14 YEARS

5 PRIME MINISTERS

THE PARTY IS OVER

After decades in the hands of malevolent players and two years of disastrous leadership, the Conservative party stands at the edge of the abyss.

From the humiliation of Liz Truss’s 49-day premiership to the shameful, self-serving drift of Rishi Sunak’s time in office, Downfall is the story of a political party on the verge of extinction.

Picking up on the events that followed The Plot, Nadine Dorries draws on interviews with those in the room to expose what really went on behind the scenes. From group sex sessions organised via WhatsApp, to the King being stood up at the Privy Council and the real reason why Rishi Sunak left the D-Day celebrations early, the accounts are raw, unvarnished and brutal. Everything is worse than it seems.

The next leader will hold the future of the party in his or her hands, and with outside forces resisting change, the challenge will be as enormous as it will be difficult. But the painful truth is that the party deserves to be where it is – and nothing can stay the same.

With unparalleled access to the people who were actually in the room and who will speak to Nadine with a frankness with which they would never speak to a journalist, Downfall promises to be THE political book of 2024.

Nadine Dorries grew up in an impoverished area of Liverpool. She spent part of her childhood living on a remote farm with her grandmother in the west of Ireland. She trained as a nurse, then established her own successful business which she sold prior to embarking on a career in politics.

Over 18 years in Westminster, she worked her way up the ministerial ranks, serving as a minister of state in the Department of Health and Social Care throughout the pandemic and finishing as secretary of state at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.