Hay Player

Take a step behind the most famous door in the UK with Whips, Cleo Watson’s tale of intrigue and scandal. When Bobby Cliveden decides to campaign against the closure of her local mental health unit, she ends up in the heart of the UK’s bustling political centre, and discovers a secret, soft-skilled machinery behind so much political change at the very highest level of government: women. Watson, who worked on President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012 and served in 10 Downing Street as Theresa May’s political adviser then Boris Johnson’s co-deputy chief of staff, talks to ITV News’ political editor Robert Peston (author of The Whistleblower) about writing fiction based on reality, satirising politics and her unique insight into government.