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Telegraph
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Parliament holds a whip-round for man who kept democracy afloat
The role of chief whip on the Westminster stage is normally a non-speaking one. Unheard by the public, at any rate. Their job is to lurk in the shadows, nudging and cajoling, whispering and promising, applying thumbscrews if necessary and doing whatever they can to get the Government through another difficult day. Some have liked to 'put some stick about', as Francis Urquhart called it in House of Cards, but modern party management is a bit less harsh. As Sir Gavin Williamson, Theresa May's first chief, once said: 'It's amazing what can be achieved with a sharpened carrot.' It is rare for one chief whip to speak about his job. To hear six is extraordinary. What would be the collective noun? A flagellation? It takes something special for them to open up, and that something was the death of a man who made their lives much easier (or, in the case of Simon Hart, a publisher's advance). Formally, Sir Roy Stone, who has died in his early 60s, was called principal private secretary to the chief whip, a civil service role he held for 21 years under five prime ministers and 13 chiefs, five Labour, eight Tory. In Westminster, they knew him by a euphemism. Yesterday, they said goodbye to The Usual Channels. As ducks float serenely across a lake while paddling like mad underwater, so Stone was the opposite: his job was to make democracy run smoothly no matter how chaotic it looked on the surface. It was appropriate that tributes to The Usual Channels followed Foreign Office questions, for it is important to realise that amid such rancour and unrest, with questions on Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Trump, politicians can put aside their differences to say 'well done, good and faithful servant'. Sir Alan Campbell, the current Chief, rose first to praise Stone's integrity in 'tumultuous times'. Sir Julian Smith, May's second chief, reminded MPs that The Usual Channels was how legislation, debates, statements and, most importantly, recess dates were arranged. Stone was 'fair to all sides', he said, but often frustrated by politicians' ineptitude. Williamson said that Stone told him he 'worked for me 51 per cent of the time and for the Opposition 49 per cent'. The former chief asked if he should study the manual of parliamentary procedure (that Williamson thrice referred to it as 'Erskine and May' suggests he didn't make it past the cover) and was told that 'only strange people and clerks' do that. After the 2017 election, when May didn't get the landslide she expected, Stone told Williamson 'you clucking screwed that up' (he may have misheard), and then calmly got on with working out how the Government could function. Up to a point. The smaller parties valued him too. Wendy Chamberlain, a Lib Dem, had a lump in her throat as she expressed gratitude for the respect he gave her as chief whip for a party of 11. Further praise came from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It fell to Alistair Carmichael, however, to speak of Stone's finest balancing act, when he served two masters in the coalition years. There was only one occasion when Stone's mask slipped, Carmichael said, and that was early in the power-sharing era when he had been called on as Lib Dem chief to look after an MP's baby in the whips' office and Stone walked in mid-nappy change. To the unflappable Usual Channels, a chief wiping a baby's backside was a modernisation too far. 'One glimpse at his face,' Carmichael said, 'told me that this realised his worst fears about having Liberal Democrats in government'. Perhaps, however, Stone was simply thinking of the line that is often attributed, wrongly, to Mark Twain: 'Politicians and nappies should be changed regularly and for the same reason.'
The Herald Scotland
29-04-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Portfolio of 11 Scottish forests on market for under £1m
Woodland specialists John Clegg & Co said the commercial forestry market in Great Britain appears to be stabilising, with high-quality plantations maintaining strong values and "cautious optimism" within the sector. Craiglug Wood is part of the portfolio. (Image: John Clegg & Co) Craiglug Wood is part of the Aberdeenshire portfolio on the market at offers over £955,000, and is 88.86 acres. The firm's annual Forest Market Review shows that while there was a further softening of average values in 2024 there is a much more nuanced picture behind the headline figures. "We continue to see strong prices paid for well-located, quality plantations - typically second-rotation spruce in southern Scotland," said Simon Hart, head of forestry in Scotland. "Lower-yielding crops are inevitably worth less, so this alone accounts for the apparent drop in average values when looking year-on-year." READ MORE: In 2024, 29 forests were sold in Great Britain during 2024, which is more than in 2023 when 20 were sold but below the five-year average of 44. The total market value was a little under £94m, over double the amount in 2023, but below the five-year average of £151m. Sales prices averaged 107% of guide prices, a slight rise on 2023 levels but below historic trends, pointing to a steady but selective market. The majority of forestry sold was in Scotland. In terms of the market outlook, Mr Hart said there are new funds being drawn into UK forestry.
