Amber Rudd: There is no 'black book' in the Tory whips office
2 min read
Amber Rudd has denied claims that Conservative whips keep a "black book" of MPs' indiscretions.
The Home Secretary, who spent a year as an assistant whip during the Coalition government, said she did not recognise the "lurid" claims being made about her party's parliamentary operation.
Recent reports suggested the Tory whips regularly update Theresa May about the misdemeanours of her MPs - a claim that is firmly denied by Downing St.
Former No 10 communications chief Katie Perrior has also claimed the Whips Office do hold information on MPs that can be "used against them" if they do not toe the party line.
There are also suggestions in this morning's newspapers that the whips may have known about some of the allegations that have recently come to light against a number of Tory MPs.
But Ms Rudd made clear she had never seen any evidence of any list or document when she served in the office.
"I was a whip myself and I don't recognise some of those more lurid stories that are told about the sort of things whips knew and did. I just don't recognise, I just tell it as it is, I was a whip for a year and our aim was to make sure we got government business through," she told the Andrew Marr Show.
"The sort of things we try to do is accommodate people's lives so they were there to vote, that sort of thing. I really don't recognise the other stuff."
Pressed on whether there was a "black book" or spreadsheet of colleagues' names, she replied:
"I spent a year in the Whips office under George Young, who was the Chief Whip then. there was no black book, there was no sort of that sort of influence going on. It was much more about trying to get government business through. "
"There's a lot of suggestions in the papers, I can't guess at who might have known what rumour or what truth I'm just saying what I knew and how I operated as a whip within the Whips Office when I was there."
She was backed up by Trade minister Greg Hands, who also served in the Whips Office.
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