Whips and scorpions
SOMEWHERE IN the Government Whips' office, behind the empty bottles and the back numbers of Men Only, there must be a copy of Within the Fringe. I recom- mend a search. James Stuart, who wrote it, was Churchill's chief whip and set the 50- year-old precedent cited on his successors' behalf, when they took away the whip from eight MN. To Stuart, this was the political death penalty: 'In practice, the MP is expelled from the party, though not, of course, from parliament.' Constituency associations then have a free hand to select a candidate who will support the party, but at the risk of splitting the vote. 'Therefore the withdrawal of the whip is not a method of discipline to which chief whips and the leader of the party will resort without much care and thought.' He did it once. 'I had been subjected to grave provocation, and seeing the member in question go the wrong way at division time, I immediately rang up Mr Churchill and asked if he would agree to my withdrawing the whip. He didn't go in for half-measures; after no more than a minute's talk and thought he said, "Yes, take it away and tell the press at once, before he gets at them." With anoth- er candidate we held the seat at the elec- tion.' Even Churchill and Stuart would have thought twice about staging mass execu- tions of wayward supporters, eight at a time. Today's Government has a short col- lective memory, though. It can barely remember not being the Government.
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