It is tempting to treat the whole circus animal affair in the Commons this week as just
a big joke, the Palace of Westminster turned into the Palace of Varieties. Certainly, the sight of MPs vigorously arguing about the fate of four circus geese had a certain black comedy to it. But
there might be at least one serious consequence of the vote, a reshuffle of the whips office.
In Tory circles, there is a lot of chatter about a damning assessment of the state of the whips’ office penned by former Tory MP Paul Goodman for the Conservative Intelligence website, an offshoot of ConservativeHome. In it, Goodman writes about the future of the current number three in the whips’ office, Michael Fabricant.
‘Complaints about Fabricant come from many quarters: above all, that he keeps MPs hanging about the Commons unnecessarily when the Government’s majority is secure.
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