Losing The Plot

How are we to read Nadine Dorries' account of Boris Johnson's downfall?

Reading “The Plot - The Political Assassination of Boris Johnson” by Nadine Dorries is not an easy task - in more ways than one.

The overdone trope of the unreliable narrator - which of us is ever truly consistent? - takes a new turn when we are dealing with a memoir by a politician, for whom being economical with the actualité is a professional necessity. Political memoirs inherently have two purposes - self-justification and record-setting, with the occasional intervention of brutal honesty (usually when it is useful for sales). But “The Plot” cannot even be called a memoir: it is written in a style which is part-investigative journalist, part-spy thriller. Its surface begs not to be taken seriously, and achieves the task.

But that is not to say that it has no message to impart - it is all messaging. I shall try to unravel some of that here.

“ The Nerdy-Gurdy Man”¹

Firstly: let’s not spend to long on style. It is bad. Not unexpected. Most of it had to be read in a pub with a drink. I’ll quote one example for your amusement:

The phone on his desk rang. His silhouette was framed in the peculiar light and something made both Carrie and I look over. His response was sombre, his voice deep. He stood abruptly, pushing back the chair and, without saying a single word, hurried from the room, his phone in hand. Carrie and I exchanged looks, no words were spoken. I guessed that whatever Boris had been told, it related to our ailing Queen. As I left the house, the heavens wept, the dark sky over London parted and a huge rainbow spanned the Kings Road. I knew then in my heart that the call had been to tell Boris that our Queen had passed.²

Once our heroine takes up the challenge to investigate the circumstances and personalities around her hero’s downfall, the structure of the book is simple: a series of interviews recorded with party insiders (and one MI6 contact) who reveal the secrets of the dark underbelly of the party. All are anonymous, save for Boris himself, and Iain Duncan Smith, whose own assassination is presented as something of a forerunner; chapters are codenamed with James Bond references.

We’ll look at some of the specific claims in the next section, but suffice to say that characters occupy a political universe of Manichaean duality. The “good guys” are Boris, of course, together with Liz Truss and the honourable IDS. Other political actors are either shallow and/or simplistically ambitious; but particular ire is laid at the door of Rishi Sunak and (as it goes on) Kemi Badenoch (the next “chosen one”). The real schemers are those figures less public: Lee Cain, Munira Mirza and her husband Dougie Smith, and even Johnson’s old Brexit minister Lord Frost.

But at the heart are three figures who plot to control everything that happens in the Tory Party: Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, and a character known only as “Dr No”, a figure almost unknown to the public but who is meant to be immensely powerful, and not beyond having a pet rabbit killed to send a Mafia-style warning to an ex-girlfriend.

As a book, it does not really go anywhere, or flow. Claims are made, but given the anonymity, cannot be backed up. Some things ring true, others less so; but the overall style seems so fantastical as to undermine itself.

What, then, is the real meaning of “The Plot”?

Boris: the Hagiography

I will say from the start that I do not believe in the psychologising of politicians: that the drivers of ambition, jealousy, love, or personal dramas matter to understanding what steers politics. All political actors seek power, and are ambitious: the details are lost in the rounding; as de Jouvenal wrote, authority attracts the authoritarian. Very few are able to achieve what is really a political programme on achieving office (and yes, I am looking at you, A.C.L. Blair). At best, psychologising is irrelevant; at worst, an active distraction: “kayfabe”.

(Note that this is not to deny the reality of these things if we wish to understand the psychology of individual politicians. As an example, the fact that Boris Johnson was at Eton as a King’s Scholar should not be underestimated, as scholarship boys tend to be looked down on by the rest of the school, as being there on merit, and not through cash or class; even if (as in his case) it is likely that his family could have afforded it anyway, as they did for his younger brother. But I’m not reviewing this book for what it may tell us about Boris the man.)

Dorries paints Boris in a wholly uncritical light in this book; at times he reminded me of a pure, holy fool; a Prince Myshkin defeated by the world. Dorries’ prose slips into a simpler register when he appears, and she’s too bad a writer for this to be feigned. He is “right on the big calls” (particularly the trinity of Covid, climate and Ukraine) but this is not a book anywhere to address under underlying political contentions. He is a man of action whose is focused on delivery: he “Got Brexit Done”, and is concerned that his legacy of “Levelling Up” is being abandoned. Slogans are real in this world.