BBC News
16-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Simon Hart: Peerage for ex-MP criticised over tell-all book
Questions have been raised about why a former Welsh secretary was given a peerage despite writing a tell-all book about his time as the Conservative government's chief Hart, ex-MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, was named alongside other former cabinet ministers in former prime minister Rishi Sunak's resignation honours book was described by its publisher as a "revealing" behind closed doors account of Westminster politics, but former senior Conservatives have criticised Hart for allegedly undermining the trust of other politicians by publishing private Hart has been approached for comment. One Tory MP said he wrote to a body responsible for vetting nominations to the House of Lords in an attempt to stop Hart from becoming a peer. "Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip" recounts salacious anecdotes of anonymous MPs, including when one was said to have contacted the chief whip for help after finding himself "stuck in a brothel" after running out of BBC understands the book was signed off by the cabinet secretary – the UK's most senior civil servant - as having complied with the "Radcliffe Rules" around handling sensitive government information former defence minister Alec Shellbrooke told the BBC it was "appalling" that Mr Hart had "destroyed the sanctity of the whips office" by publishing "very private information" in a said: "If [MPs] don't feel they can trust the whips the system will break down in Parliament."I mean the pressure some people are under and they do these stupid things under pressure, if they don't feel they can talk to anybody there can be serious consequences… not suicide per se, but, drinking themselves to death," the Wetherby and Easingwold MP said, adding: "That has happened in the past."Shellbrooke said that he had written to the House of Lords Appointment Commission (HOLAC) before the peerage was confirmed to ask that it be blocked on the basis that Simon Hart had breached the Nolan Principles – standards which should be upheld in public to HOLAC, he said: "Ultimately, the book has its amusing parts, but so would stories from a GP."If they wrote up stories, the trust would be gone, beyond just that doctor."He has broken a bond of trust and undermined the whole system of what is effectively the only HR department." 'Frankly horrified' HOLAC told the BBC it did not comment on individuals and the suitability of those being considered for a peerage is a matter for the nominating senior Tory who stood down at the last election said he agreed that Simon Hart had undermined trust in the whip's former MP said: "The point of the whips office is a place you go to with a pastoral problem."Many MPs will have gone to discuss personal problems and will be appalled that they are now translated into a said he had recently spoken to current MPs who had expressed such concerns, including a colleague who was "frankly horrified"."You'd expect a chief whip to get a peerage but it does seem very, very odd he should get it after writing the book," the source added.A former minister, who is still a Tory MP, told the BBC she was "deeply saddened" by Hart's decision to publish his diaries, saying she too had an "issue" with him getting a Tory immigration minister Kevin Foster said that Sunak's resignation honours list had been a "reward for failure" more broadly – branding it a "list of Sunak's mates".Simon Hart's publisher, Pan Macmillan, declined to Sunak has also been approached for comment.
New European
22-03-2025
- Politics
- New European
This is how the Tory government ended
For four-and a half years of the last Tory government, Simon Hart sat in cabinet, and was later the government's chief whip – he has now published an account of that time, in diary form. On the surface, his book, Ungovernable , is a witty and engaging chronicle of what a rolling political permacrisis looks like from the inside. But it is more than that. As the anecdotes of extreme political dysfunction pile up, what emerges from this book is a cautionary lesson about the corrupting effect that lengthy periods in office can have on governments. Hart presents us with a Tory Party that was morally and politically bankrupted by its decade in office. The people who were meant to be running the government – and the country – had clean run out of ideas. They had grown complacent, and in the end, existed only to serve themselves. After 14 years of rule, during which disasters such as austerity, Brexit, Covid and Donald Trump all happened, the rot set in. Perhaps most alarming of all is the thought that, once that has happened, there is nothing anyone can do about it – until the general election comes round, of course. So, depressing, certainly – but also hilarious, in a sort of 'if you don't laugh you'll cry' kind of way. In one entry from early on in his time as Rishi Sunak's chief whip, Hart receives a call at 2.45am from a colleague who was 'clearly pissed but just about coherent'. The MP in question then announced: 'I'm stuck in a brothel in Bayswater and I've run out of money'. Worse, the trapped MP is convinced that the woman who brought him there and who has left him 'in a room with 12 naked women