Thread by @cgwOMT

The Chief Whip, in the middle of the most important vote the PM has faced in her premiership, has allowed a TV crew in to film the inner workings of the whips office. This is a monumentally bad idea 1/

https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1070725027589484546

Firstly, it's a distraction. I was involved in the filming of the Michael Cockerell documentary Inside the Commons in 2014/15. It took ages - film crews asking for reshoots, the team ensuring nothing sensitive is said on camera that could be misconstrued. 2/

Secondly, the Chief Whip needs to be focusing on improving the numbers. Every moment of the whips time needs to be speaking to MPs, getting them onside, not doing interviews with journalists 3/

The clip where the Chief is trying to get Philip Davies on side is ludicrous. If you're going to do this (which you shouldn't), why choose an MP that you are *never* going to persuade. Anyone with any sense would have carefully vetted the MP to ensure you can win them round 4/

What has now happened is the ineffectiveness of the Chief's operation is laid bare for the whole parliamentary party to see. Instead of persuading an MP with argument, you see a Chief who is told that he "can't" persuade him 5/

In the 48 hours since I wrote my @ConHome , I've had several MPs and staffers contact me to say that they haven't been spoken to by their whip in person for up to six months - that's an incredible length of time! 6/ conservativehome.com/platform/2018/…

Another MP told the Chief that they were going to rebel last week in one of the three votes that the Government lost. They were texted back. Texted! Not summoned to the Chief's office with a demand to know why 7/

In one of those votes, Bone and Hollobone voted against the Government, which lost by 4. A further 10 MPs abstained - this was a winnable vote. 8/

The Chief has deliberately sought to avoid controversial votes - a vote ducked is not a vote lost. But sometimes you need to take those votes head on, and the vote ducked on the humble address on 13th November lead directly to the crisis where the Govt lost 3 votes this week 9/

The crazy decision to allow cameras into the whips office shows that Julian Smith is the wrong man in the wrong job and the wrong time. He has almost no experience of whipping, and is directly contributing to the confusion in No10 & the likely loss of the WA vote next week 10/10