Westminster's Fiercest Whip

And I can tell you this, you utterly contemptible little shit. On every morning that you wake up for the rest of your life you will be ashamed of what you did last night.

– Chief Government Whip David Margesson in a letter to John Profumo, M.P.* following the Norway Debate, May 1940. Mr. Profumo had the temerity to vote down the government after the military botch at Norway.

If you ever wonder how Neville Chamberlain kept his coalition government going for so long after the spectacular and humiliating failure of Munich, which became devastatingly apparent as early as March 1939, yet the government survived more than a year thereafter, suffering defeat after defeat as the Nazis shook hands with the Soviets and blitzkrieged across Europe, a good deal of credit must go to the Government's Chief Whip, one Henry David Reginald Margesson. David Margesson (1890–1965), a stern disciplinarian, was without a doubt one of the harshest and most effective whips in British Parliamentary history.

Margesson's mission was to stand in the way of Churchill and his small but vociferous band of anti-appeasers. His position was in many ways unprecedented, having the task of keeping in power a grouping composed of the Conservatives, National Labour and two groups of Liberals - the official Liberal Party and the Liberal National Party all behind a single government that sought to stand above partisan politics. With the government as a whole commanding the support of 556 MPs, as opposed to just 58 opposition members, his main task was to ensure that the government stayed together and was able to pass contentious legislation without risking a major breach within the government. In several areas this proved tricky as different sections of the National combination came to denounce areas of government policy, nevertheless Margesson adopted a method of strong disciplinarianism, combined with selective use of patronage and the social effect of ostracism to secure every vote possible.

But things finally came to a head with the debacle of Norway and Leo Amery's morale busting thunderclap to the Commons, pleading for the government to "In the name of God, go!". Even so, Chamberlain still managed to squeak out a win thanks to the hard hitting Margesson, though poor John Profumo (1915-2006) found himself singled out by the man 25 years his senior. Remember, this was no sudden outburst but a deliberately contrived letter, so once more with energy:

And I can tell you this, you utterly contemptible little shit. On every morning that you wake up for the rest of your life you will be ashamed of what you did last night.

Gulp.

Far from being ashamed *, the young MP no doubt considered this to be his finest hour. Although Chamberlain won the vote, days later he would resign given the growing divisiveness his leadership was proving across the country. When Churchill entered 10 Downing he magnanimously kept Margesson in Cabinet, even though he was perhaps the greatest obstacle to the anti-appeasers. Despite his methods of whipping members into line, Margesson remained a much liked individual, with many members expressing personal admiration for him. Away from his duties he was known to be quite sociable and within the parliamentary party few bore him ill. But as whip he was not to be crossed.

* Until he died in 2006, John Profumo, C.B.E. was the last surviving member of that historic 1940 Commons. In the 1960s he was involved in a prostitution scandal, but fully redeemed his character with a life of charity in the forty years that followed.