How New Labour met its nemesis

Last summer, Charlie Whelan’s lawyers threatened to sue The Spectator for an article describing him as a bully. The article was entirely correct. So what was he so keen to cover up? Fraser Nelson and Ed Howker investigate

The Labour rebellettes fear the creeping takeover of the party by the Unite trade union via Charlie Whelan. He has been taken on by female officers in the union and formally charged with bullying. Certain Labour women see the Brown-Simpson-Whelan alliance as part of a menacing testosterone-sodden axis. And one that needs to be challenged.


Spectator Coffee House blog, 24 May 2009

Two months later, a letter arrived from Mr Whelan’s lawyers. Carter-Ruck, the Brownites’ law firm of choice, insisted that their client had not ‘engaged in any sexist or bullying behaviour’ and that our post had caused him ‘considerable distress and embarrassment’ for which he sought damages and an apology. It was, at first, baffling: Mr Whelan is perhaps the most notorious bully in Westminster. No court would convict. But due to the generous nature of England’s notorious libel system, it would cost him not a penny to sue. And, while it would cost us thousands to launch a defence, it would cost far less to meet his demands: apologise, and run no such articles again.

There is much that Mr Whelan does not want to be investigated. Who he is, and what he does, are questions he would prefer to remain unaddressed. As political officer at the Unite union, his position seems irrelevant — yet he has become, as one Labour peer puts it, one of ‘the most powerful people in the party’. Just how he has acquired such power, how he uses it and to what ends, is a story that The Spectator had been looking into at the time of his lawyer’s letter.