Ungovernable

The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip
The first insider account of life as a chief whip inside Westminster, from MP Simon Hart, who has served under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.

The Sunday Times Top 5 Bestseller

'A remarkable insight into a critical moment. Hart’s wit and tolerance makes his record of a system in crisis all the more convincing and troubling' – Rory Stewart

'He is the insiders’ insider and shows how Government works – or actually doesn’t. This is a balls-up-to-break-down account of how the Tories managed to get through multiple Prime Ministers and a large majority to fall flat on their faces. You couldn’t make it up' – Michael Dobbs, author of House of Cards

Over the course of five years, Simon Hart had a front-row seat to the most turbulent times in recent British political history. Ungovernable lifts the lid on life as an MP and chief whip during one of its most turbulent eras in modern-day Britain.

From negotiations around Brexit to the impact of Liz Truss’s extraordinary forty-nine-day premiership and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Simon Hart has seen and heard it all. And starting in 2022, under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he witnessed successive dramas unfold, all while holding down the (often misunderstood) position of chief whip.

Astonishingly, during those whip years, Simon oversaw a near record fifteen Conservative MPs fall by the wayside. Three of these were resignations, including Nadine Dorries and the scandal of her disappearing peerage; two were defections to Labour; and the remaining ten were suspended by Simon for offences ranging from Matt Hancock’s unauthorized appearance on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here to Lee Anderson’s comments about the London Mayor. Each one of these involved an extensive build-up, a complicated process, and a noisy and vitriolic public commentary.

None of this stopped him from becoming one of the few chief whips – of which there have been eleven since 2010 in fourteen consecutive years – to survive for an entire premiership.

In a first-of-its-kind extraordinary look at life as a chief whip, Ungovernable is a revealing, real-time, blow-by-blow account – offering a glimpse of what truly goes on in Westminster behind closed doors.

_{The Sunday TImes Top 5 Bestseller at no. 3, w/b 10/03/2025}

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