One parliamentarian who will be having a particularly grizzly summer is the Government Accommodation Whip in whose gift are the offices for members and their staff within the parliamentary estate.
Far from being a position of power and patronage, it is a miserable chore. I was once the Accommodation Whip, so I know from bitter experience.
There is insufficient office space on the parliamentary estate, and what there is, varies from the truly grand to the absolutely frightful, pokey, cramped and windowless. Some are close by, but others are a hike.
Furthermore, there is a financial incentive to cram as many staff into the estate as possible because there is no rent payable, whereas if you accommodate your staff in your constituency you will have to rent an office for them to work in.
The Accommodation Whip is constantly badgered by colleagues who believe that they deserve a better office than the one they’ve got. The simple fact is that you have no stock of empty rooms, and quite a few members are having to share rooms with one another.
The worst time for the Accommodation Whip is the aftermath of a large government reshuffle such as the one that Boris has just implemented.
When you become a minister you give up your Commons office, because you are the ‘cat that got the cream’ and you are going to get a grand office elsewhere in Whitehall in your new department of state. So, in the Commons you are allocated little more than a booth on the ministerial corridor (and some are a lot better than others).
The difficulty presented by a reshuffle is the mismatch in circumstances between those being promoted and those being sacked. The latter tend to be more senior, their pride has already taken a substantial knock, and they want to be comforted by getting a decent Commons office appropriate to their seniority. Alas, those being promoted into their places tend to be junior and consequently are vacating the least desirable accommodation in the Commons. Arranging this swap-over is a nightmare.
But I’m alright Jack!
It’s been six years since I was the Accommodation Whip, and I have a convenient and well-appointed office that was once occupied by the nineteenth century Irish Nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell. I understand that he had a reputation as a lothario, so who knows what might have gone on in that office.
Anyway I’m staying, and the only whip that can get me out of it are the voters of the New Forest.
Sir Desmond Swayne TD