Here’s her quoting (she claims) directly from a conversation with Johnson on those “big calls”:

There were people who said [net zero] was wrong, but it was them, they were wrong, because this is this thing (sic), this goal that makes (sic) money for the UK. It delivers hundreds of thousands, millions of jobs. And actually, it saves the planet too, and it’s totally the right thing to do.³

And here, from one of her “insider” sources:

And then, lastly, Ukraine, when I think the West probably was edging itself towards saying, we’re going to have to let Russia have this one, because the cost of trying to take Russia on and take on Putin is too great. And Boris said, “You know, I’m not having that because it isn’t right”.⁴

Note the “right thing to do” line - exactly the unjustified justification Blair always used to skip substantive arguments.

One tactic Dorries uses (is it artful or simplistic?) is simply to invert common ideas about Johnson without any recognition that she is doing so. Most egregiously, Dominic Cummings is presented as not really believing in Brexit and being dismayed at the victory, when of course it was Johnson himself who waivered between Remain and Leave newspaper articles before pitching for the latter. Carrie is his “rock” (most commentators would give that accolade to his ex-wife Marina Wheeler); he is devoted to his young family and rushes back to them each Friday evening rather than attending the parties which were to bring him down (a theme repeated frequently in the book). Does any of this ring true?

There are some interesting details dropped around the Covid years - and these bolster what is becoming the (current) settled narrative, certainly of the Conservatives: that the first lockdown was justified because of the uncertainty at the time, but that subsequent restrictions could and should have been avoided (and Johnson, of course, is presented as a fighter for this). Mass vaccination programmes are, of course, unquestioned - as I said, this is not a book (or a writer) to consider questions of substance.

Another “insider” puts it:

[Gove, Cummings, and Lee Cain] all wanted to lock down but the Prime Minister didn’t; he was trying to work from the position of “How do we keep everything open?” They were the very hard-line end of, “How much can we lock down?” and there was no one the Prime Minister turned to, whether it was the scientists or the epidemiologists or his closest advisers who would tell him anything other than that he had to lock down and now, but still the Prime Minister resisted.⁵

The same source later says: “If you consider how people have lost their minds over the pandemic…”

But Johnson is presented as pushing the vaccines faster than the NHS chief executive, Sir Simon Stephens (an old friend of the Johnson’s from Oxford, incidentally): “The most politically adept bureaucrat you will ever meet. The Prime Minister got very tough with him when it came to vaccines. Simon resisted the PM’s targets when Boris wanted to set numbers for how many people were vaccinated each week… We wouldn’t have been the first with the vaccines if it hadn’t been for Boris.”⁶

So: one one level “The Plot” is a statement of what is becoming the settled Johnson-camp position on the three Big Issues of his reign: Covid, Climate and Ukraine. So far, straightforward.

The Tory Dark Lord and the axis of evil

Things become more complicated, and take a darker turn, when it comes to the villains. Let us leave aside the question whether the figure of Dr No is a real person or not (indeed, whether Dorries wants to us to believe in him): it’s just too speculative without further information. Likewise, the lurid tales of sex parties, drugs and even rapes covered up: they are unfortunately all too plausible, but again, we can’t think much without evidence. It’s hardly a secret that Conservative MPs behave badly, and that the whips use this to keep them in control; nor that leaking to the press is a universal practice. At base, the “forces of evil” betraying the party come down to two figures: Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, who (with a cast of supporting characters) are said to plot, plan and control the Conservatives. No motive beyond ambition and nihilism are given.

The dynamic between the two is interesting: rather than Gove being the Dark Lord, Dorries actually suggests that he is the creature of Cummings. It may be noteworthy that Dorries, herself, introduces the idea, in conversation with Johnson:

“I didn’t know much about [Cummings], he was Michael’s creature.

“Or, Michael was his?” I interjected.⁷

The idea that it is Cummings who has the power in the relationship is later repeated by Dorries’ MI6 contact.

