There's been a lot of speculation about which characters in my book, Whips, are based on real people.
The thing is, I honestly didn't set out to draw specific people. Even the shambolic ex-PM, rattling around the speaking circuit, writing poorly researched hagiographies of his favourite historical figures, was conceived while politicos and media types were touting ten more years of Boris Johnson. Perhaps I'm a mystic.
Anyway, I did set out to group the different types of MPs I've come across into individual caricatures. That way, everybody gets an airing and nobody's entirely exposed. A new kind of collective responsibility.
So here is my list of‘types’ (just the main ones, of course – listing
