Ad Lib: From the desk of the Junior Whip

My copy of the first issue of Ad Lib - the pocket glossy monthly intended to replace the weekly Liberal Democrat News - arrived today.

As is apparently obligatory in Lib Dem publications, it carries a mildly satirical article by me, though what appeared in the magazine (reproduced below) is not exactly what I sent in.

Whipped: From the desk of the Junior Whip

The Chief Whip is not going to be pleased. He got very excited when he heard about Nadine Dorries being on I’m a celebrity… and insisted that I get a couple of our MPs on to it too. Something about having them out of the country before next week’s votes. But there was nothing doing. Apparently after Lembit they vowed never to have another Lib Dem. Not even when I offered to pay for the wallaby testicles.

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I am currently working as an intern here in the Lib Dem Whips Office. It is probably best that you don’t know my name. Call me the Junior Whip.

I quite fancy being an MP myself in a year or two. I have my eye on a seat where the sitting MP retires at the next election.

This chair I am leaning back on is normally occupied by Alastair Carmichael, the Chief Whip. So is the desk I have my feet on.  Fortunately he is at home in his constituency at the moment and I am minding the shop.

On the shelf behind me is his bottle of  Auld Johnston, that most celebrated of Highland malts, which is marked, damn him. The Chief is a Scot, likes his whisky and trusts no one. Probably wise in his job.

Alongside the whisky is a boxed set of Francis Urquhart DVDs (I tell him they are black comedies: he insists they are an instruction manual), and the Black Book.

The Black Book? Passed down from chief whip to chief whip, it has the dirt on every Liberal and Liberal Democrat MP for more than a century.

It is the most entertaining thing I have ever read. And you know that Lib Dem MP who is retiring? He doesn’t know it yet, but I do.

Want to know more? Come back and see me again next month.

The Junior Whip spoke to Jonathan Calder