Elsewhere, in another attributable passage, Iain Duncan Smith spends some time talking about Gove: how his background as an adopted but bright child introduced to the world of public schoolboys at Oxford led to him being charmed by Cameron, in particular; IDS describes Gove as Cameron’s "lackey” in the early days. And then, when Cameron demotes Gove from Education, Gove set his sights on revenge… It is, at least, a consistent, if basic psychological narrative to run.

Gove is presented as having a key role in bringing down every Tory leader: Cameron, through his backing of Leave; May, Johnson (as well as bringing his 2016 leadership bid to and end, even (tangentially) Truss. Now, all this is true, and there is no doubt to my mind that he is the most influential Conservative politician of the last 14 years (I have been known to refer to him as the Tory Dark Lord myself.) But, as I have said, simple psychologising of politics is in my view not helpful.

Does the portrait of Johnson the ingenue ring true? Note that several of the “inner circle” identified by Dorries had worked for Johnson before he became Prime Minster; indeed Munira Mizra since his time as London Mayor. (She is an interesting figure: another former Revolutionary Communist Party member and Living Marxism contributor-turned-Tory.) Can a figure this gullible really rise to the top of politics? Someone who consistently and repeatedly promotes his enemies - even after they have stabbed him in the back?

And, are we really to believe that Boris Johnson likes Andrew Lloyd-Webber?

There is another key weakness in the story that the “inner circle” run everything in the party to their interests. Firstly, the claim that Iain Duncan Smith was removed by underhand means is laughable: his appalling media presence in general, and his flatly embarrassing conference speech in particular (“The Quiet Man is Turning up the Volume”) destroyed his credibility in the party. That Dominic Cummings had some role in this is certain: he had worked as IDS’s Director of Strategy for eight months before resigning out of frustration at his incompetence; he said that he would he would be a "worse prime minister than Tony Blair and must be replaced”. But this is no revelation, and certainly does not constitute a shadowy plot.

Next, the Cameron/Osborne takeover of the party in 2005: Gove was an early and central member of the “Notting Hill Set”, but elsewhere in the book it is stated that Cameron did not like Cummings, and it was only on Gove’s insistence that he was allowed as an adviser in the Department for Education. Cameron has referred to him as a “career psychopath”. If Cummings really were the Dark Lord as claimed, would he have been content with a known enemy in charge of the party for 11 years? And, would a Dark Lord be satisfied with a role limited to education?

Cummings is on record as saying that “Within days of the Conservatives winning the 2019 general election… he began talking to his allies within Downing Street about ousting Boris Johnson.” This fits with his previous behaviour: Cummings is no respecter of politicians, let alone ones without a distinct ability to move the machinery of government - and despite Dorries’ portrayal of Johnson as a “doer”, I doubt many others would agree with that. And if Sunak is any better, she does not seek to paint him so.

Rishi Sunak is presented as Cummings’ creature, and identified as the chosen PM from 2019, with Johnson only a vote-winning stop gap who would have been removed sooner but for Covid. But Dorries (or her unquestioned sources) gets the facts plain wrong on his leadership contest against Truss: “He was in the lead. He lost; she didn’t win. Some of this was down your involvement. I know you persuaded Jacob [Rees-Mogg]. Once yourself and Jacob endorsed her that was a huge boost to Liz.”⁸

Now, this could just be Dorries talking up her role in getting Truss elected. The trouble is that it doesn’t reflect the facts. As soon as it became clear that the membership vote would be between Truss and Sunak, she was clear favourite in all but one poll. In fact the final vote, 57%/43%, was closer than expected, suggesting that Sunak had actually gained ground during the campaign.

Supporters of the Dorries narrative will claim that Truss was brought down after 50 days, so the “plotters” got their way. And that Gove, as Minister for Levelling Up (what a title for a cabinet member that is!) is presiding over the destruction of one key element of Johnson’s legacy. And Sunak’s government looks likely to suffer a record defeat in the polls later this year.

So is the explanation as simple as this - personal ambition over party interests?

Let’s look at another thread running through the book before deciding on that.

