Historian corroborates Dorries allegations of Conservative fixer orchestrating leadership changes
Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries has claimed that a new book by historian Sir Anthony Seldon backs up allegations she made in 2023 that a Conservative Party fixer, Dougie Smith, secretly manoeuvred to install and then oust successive party leaders. Sir Anthony's book on Rishi Sunak's premiership reportedly details how Smith helped both Boris Johnson and Sunak into power before working to bring them down, lending fresh weight to claims Dorries made in her own book, The Plot, which Smith and others named had previously denied.
According to Sir Anthony's account, Smith, who held a Downing Street pass from 2010 to 2024, urged Sunak in 2022 to resign as Chancellor to help force Johnson out, reportedly telling him "Boris is going down." Sunak did quit, and Johnson's premiership soon collapsed. The book also alleges that once Sunak became prime minister, Smith criticised his immigration policies as unworkable and told him he was "finished." Dorries said she was "delighted" the book verified her account, and warned that current leader Kemi Badenoch could eventually face similar efforts to remove her.
- Dorries says new book confirms her claims about a shadowy Tory fixer.
- Historian's book alleges Dougie Smith helped oust Johnson and Sunak.
- Dorries warns Kemi Badenoch could be targeted next.
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The Conservative Party has chosen several leaders in recent years, including Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, who both became prime minister. Nadine Dorries, a former Conservative minister, has said that party adviser Dougie Smith played a hidden role in helping leaders gain power and then pushing them out.
Smith had access to Downing Street under several Conservative governments. Dorries set out her allegations in her book The Plot; Smith and others named in it denied them. The claims matter because they raise questions about how much influence unelected advisers can have over party leaders and government.
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The case for
If Seldon’s account is accurate, it supports the concern that an unelected party insider used private influence to shape leadership outcomes, raising questions about transparency and accountability within the Conservatives. The reported sequence of Smith urging Sunak to resign and later criticising his policies could lend weight to Dorries’s claim that the interventions were deliberate rather than incidental.
The case against
The account is reported through a book and Dorries’s interpretation of it; Smith and others named in her earlier allegations have denied them, and the summary gives no response from Smith to Seldon’s claims. Advising politicians or criticising a leader’s policies can also be ordinary political activity, so the reported episodes alone may not establish a covert effort to install and remove leaders.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “Nadine Dorries says historian’s new book backs up her claim that a Tory fixer plotted to bring down its leaders – and warns he may still be pulling the strings”.