IN THE MORNING AFTER THE Tories’ 2017 election debacle, when Theresa May’s ambitions for Blair-style Commons dominance had crumbled into a lost majority, the chief whip, Gavin Williamson, turned to his private secretary and asked, “Do you think we could do a Walter Harrison?”
Both men had seen This House, James Graham’s play about the minority Labour governments of the ‘70s and the extreme manoeuvring of deputy chief whip Harrison which kept them in office. The man he asked, Sir Roy Stone, nodded slowly and replied, “I suppose we can. In fact we’re going to have to.”
Sir Roy was a parliamentary oracle. Virtually invisible outside the confines of the Government Whips ‘Office, he was one of the most important figures in Westminster; the consummate professional whose whispered advice to successive chief whips, always delivered in strictest privacy, kept the business of government flowing smoothly through the parliamentary machine.
His longevity in office, 21 years, meant he was institutional memory made flesh. He knew everyone and had seen everything, just like his equally legendary predecessor, Murdo