Latest news with #Ungovernable:ThePoliticalDiariesofaChiefWhip
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.
BBC News
07-03-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Simon Hart: Drakeford dented trust in UK government during Covid
Mark Drakeford "dented people's confidence" in the UK government during the pandemic, the Welsh secretary at the time has Hart said it was "exactly what you don't want" in a national crisis, telling the BBC Walescast podcast of his "frustration" with the then Labour first "was selecting all the things that worked and claiming them as Welsh government, and then being very public about the things that didn't work, and saying that they were UK government", said the ex-Conservative Welsh government said: "All decisions by Welsh ministers related to Covid-19 were based on evidence and always made in the best interests of Wales." The former Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP has published diaries on his time in the UK cabinet, first as secretary of state for Wales under Boris Johnson and then as Rishi Sunak's chief whip, enforcing party "Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip" Hart makes clear his frustration at the relationship between the two governments, particularly during the Covid -19 also comments on Mr Drakeford's appearance at a Remembrance Day event, calling him a "scruffy old university lecturer with dirty shoes".Hart told Walescast Drakeford was a "very nice man", but "he'd never made any secret" of the fact he was no "massive fan" of said he felt Drakeford helped to create a "false" impression that "nice Mr Drakeford - and he is a very nice man - had all the solutions, and nasty Mr Johnson caused all of the problems"."I thought that was a very lazy politicisation of a very serious situation and I thought Mark Drakeford was party to that," said Hart."It wasn't necessarily about political advantage."The consequence, said Hart, was messaging to the public that was not as clear as it might have been to "minimise the risk of the pandemic causing even more mayhem". Hart said he wrote the book to ask the question "what went wrong?" between December 2019 and July 2024, when the Conservatives went from an 80-seat majority to a general election "drubbing".In a separate interview with BBC Politics Wales, to be broadcast on Sunday, he said "we have to ask ourselves the question, how on earth did this happen?""That is a spectacular fall from grace and, unless we're prepared to look in the mirror and say 'ok let's be serious about what we did well and what we did badly', we will continue to make those mistakes.""I don't think it makes particularly comfortable reading at times", he told "went from comedy to tragedy very quickly, as I went from being patient and well-meaning to irritable and disillusioned at times, if I was honest", he stopped short of saying the Conservative Party was "ungovernable", characterising his account as more of a "description of politics more generally"."Keir Starmer suddenly found he was hitting exactly the same headwinds as we'd hit fairly early on in his tenure," said Hart."Big majority, new government, all of that - yet it was still difficult." 'Bumps in the road' On his time as chief whip, Hart's book contains anonymised and shocking stories of MPs in various compromising positions - including accounts of sexual harassment and visits to brothels."The examples I've put in the book probably occur in other industries too, it's not unique to politics," he said."Perhaps the scrutiny around politics is a little bit more intense."To Politics Wales he said he does not think candidates, MPs and ministers are given "the proper amount of support, training, mentoring, guidance that would be absolutely standard practice in a normal workplace"."They were actually very good people who just hit a lot of bumps in the road. "Had we done enough to help them avoid those kind of catastrophes? "Not always, I don't think we did it that well."The Walescast interview is available on BBC Sounds and the BBC Politics Wales interview will be broadcast on Sunday 9 March 10:00 GMT on BBC One Wales and can then be seen on BBC iPlayer
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."
