NADINE DORRIES: The sinister forces that stopped this girl, born into poverty in Liverpool, from reaching the House of Lords
When Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what the greatest challenge for a statesman was, he famously replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events.’
Now we are seeing politics and No 10 once again consumed by events which have nothing whatsoever to do with the economy or the running of our public services, but are instead focused on personalities and petty grievances.
When our former PM Boris Johnson told me I had been included in his resignation honours list, I was overwhelmed — and immediately suffered another bout of the imposter syndrome.
I have always been in awe of the House of Lords. It is where the heavy lifting of properly scrutinising legislation takes place, while the elected chamber, the Commons, is the stage for set pieces such as Prime Minister’s Questions and, of late, little else. Since Boris was removed, Parliament appears to have ground to a halt.
But I am used to seeing off imposter syndrome, just as I am used to facing down the people who, over the course of my life, have told me I am not up to it.
NADINE DORRIES: When our former PM Boris Johnson told me I had been included in his resignation honours list, I was overwhelmed
I grew up on a Liverpool council estate and I knew what hunger pains felt like. I had to borrow shoes in order to attend school.
After qualifying as a nurse, I gave ten years of my life to the NHS. Later, I ran a community school in Zambia (where my husband was working). When we returned to the UK, I raised our three children while building my own childcare business with little financial backing.
We sold it a decade later to a blue-chip company where I served as a director. And then I turned to politics, which changed my life for ever.
The sale of our company gave me the financial freedom to work for the Conservative Party for three years before I was elected as an MP in 2005. I served on the backbenches for 14 years.
My ministerial career began when I was made a health minister during Covid and I worked my way up to become Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In my spare time I wrote fiction and have sold almost three million books.
It’s true to say I’ve lived a different life to the majority of the peers in the Upper House, so no wonder I felt so proud when I heard I was to join them.
Boris told me his honours list had been submitted and his staff said I would hear in due course. I began to allow myself to believe it would happen.
I know, I know, as the reader you are probably thinking ‘oh cry me a river’ — and I get it. But it was important to me to show that someone from my background could break the class ceiling.
Once the list had been agreed with No 10, it was submitted to the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC), an independent body which undertakes the vetting of nominees (including police and HMRC checks). The list is returned to No 10 and the PM hands it straight over to the King.
No sitting prime minister has ever interfered with the honours list of a former PM. It was a precedent, stretching back a century or more — until last week that is.
Since Boris was removed, Parliament appears to have ground to a halt (Nadine and Boris are pictured together in 2019)
During the HOLAC process, I did not hear either from the Commission or from No 10. I and others on the list were bemused by this. Surely someone would update us, and in the case of myself and three other sitting MPs, tell us when was the right time to stand down from the Commons in order to take our place in the Lords? (This would of course trigger by-elections in our constituencies.)
I made enquiries and was told that HOLAC were not allowed to advise us and that instructions would be sent to No 10, to be passed on. None of my calls to No 10 were returned.
Then I heard from Boris: ‘Stand by. Announcement of the list, imminent.’ He had attended a ‘secret’ meeting [on June 2] with Rishi Sunak in Downing Street and it had been confirmed to him that his list was through and that I was on it.
Because the list had been so delayed and the process had taken longer than six months, I learned that I had to go through ‘light touch re-vetting’ (each vetting is valid for six months) but it would take just days.
To be honest this was the moment I began to think something odd was going on, but I told myself not to be paranoid..
Last Thursday, while taking the dog for a walk as the heat of the sun faded on London’s pavements, I took a call from a leading political journalist whom I respected and liked. His words chilled me. ‘Nadine, I’ve seen the [honours] list that’s being published tomorrow and your name has been removed. Did you know this?’ I was stunned. I didn’t believe him.
I rang Boris who was in Egypt and about to give a speech. ‘B******s,’ he bellowed down the line. ‘It’s someone in No 10 who is just making mischief. Sunak told me himself that you were on it just days ago and he wouldn’t lie to me. It’s a wind up.’
Boris’s right hand man then telephoned the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, who assured him that the list was to be published the following day and, yes, my name was indeed on it.
Next morning, I called the Chief Whip who assured me, all was well, he had not been informed of any change but he would make further enquiries. At 3.30pm, he called me back. My name had in fact been removed. The journalist had been right.
In the meeting Boris had with Rishi Sunak (pictured today) I was told that the PM had indeed assured Boris that he would, in keeping with convention, sign off the list returned to him from HOLAC
The list was published half an hour later. I knew then my suspicion that someone was using me to play political games was true. I informed the Chief Whip I was standing down.
The weekend was intense and deeply upsetting, with many theories flying around. Had I got it wrong? Was it a cock up, or a deliberate political snub? I kept my own counsel and spoke to Boris regularly while we got to the bottom of it all. It was like unravelling a Gordian knot.
I believe now that my absence from the list was deliberate.
In the meeting Boris had with Rishi Sunak — a meeting No 10 initially denied to journalists had taken place — I was told that the PM had indeed assured Boris that he would, in keeping with convention, sign off the list returned to him from HOLAC.
What he didn’t say — and what I understand to be true despite denials from those concerned — is that his political secretary, James Forsyth, had made sure that certain names would not be on the list returned from HOLAC.
Forsyth is Rishi’s best friend from school and was best man at his wedding. The two are allies stretching back years. It is my understanding that he ensured my name was not on the list by failing to pass on vital information from HOLAC to me and the other MPs on the list that we needed to agree to stand down from the Commons and join the Lords within six months, or face being left off.
I knew that constitutionally it is not possible for an MP to sit in both houses, but this was the very first I’d heard of the time frame involved.
I also understand that it was necessary for Forsyth to instruct HOLAC to run the light re-vetting Boris had warned me about. Without this instruction and the re-vetting, HOLAC would be unable to support my nomination, effectively removing me from the list.
According to my sources, Forsyth then went on to tell journalists over the weekend — calling some who never hear from him, as often as four times on a sunny Sunday — to stress that it was HOLAC who had ‘removed me’ and the other MPs.
This narrative was advanced by Lord (Michael) Howard — apparently briefed by No 10 — on BBC One’s Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday morning.
But HOLAC does not have the authority to remove anyone, it is an advisory to the PM. In a statement issued yesterday, HOLAC said it had not supported eight nominees on the list submitted, would not comment on individuals and, after providing advice to the PM, was not involved in the appointments process.
It is my belief that when Rishi Sunak told Boris Johnson he would sign off the list returned to him by HOLAC, he was using weasel words. He already knew who was and wasn’t on that list because he had engineered it via his aide Forsyth.
It seems that a process that has long been above corruption has been broken and the relationship between Downing St and HOLAC has been tarnished.
If I’m being generous and No 10’s duplicitous machinations were to avoid a by-election, they should have talked to me. We could have worked together. As it is, they now have not one but three to contend.
I have never been under any illusion that breaking the class ceiling would be a battle.
I was born into poverty and clawed my way out of it to build a new life for me and my family and then carved out a role in public service. A seat in the Lords was recognition of that — and a means of continuing to give back to society.
I’m not going to lie. I believe sinister forces conspired against me and have left me heartbroken — but that emotion gives me all the strength I need to keep on fighting.
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