WORCESTER MP Mike Foster has been retained as a Government whip by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Foster had a phone call from Mr Brown on Friday afternoon to ask him if he would like to stay on in his role.

It is a significant victory for the MP, who was first elected in 1997 and was invited to join the Government as a whip 12 months ago by Tony Blair.

Mr Foster said: "I got a call from Gordon Brown at around 2.45pm yesterday to ask me to stay on as a whip.

"We had a nice chat, and he told me he had certain expectations' of me. I will do my best to deliver it."

Mr Foster said the majority of the 16 whips the Government has have been told they will stay on, although at least one has been sacked.

Whips cajole party MPs into voting for the Government rather than against it, and discipline them if necessary.

Meanwhile, a Kidderminster man who led an abortive coup against Tony Blair last year has returned to the whips office.

Tom Watson, aged 40, MP for West Bromwich East, was one of the ringleaders in the audacious attempt last September.

At the time he was dubbed "discourteous, disloyal and wrong" by Mr Blair.

The committed Brownite sacrificed his job as a Defence Minister to take part in the attempt.

Kidderminster-born-and-bred Mr Watson was educated at the town's King Charles I High School.