Change of Hart

I recently finished reading Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip by Simon Hart.

I enjoy contemporaneous political diaries, although I've often wondered how ministers in particular find time to keep such detailed journals of their lives when they must be so busy and exhausted at the end of each day.

My favourite political diary is probably Gyles Brandreth’s Breaking The Code: Westminster Diaries 1992-97, partly because I'm familiar with most of the people and events he wrote about. But it's also beautifully written.

Likewise the diaries of Alan Clark (1972-1999), a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments, and a serial seducer of (other) women.

I also enjoyed A View From The Foothills: The Diaries of Chris Mullin (a Labour MP and former journalist), and there are several more I would add to that list.

The diaries of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon (1918-1938) are often cited as among the best of the genre, but I struggled with the first volume and eventually gave up.

Likewise the three-volume Diaries of a Cabinet Minister by Richard Crossman that cover the years 1964 to 1970 when the author was a minister in Harold Wilson's first Labour government.

Unless you're a historian, I do think it helps if you lived through the period in question and can therefore relate to the people and events the author writes about.

I was born in 1959 but wasn't politically aware until the 1970 election when Ted Heath upset the odds and defeated Wilson. Thereafter I took a keen interest.

Which brings me back to Ungovernable. Elected to Parliament in 2010, Simon Hart is the former chief executive of the Countryside Alliance who was appointed Chief Whip by Rishi Sunak, having been Secretary of State for Wales under Boris Johnson.

Ungovernable begins on election day, December 12, 2019, when the Conservatives won a landslide victory, thanks largely to Boris.

The author gives Boris credit for several things but eventually joined the pack of MPs who resigned from Johnson’s government in July 2022, forcing the PM out of office.

Having supported Sunak in the subsequent leadership race, he was overlooked by the winner, Liz Truss, before returning to government as Chief Whip under Sunak.

Wearing my Forest hat I was interested to know more about Sunak’s generational tobacco sales ban – how it came about, and what discussions took place behind the scenes – but the book reveals very little.

What it does confirm is that the idea for a generational ban in the UK came out of the blue because there is no mention of smoking or tobacco policy until September 1, 2023, a month before the Conservative Party conference in Manchester where Sunak would announce his vision for a smoke free Britain.

On September 12 Hart notes that ‘the latest three ideas, to scrap GCSEs, abandon HS2 north of Crewe and abolish smoking seem to be gathering pace’. Then, on September 28, he writes:

I get to see the early version of Rishi’s ‘big speech’. It’s a good, well-thought-out and intellectually compelling offering, but for some it will be seen to lack real political sex appeal. It deals with HS2, smoking and education thoughtfully. It’s hard to disagree, even if it is a speech that highlights three things we don’t like and fixes them rather than providing the ‘big vision’ some of our colleagues keep banging on about.

At party conference a few days later he reports that:

RS landed all three of his policy announcements with intelligence and clarity. Members were chuffed we had some real substance, and even the smoking ban landed okay, despite our fears it might provoke some audible groans from the libertarians.

There is no further mention of the generational ban, or smoking, until April 16, 2024, when Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill got its second reading in the House of Commons:

Today we vote on the PM’s smoking and vaping proposals. Our Party has become very pompous about ‘personal freedoms’ recently, so I recount in the whips meeting my dad’s attitude to seatbelts, which he resolutely refused to wear, as well as surprise our younger office colleagues by telling them that we always used to smoke in our offices, trains, planes and cinemas.

Pompous about ‘personal freedoms’? Read into that what you will, but I looked up Hart’s voting record on smoking and tobacco and I discovered that in 2012 he was one of 50 MPs, including 34 Conservatives, who wrote to health secretary Andrew Lansley expressing "serious concerns" about plain packaging.

According to the letter:

“There is no reliable evidence that plain packaging will have any public health benefit; no country in the world has yet to introduce it. However, such a measure could have extremely negative consequences elsewhere. The proposal will be a smuggler’s charter … This policy threatens more than 5,500 jobs directly employed by the UK tobacco sector, and over 65,000 valued jobs in the associated supply chain. … Given the continued difficult economic climate, businesses should not be subjected to further red tape and regulation”

Two years later Hart even voted against a ban on smoking in cars carrying children, telling his local paper:

“I will be voting against a ban. The reasons are quite simple really. Prohibition is rarely as effective as education. Of course smoking is bad for children – in cars, houses, or any other private place.

“Why do we not ban it altogether? Why do we not ban smoking whilst pregnant? Or for that matter any other activity that can potentially endanger minors? Because we try and strike a balance between protecting the public but stopping short of being bossy.

“There comes a time when we must resolve these issues by persuasion not the (often ineffective) tool of criminal sanction.”

Significantly, speaking in Parliament on April 3, 2014, he told health minister (and Conservative MP) Jane Ellison:

The Minister will be aware that it is already an offence to ... purchase tobacco under the age of 18. Would it be a good start to ensure that the current laws work before we start imposing new ones?

In other words, Simon Hart appeared to be ‘one of us’. What changed - other than being appointed Chief Whip by Rishi Sunak - to make him so dismissive of ‘personal freedoms’ whilst distancing himself from ‘libertarians’ in the party a decade later?

Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip by Simon Hart (Pan Macmillan)

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Politicians selling out their principles for a top job is nothing new. Hypocrisy is the defining word of the new age so I am not surprised that a once reasonable MP becomes a hand-wringing smokerphobic to win favour from his boss.

As for seatbelts, we often hear the anti smokers comparing the seatbelt law with the smoking ban - without ever mentioning that there are exemptions to the seatbelt law and there could, and should, be exemptions to the smoking ban.

I doubt the smoking ban announcement went down as well as Hart thought. Maybe in his echo chamber but the wider public clearly hated it - the betrayal by Sunak of not only the party's former leader but also the party's core principles - so much that they stopped voting Conservative and turned to Reform.

After all, look how the Tories are now in third place in the polls. The public did not want Labour but they didn't want to reward Sunak's Tories for letting them down and ultimately finding it hard to tell the difference between the two parties with identical policies.

A big political change is coming for sure while MP's like Hart who live in echo chambers keep telling themselves they are only one more smoking ban away from winning another election. It took Labour almost 20 years to win another general election after imposing the blanket smoking ban in 2007 and then the party only won by default precisely because of Sunak's folly.

Tories cannot expect to win again any time soon and Labour needs to hope that Reform doesn't get more professional as its' support grows from the disillusioned voters of both main parties or this will also be the last Labour Government for another generation.

People really are sick to the back teeth of being told what to do, how to live, and in what ways they are allowed to have fun. The whole nanny state tyranny surely cannot last much longer. Voters are showing they have had enough.

[Pat Nurse]

I had not seen the thread below when I wrote my previous comment but it is good to see that what I sense is happening is backed up by polls.

It's official. People are sick of the Nanny State and are voting Reform in the hope of getting the jackboot of Government out of their personal lives.

https://x.com/maxwell_marlow/status/1901247096247763054