are playing in a team game and should usually do what the skipper tells them. Something similar applies to MPs in the principal opposition party. If they are not prepared to obey orders, their party will look like a rabble and the voters will not be impressed.
Discipline requires a mechanism, in the form of a Whips’ Office, whose job is to ensure that the government can pass its legislation by winning votes in the House of Commons. In the case of Opposition Whips, it is a case of giving the government as hard a time as possible. Those who have been appalled by reports of louche gatherings in No.10 can relax. “Whip” has nothing to do with Miss Whiplash. The term comes from hunting, and the Tory office combines the language of the hunting-field and the practices of the Adjutant’s office. This could include strong language. Wayward backbenchers would be forcefully reminded of the Anglo-Saxon origins of the English language.
In previous generations, this came naturally. Many Tory Whips had hunted the fox: many of them had also served as adjutants, or indeed COs. Equally, their flock would have understood all that. A lot of them would have been familiar with country sports, and in previous generations, would have fought in the War or at least done national service. They would have been trained by NCOs, a breed notorious for fluency in Anglo-Saxon. Moreover, most Tory MPs would have attended public schools, where corporal punishment was not reserved for errant hounds. They were brought up in a world in which hierarchy and discipline were taken for granted. The Whips could often rely on appeals to house spirit or to the need to back up the colonel.
This did not mean that there were no problems. Even in more ordered times, MPs did not regard themselves as mere subalterns, let alone as lower-form schoolboys. But it was easier for the Whips to come to a modus vivendi with the Knights of the Shires than with the increasing numbers of Tory MPs from a new breed, the esquires of the suburbs.
They approached the world differently. They were much less used to deference, but they were accustomed to debating ideas. In an earlier era, many Tory MPs would have been horrified to be described as intellectuals. Those who were often pretended not to be. But from the 1960s onwards, Tory intellectualism gradually came out of the closet, encouraged later on by Margaret Thatcher, the first Tory Leader to have used “intellectual” as a term of approval, though she herself was one by tastes rather than by temperament. Intellectuals often need to be persuaded; loyalty is not enough. Sometimes, the Whips’ Office would bring in an intellectual, to try to accustom him to the less refined aspects of Parliamentary politics: Nigel Lawson, Michael Fallon and David Willetts were good examples.
Lady Thatcher brings us to another problem in modern Whipping. Until a generation ago, Whipping was an exclusively male activity. Since then, it has been infiltrated by females, starting with Jacqui Lait, a tough Paisley lass who became the first Tory Government Whip in 1996. This has had one dramatic consequence. Though Lait was no snowflake, the men have had to clean up their language. There is much less Anglo-Saxon than there once was. The “C” word has been virtually banished: the “F” one is much rarer. But those robust terms were the small change of many a bollocking, which leads to another cultural evolution. The House is now full of women. From time to time, some of them no doubt require an expression of disapproval. How should that process be described?
But whatever the individual MP’s attitude, the Whips have always had another weapon at their disposal: patronage. A larger Commons office, money for some constituency beneficence, membership of a Parliamentary committee that involves travel to pleasant locations, knighthoods: the Whips can grant favours, or disfavours. This applies a fortiori to junior ministerial appointments, which are usually controlled by the Whips. As a punishment for disloyalty, the Whips can block access to the ladder of preferment. An ambitious member has to weigh all of this.
Yet there is a complication. If there is an effective prime minister who works well with the Chief Whip, dissidents might be looking at long years on the backbenches. A weak PM: why bother to hoard his promissory notes, when they will shortly be worthless?
That is the position in which Boris now finds himself.
The Whips’ Office is also under fire. Some people around the PM think that it has been ineffective. Others, such as William Wragg, seem to be arguing that any use of traditional Whipping powers is illegitimate. This is foolish and dangerous.
Whoever becomes Leader, the party will have to agree to be led. If the Tories do not hang together, they will hang separately. So this is no time to renounce customary methods of exerting authority. Loyalty was often described as The Tories’ secret weapon. But there was nothing secret about it. It will be needed in the future, as it was in the past – and as in times past, to mobilise that loyalty, an effective Whips’ Office will be essential.