and CCTV' secretly works for the KGB. What makes Hart's book all the more startling is that it also contains reminders of how far the Conservative government fell. When the story begins in 2019, the Tories are in a position of total dominance, having just won a crushing landslide against Jeremy Corbyn. Hart is appointed secretary of state for Wales in the course of a brief chat with a 'fired up' Boris Johnson, and on entering government he encounters a world of stress, tribalism and strange anachronistic codes. There are endless morning meetings, afternoons in cabinet where the 'usual suspects' drone on, all topped off with long evenings of drinking. Then Covid appears, first as a small speck in the distance, then as a meteor heading straight for the head of government. In February 2020 Hart describes the virus as 'probably still hysteria'. Only a fortnight later, he notes, 'even the PM has cut back on jokes'. As the full magnitude of what is happening begins to dawn on the government, things quickly take a much darker turn. The virus ebbs and flows, there are false dawns, they grow hopeful, only for the numbers to spike again. The government becomes locked in a relentless struggle to save lives and keep the NHS from running out of capacity. The 'usual Brexit suspects' turn on the medical experts, Hart says, 'whom they have concluded are closet lefties'. Among it all, there are also moments of jaw-dropping absurdity – at one point the cabinet discusses the possibility of building 'inflatable mortuaries on your local football pitch'. And on top of it all is the entirely self-made rolling crisis of Brexit, sucking up endless amounts of time and energy. Increasingly drained by the demands of what they begin to realise is an insoluble situation, the government limps on with an outlook that Hart describes as 'another weekend, another crisis', characterised by embarrassing policy U-turns, forced by-elections and sleaze. A vaccine is eventually rolled out and the government manages to get a handle on the pandemic. Brexit deals are finally signed off – and yet Hart concludes that the problems 'will inevitably rise to the surface'. And a mere 24 hours after the country emerges from 'the wreckage of the pandemic', Vladimir Putin launches an invasion of Ukraine. As war builds in Europe, the din of Partygate grows into a cacophony. In December 2021, Hart writes the doom-laden words: 'Some helpful soul is alleging that there was a party in No 10 during… lockdown.' Soon afterwards, ministers begin resigning en masse and Boris Johnson's government begins to fall apart. Hart's take on Johnson and his superficially slick operation is that it was all comically amateur. Cabinet meetings under Johnson, he writes, are nothing but 'a quickfire 55 minutes in which there was no meaningful discussion'. At one point the prime minister criticises a policy decision made by Alister Jack, because it 'resulted in Carrie giving me grief all weekend'. The cabinet eventually becomes so leaky that vital government decisions and information are withheld from them. At this point, the processes of government have ceased to function. As Hart concludes, 'We are, at times, simply very bad at politics.' His picture of Johnson is of a man who brims with optimism and self-belief when in public, but in person is prone to be cold and distant. 'I never feel close to him and wonder if anyone ever does,' Hart writes. But the overall picture here is of an absent-minded joker. Johnson signs off on big decisions without knowing what they are. He is never briefed or prepared. He is clearly unfit for office. When Johnson finally leaves, there follows a stifling summer leadership contest, after which the Tory Party's members – Hart describes them as 'insane and totally ignorant' – deliver Liz Truss as their new leader. If the Johnson period was The Thick of It , the Truss era was pure Fawlty Towers . Truss cuts a completely bizarre figure. One of her special advisers (SpADs) tells Hart that she 'will only drink coffee from Pret' and absolutely cannot eat anything with mayonnaise in it. But prime minister Truss will be remembered for only one thing – the notorious and catastrophic 'fiscal event' delivered by her chancellor and co-ideologue Kwasi Kwarteng that introduced massive tax cuts funded by government borrowing. This stew of hardcore libertarian economic ideas tanked the stock market, the bond mrket and the mortgage market, and sent shudders through the pensions industry – all at the same time . After 44 days Truss is swept into the refuse bin of history, and replaced by Sunak, who is, according to Ungovernable , the first adult in the room since 2019. He is competent, efficient, and immediately sets about rationalising the chaotic government apparatus. He makes life in Downing Street 'a much more serious, organised and less comedic affair.' Sunak calls Hart and asks him 'simply and slightly awkwardly' to be his chief whip. Hart takes the job, which he describes as 'the field hospital into which damaged colleagues are delivered, patched up, and returned to frontline duties'. The chief whip's primary task, Hart reminds us, is to make sure the motley crew of Tory MPs vote together to pass government business. And the crew is very motley. Ungovernable offers countless insights into the whole coterie of the final Tory government. