Blair downgraded the Labour whips – and now he is paying the price

Iin the immediate aftermath of the 2001 general election victory Tony Blair made a series of important organisational mistakes, for which he is still paying the price. Probably the most disastrous was the eviction of the government whips’ office from its historic base in 12 Downing Street. Alastair Campbell, director of communications, moved in with his media-handling entourage instead. Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, spent the remainder of the summer scouring Whitehall for alternative accommodation. It was a humiliating state of affairs which immediately sent the message round Whitehall that the Chief Whip no longer counted.

The whips’ office had already been downgraded in other ways. Previous governments used the office as a training ground for rising stars. David Miliband, for example, would have been forced to serve two years’ hard labour with the whips rather than be plunged straight into a minister’s job. It would have done him good.