Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-pn7tm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-16T04:00:42.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Horses for Courses: The Recruitment of Whips in the British House of Commons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Donald Searing  and
Chris Game
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Whips have always aroused curiosity. Their peculiar title, which suggests coercion and social control, derives from ‘Whipper-in’, a man who keeps headstrong hounds running with the pack. The packs, that is to say the parliamentary parties, are heterogeneous associations of independent and egocentric individuals, not at all the sort to shy away from dissent and rebellion. Between 1966 and 1970 the Labour Government faced backbench opposition on almost every major policy; the 1970–74 Conservative Government was actually defeated five times by its own supporters. Still, although it may well be true that ‘the golden age of ultra-disciplined parties is past’, when the time comes to march, and regardless of the issues involved, most Members seem ready to follow a lead: remarkably few bolt upon reaching the division lobbies. Even the recent ‘undisciplined’ record must appear to administrators everywhere as very successful social control indeed.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1977 , pp. 361 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 King, Anthony, ‘The Chief Whip's Clothes’, in Leonard, Dick and Herman, Valentine, eds., The Backbencher and Parliament (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 86.Google Scholar

2 Jackson, Robert J., Rebels and Whips (London: Macmillan, 1968)Google Scholar; Richards, Peter G., The Backbenchers (London: Faber, 1972).Google Scholar

3 Weber, Max, ‘Bureaucracy’, in Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 196–244.Google Scholar

4 Oleszek, Walter, ‘Party Whips in the United States Senate’, Journal of Politics, XXXIII (1971), 955–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Blau, Peter M., The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 223–4.Google Scholar

6 Unlike the other names mentioned in this article, ‘Ted Carpenter’ is a pseudonym.

7 For example, Berkeley, Humphry, Crossing the Floor (London: Allen and Unwin, 1972), p. 142Google Scholar; and Hamilton, William in King, Anthony and Sloman, Anne, eds., Westminster and Beyond (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 109.Google Scholar

8 King, and Sloman, , eds., Westminster and Beyond, p. 112.Google Scholar

9 See Richards, , The Backbenchers, p. 55.Google Scholar

10 Searing, Donald, ‘Measuring Politicians' Values: Development and Administration of a Rank Order Technique in the British House of Commons,’ American Political Science Review (forthcoming).Google Scholar

11 Another prominent feature of the Labour Office in recent years has been the high proportion of Roman Catholic nominations. Nearly one in three of the new recruits appointed under Robert Mellish as Chief Whip (1969–76) was, like Mellish himself, a Catholic. Yet, by contrast with the preference for trade unionists, this Roman Catholic presence reflects idiosyncratic predilections of a particular Chief Whip rather than a recruitment criterion of more general significance.

12 Willson, F. M. G., ‘Some Career Patterns in British Politics: Whips in the House of Commons, 1906–1966’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXIV (1970–1971), 33–42.Google Scholar

13 Willson, , ‘Some Career Patterns’, p. 35.Google Scholar

14 Willson, , ‘Some Career Patterns’, pp. 35–6.Google Scholar

15 Just how clearly defined that ladder is can be illustrated by reference to this Conservative MP's orthodox career progression: 1964 elected to Parliament; 1966 secretary to a backbench party committee; 1970 Parliamentary Private Secretary; 1971 Assistant Whip; 1973 Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (Senior Government Whip); 1974 Opposition frontbench spokesman.

16 In 1969, for instance, James Hamilton and Raymond Dobson were appointed as Assistant Labour Whips soon after they had voted against their Government's White Paper In Place of Strife – partly, no doubt, to improve relations with alienated trade-union Members. For a Conservative illustration of this time-honoured strategy (in 1883), see Chilston, Viscount, Chief Whip: The Political Life and Times of Aretas Akers-Douglas 1st Viscount Chilston (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), p. 27.Google Scholar

17 Willson, , ‘Some Career Patterns’, p. 36.Google Scholar

18 Blau, , The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, pp. 207–13Google Scholar; Blau, Peter M. and Scott, W. Richard, Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (San Francisco: Chandler, 1962), p. 153.Google Scholar

19 Blau, , The Dynamics of Bureaucracy, pp. 222–3.Google Scholar

20 Richards, , The Backbenchers, p. 55.Google Scholar

21 As Deputy Chief Whip defending a marginal constituency in the early 1950s, Edward Heath was particularly conscious of this and deliberately sought out Lobby Correspondents in order to emphasize what he had been able to achieve for his constituents. Roth, Andrew, Heath and the Heathmen (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), p. 92.Google Scholar

22 For example, Conservative Whip Hugh Rossi, a housing specialist, was initially assigned to the Housing and Construction Committee of which he had previously been secretary. Often, however, this is not possible. His colleague, Michael Jopling, an agriculture specialist, found himself assigned to the Education and Transport Industries Committees, Agriculture having already been taken.

23 Compare Oleszek, , ‘Party Whips in the United States Senate’, p. 969.Google Scholar

24 King, and Sloman, , eds., Westminster and Beyond, p. 112Google Scholar. ‘Whips feel brushed by the winds of history’, as one Chief Whip described it to Jackson, . Rebels and Whips, p. 38.Google Scholar

25 King, and Sloman, , eds., Westminster and Beyond, p. 102.Google Scholar

26 Blau, and Scott, , Formal Organizations, p. 159.Google Scholar

27 See Hutchinson, George, Edward Heath: A Personal and Political Biography (London: Longman, 1970), p. 76.Google Scholar

28 See, for example, Wilson, Harold, The Labour Government 1964–1970 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1971), p. 246.Google Scholar

29 At the time of our interviews, they would also have noted that, in addition to the Prime Minister, former Whips Anthony Barber, William Whitelaw, Gordon Campbell and Joseph Godber were holding leading Cabinet posts.

30 What they do is look around the House and listen to others who are knowledgeable in such matters, insiders like Lord Swinton, who apparently advised the young Edward Heath to ‘Take the chance to get into the machine, at however squalid a level.’ Roth, , Heath and the Heathmen, p. 80.Google Scholar

31 Oleszek, , ‘Party Whips in the United States Senate’, p. 967.Google Scholar

32 Humphry Berkeley recalls the then Government Chief Whip Martin Redmayne observing to him soon after he entered the House, ‘I'm not called the Patronage Secretary for nothing.’ Crossing the Floor, p. 141.Google Scholar

33 Jackson, , Rebels and Whips, p. 37.Google Scholar

34 Wigg, Lord, George Wigg (London: Michael Joseph, 1972), p. 165.Google Scholar

35 King, , ‘The Chief Whip's Clothes’.Google Scholar