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a painful Victorian caricature with an aversion to modernity. We hear of him demanding 'a bath not a shower wherever he stays'. Nadine Dorries, we hear, 'is, of course, crazy'. Kemi Badenoch exists 'in a permanent state of outrage'. Suella Braverman gets a particularly bad rendering. She is depicted as a tic in the skin of a government that is afraid to dislodge her. 'Suella has screwed up again' is a common refrain. But she is not only incompetent. Hart sees a chilling, sadistic streak in her: 'She really does give the impression of disliking asylum seekers,' and is 'gleeful' about the more cruel aspects of small-boat legislation. But as well as the parliamentary day job, Hart also has other kinds of problem, for example the departmental SpAd who goes to an orgy and ends up 'taking a crap on another person's head'. In another sensitive case, Hart recalls the time when 'a House employee went to a party dressed as Jimmy Savile'. Somewhere, somehow, as the Conservative Party descends into the mire, Sunak manages to force some of his agenda into existence. But the PM is fundamentally a weak political operative, deeply uninspiring and fatally held back by the mistakes of the past. In the end, the party goes down with a whimper and is thrown out of office by Keir Starmer. Throughout this book it's hard to escape the sense that Hart is trying to absolve himself of responsibility for the mess his government created. The book opens with a quote that reads, 'Proximity to power deludes some into thinking they wield it', a line that suggests that Hart himself never really wielded power. There are moments of lucidity, such as in the early stages of his cabinet career when he writes, 'I do wonder… how entitled I am becoming.' But Hart cannot escape the fact that he did hold power – and he was part of the problem, a fact that can be seen clearly in his inability to accept responsibility for any of what happened. Ultimately this is a story of how a party that governed for too long sank into the mire. Although we may laugh at some of its scenes, in the end, it's not really funny at all. Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip is published by Pan Macmillan. Cormac Kehoe is a freelance investigative reporter
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Covid rules should have been same across UK
Rules to try to limit the spread of Covid during the pandemic should have been the same across the UK, a former cabinet minister has said. Simon Hart has claimed "politics in the decision-making" led to different restrictions on things like wearing face masks in Wales and England after being agreed by their respective governments. "I just didn't feel that decisions were being made purely on the basis of disease control and risk management," said the former Welsh secretary and MP. The Welsh government has been asked to comment. Lockdown saved my life, says woman with OCD Man dubbed 'the Welsh Captain Tom' dies aged 95 New hospital mask-wearing rules over flu concerns "I do think the UK wide consistency would have been much, much simpler from the point of view of trying to impart a very clear but important message to residents of the UK," he said. Hart was the secretary of state for Wales from December 2019 to July 2022 and a Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from 2010 to 2024. He also served as parliamentary secretary to the Treasury [chief whip] between October 2022 and July 2024 and has just published his book, Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip. Hart told BBC Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement it included a "rather depressing reminder of some of the difficulties that we all encountered" during the pandemic and "if we ever have to do that kind of thing again, is there a better way of doing it?" He said it was "made much more complicated by the fact that there were different rules in different places". Restrictions were drawn up by a Conservative government at Westminster and in Wales the rules were set by a Labour government in the Senedd. Restrictions were imposed for more than two years after lockdown began in March 2020. By January 2022, a lecturer in psychology said people were suffering "fatigue" and "uncertainty" over the varying Covid rules. At that point, nightclubs were closed in Wales, with limits on hospitality, sports events and who people could meet, but in England restrictions were much less severe. Mr Hart recalled train announcements being read out while he and other rail passengers were travelling through the Severn Tunnel to highlight a change in rules on wearing masks either side of the Wales-England border. "More and more, as we went through the pandemic, I came to the conclusion that there was a lot of politics in the decision-making," he said. "I just didn't feel that decisions were being made purely on the basis of disease control and risk management. "Some of the speeches and comments that were being made by ministers in Cardiff were deliberately designed to drive a wedge between the two governments. "And to cast just a degree of doubt into the minds of residents of Wales that the decisions being taken by UK government might have been at fault."
