Labour seem to be beefing up their crackdown on scandal-ridden candidates, as the party has launched a safeguarding hiring spree. The party is advertising for a safeguarding manager and safeguarding officer – with both roles coming with responsibility over safeguarding investigations. The new hires will have quite a job on their hands…

There are currently a handful of Labour MPs who have lost the whip, pending investigation, and some of these have dragged on for well over a year. This is without mentioning John Bercow, whose Labour fate has hung in the balance for over 18 months. Looks like they can use all the help they can get.
Co-conspirators up for the challenge can find the details here.

A whole year has passed since Labour suspended former Chief Whip Nick Brown without a public explanation. Since then, while Nick continues to collect his £86,584 salary, the party has kept schtum on the nature of the complaint brought him down. An internal investigation was launched, as always, and it’s been kicked into the long grass. Today Labour said they weren’t going to get into individual cases. A full year to investigate a ‘serious complaint’ with no further updates, and no further action.

Nick isn’t the only figure who’s had their file kicked into the long grass by Labour’s complaints department: in two days, it will have been eighteen months since the party began investigating John Bercow. In the time of that investigation, Neil Coyle regained the whip and Rupa Huq first lost it, then had it restored. It’s almost like the party doesn’t want a resolution…

Stories arising from updates to the MPs’ Register of Interests are like catching a bus: you wait for one and a couple come along at once. Scrolling through today’s updates there are some eyebrow-raising entries: for example, Chris Bryant has received £7,600 for the rights to make a television series based on his book. The book in question isn’t listed, though Guido would be surprised if it’s not The Glamour Boys, about a group of young, gay MPs who helped fight Hitler…

Former Labour chief whip Nick Brown has also registered his departure as a non-executive director of the Mariinksky Theatre Trust – an arts body with links to Russia – though this was less his decision and more a result of the trust closing down just shy of its 30-year birthday following the invasion of Ukraine.

Guido couldn’t help laughing at Neil Coyle’s registering of £3,000-worth of support from the Refugee, Asylum and Migration Policy Project (RAMP), in the form of a policy advisor for 2.5 days per week from January to February this year. According to RAMP’s website they are focused on “re-imagining a world-class migration system for a successful and integrated Britain”. They’re now donating services to an MP suspended by the Labour Party for allegedly making racially charged remarks about a journalist of Asian origin…

The jaw-dropper this month is undoubtedly Priti Patel, who totally puts to shame Geoffrey Cox’s high earnings. She’s just registered a whopping £100,000 donation from Anduyrand Capital Management, “a private fund management company in fundamental commodity strategies with a specialisation in the oil and energy complex.”

Drinks on Priti…

Now that William Wragg has accused the whips of “intimidation” and “blackmail“, Labour MPs such as Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy have immediately attacked the government for “playing politics” over these “serious allegations”, and demanded an investigation. “Serious allegations” in this case meaning ‘briefing the press’.

To pretend that any of this is a new form of whipping is disingenuous, and you needn’t look any further than Labour’s own history to understand that: Nick Brown – the former Chief Whip under Blair, Brown, Miliband, Corbyn and even Starmer – was notorious for his fierce discipline over Members. He had the most feared reputation out of almost anyone in the tearoom. Here’s a flavour of the headlines Nick Brown attracted over his tenure:

• Suggested banning MPs who rebelled from sitting on all-party parliamentary select committees
• Was described as a “ruthless political enforcer on behalf of Gordon Brown” who would be “hostile” to MPs who didn’t support the leadership
• Threatened to ban MPs from going on parliamentary trips
• “Named and shamed” 21 rebels who didn’t fall in line with John McDonnell’s opposition to “austerity measures“

It wasn’t just Brown, either…

In 2001, then-Labour MP Paul Marsden accused the whips – particularly Jim Dowd and Gerry Sutcliffe – of physically and verbally assaulting him like “thugs” for criticising Blair’s anti-terrorism bill. Then in 2016, Corbyn and Labour whips were also accused of “bullying tactics” by MP Conor McGinn, when McGinn alleged the then-Labour leader had “proposed using my family against me in an attempt to bully me into submission.” A claim which, obviously, Corbyn emphatically denied…

Either way, expecting the whips to entice potential rebels with a handshake and a smile – on either side of the aisle – is pure fantasy. Lobby hacks writing shocked and breathless reports about arm-twisting whips are frankly taking readers for fools.