Brothers in arms

Ed eran due in uno, e uno in due⁹

For all its lurid revelations, “The Plot” does not really tell us much that is new, and justifiable. Dorries hides its thinness behind a limp claim that she knows far more than is here, but “Much of what I know will never see the light of day due to the ‘legals’”¹⁰. Its style has meant that it has been quickly ignored. Was this worth giving up a peerage for?

Dominic Cummings’ testimony to the Covid inquiry in November 2023 provided some insights into the workings of government which will probably surprise nobody reading this, save for them being said out loud:

[Cabinets] were Potemkin in the sense that they were for show, as part of the sort of show of the constitution, that unfortunately a large part of how the system works is that ministers parade up Downing Street, the cameras click, people act like Cabinet is actually deciding things, but everyone behind the Number 10 door actually in power knows that that’s very rarely actually going on, that usually what’s happening is that senior officials have actually decided what’s happening and the ministerial performance is often/usually a performance.

Power... is nominally in the hands of the Prime Minister and, to a very large extent, in the hands of the Cabinet Office. I would say the Cabinet Secretary is something like ten times or a hundred times more powerful than anybody else in the Cabinet Office.

The Cabinet Office over a long period of time has accumulated more and more power, formal and informal, it’s become incredibly bloated, it’s acquired huge numbers of people, huge numbers of teams, and particularly, on the whole – the sort of deep state, national security side, crisis management has become in all sorts of ways extremely opaque and effectively completely invisible to any political figure, including the Prime Minister.¹¹

These themes are echoed in the book:

In my party, a very small group of men, some elected some not, acted as though democracy was a concept to be tolerated at best and at worst, ignored.

[Sue Gray] doesn’t regard the politically elected as leaders… To her, the leader is the Cabinet Secretary, the man who is the most senior civil servant in Number 10. Politicians come and go in Gray’s world.¹²

Elsewhere, Dorries foresees the total destruction of the Conservative Party - a desire of Cummings (and others); and even references her book as being part of the process:

“Look” he began, “I wondered whether or not I should speak to you. I mean, you may bleed the poison out of the party, but I think there’s a strong chance you may destroy the party with this book.”

“They are controlling a prime minister who is, day by day, destroying the Conservative Party. What is their purpose? What has it been for the past four decades?”

Someone had told me that the plan was to get Rishi in and manage the decline of the party and for it to lose. To give Starmer a term to reverse some of Brexit and the idea that Boris remained, for what could be another two or three elections was an obstacle to achieving that because Boris had championed Brexit. Gove’s words to Iain Duncan Smith, that party needed burning down, had come back to me. Had Gove finally got his way?

(To Johnson himself:) “What is the point of anyone ever voting Conservative again? It’s a sham.¹³

Is this a meant to be a warning, or is it meant to prepare the ground?

Can this really be taken in good faith where the Johnson government itself presided over an era of open-borders progressivism, record tax levels and ruinous net zero policies? And where “Getting Brexit Done” and “Levelling Up” were slogans without political programmes, save for splurging ever more money on HS2? With or without plotting, it is the policies of Johnson himself, as much as Rishi Sunak, which will cost the Tories at the election.

Dorries - and therefore the Johnson camp itself - are enabling the destruction of the Conservatives at the next election, through undermining Sunak (not that he needs it). And at the same time, portraying Cummings as a Machiavellian powerhouse, albeit one without (currently) a power base. After all, being known as a Dark Lord is, in political circles, as much a compliment as a curse.

In the final analysis, the goals of Cummings and Johnson do not seem so far apart at all. Perhaps all their words are theatre; and they never were.

1. I am afraid I do not know the cartoonist, but a fine selection of Cummings images can be found here

2. “The Plot”, Nadine Dorries, p. 35

3. Ibid, p. 218

4. Ibid, p. 131

5. Ibid, p. 119

6. Ibid, p. 129

7. Ibid, p. 39

8. Ibid, p. 202

9. Inferno, XXVIII, 125. Quoted in “Near Perigord”, Ezra Pound.

10. “The Plot”, p. 325

11. The transcript can be accessed here

12. Ibid, pp. 97, 174

13. Ibid, pp. 196, 294, 267, 326