Francis Urquhart – Pluto plumbing the depths

A quickie. Tristan Garel Jones isn’t a name to spark much recognition but he was the inspiration for Francis Urquhart in House of Cards, the Machiavellian Tory whip and consummate backroom fixer in the original book and Brit TV series who morphed into Kevin Spacey in the US version.
The Times obituary says: ‘A whip’s job is to keep backbenchers in line, by fair means or foul, and Garel-Jones was certainly good at it. He was an astute judge of character and political moods, ran