The book I had originally intended to write was about how my darling Boris was removed as prime minister. But what I learned turned out to be far bigger than that. No less than a 25-year plot against the Conservative party by the Conservative party. I know this may cost me the peerage I so richly deserve for having been a below-average cabinet minister, but I can’t ignore the voices I heard during my research. One or two of which might exist outside my imagination.
Warm, wet tears fell moistly down my cheek as I went to visit Boris.
“Of course I will help,” he said kindly. “The unique absence of narrative tension in your books is ideally suited to the subject matter. Only you could make a load of nonsense like this really boring.”
“You say the sweetest things,” I replied. “For such a top secret project, I will need to give you a code name. Will ‘My Bozzy Bear’ do? And if it means refusing to do the job I love as culture secretary under Rishi, then so be it? A shame, because this working-class lass from the wrong side of the tracks would have loved to have found out how Channel 4 was funded.”
My phone purred purringly. It was a contact at MI6. Moneypenny. Could I meet her at her private club, 5 Hertford St? My heart was filled with a heavy heaviness as I made my way to Mayfair.
“It’s like this, Bond,” said Moneypenny. “There is a cabal at the top of the Tory party, led by Michael Gove, Dominic Cummings, Dougie Smith, Dr No and Lee Cain who call themselves the Illuminati.
“They have had a cunning plan for decades. First to remove Iain Duncan Smith because he was too Conservative. Then to install Cameron and Osborne, only to make sure they were forced out when Cummings and Gove tried to keep the UK in the EU by campaigning to lose. Then to remove Boris and replace him with Liz and Rishi. And once Sunak has lost the election, their goal will be complete by installing Kemi as leader of the opposition.
“It’s all fiendishly fiendish. It’s a plan so secret that everyone in MI6 and the Tory party knows about it but can’t be bothered to do anything about it. Your mission is to expose them to the world.”
My first, first thought was this was all too much to take in. Then I girded my loins with literal steel. I would make a stand. For Boris. My rock. I phoned IDS as IDS was known to us all. We need to meet in secret, I urged.
“Come to my office in Westminster,” he said. I couldn’t but admire his carefree attitude as he invited me to sit on his sofa. He sat opposite me. On a chair. I had guessed he might. Nothing gets past me. What he told me shocked me to the very core of my being. There had been a plot to remove him. He had been on course to win a landslide victory in the 2005 election and Gove, Cummings and Smith had taken time off from one of Dougie’s legendary sex parties to cut him off in his prime.
Suddenly everything made sense. I had to see My Bozzy Bear again. As I arrived, he had to take a call. His face turned grey and ashen. Outside, the clouds parted and a shaft of sunny sunlight poured through the window. I knew in that moment that our gracious queen had passed.
As My Bozzy Bear gathered his pensive thoughts, he nodded slowly. Suddenly everything made sense. “Even though I had worked closely with Gove and Cummings on Vote Leave,” he said, “I had no idea they were deeply untrustworthy and might be briefing against me to journalists. It seemed so unlike them.”
So sweet. That was the My Bozzy Bear I knew and loved. Too trusting for his own good. Someone whose only care was to serve the country. Someone who would never dream of being a sociopathic, narcissistic liar himself.
“You know, Bond,” he confided to me confidentially. “I never went to any parties during lockdown. I never went to the one that Carrie held for me in the flat. Nor to the one that Party Marty arranged for everyone. It never occurred to me that all the singing, dancing and shagging going on downstairs might be anything to do with what was going on downstairs. Now I can see that the Illuminati were trying to frame me.”
My heart soared upwards. The betrayal would be exposed. Cummings had even briefed the papers about the gold wallpaper. This was an outright lie. The wallpaper was more a goldy yellow.
Back at 5 Hertford St, I sipped on a glass of champagne. I was due to meet Pussy Galore. Five minutes later, a special adviser walked in. She had agreed to talk to me on the condition of anonymity. And that I didn’t reveal her name. Her story had me open-mouthed. Gove, Cummings, Smith and Dr No had all conspired to remove Boris from Downing Street. They had told lies and been horrid. They had an agenda to take the UK back into the EU having campaigned to take it out.
In my career as a bestselling writer of romantic fiction, it is always a relief when I get to the words “The End”. You are probably feeling the same right now. Believe me, it’s quite some feat to make such a ridiculous story so crushingly dull and repetitive. My editors say it’s all in the writing.
But sadly we are only on page 195 and there are still 140 to go as my work is not yet done. A WhatsApp message reached me from Agent Dilyn. “Woof.” Could we meet for a walkies. What Dilyn told me rocked me to the centre of my core. Gove, Cummings, Smith and Dr No had been engaged in a plot to … Yawn.
It was time to catch up with My Bozzy Bear. He was in a surprisingly good mood considering all the injustices heaped upon him and I couldn’t help but be impressed by the way he kept notes of things he wanted to remember. Who would have thought of that. I guess it’s good to keep track of the things you are going to lie about. “I just want the best for the country, Bond,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I never wanted to be prime minister for myself. That’s the truth. And I definitely never went to parties or told lies about them. It had never occurred to me that the privileges committee’s report might be accurate
“But you know what? It’s Matt Hancock I feel sorry for. Saj, Rishi and the others were always bastards. I see that now. But Matty was just an innocent like me. I can’t believe that Cummings and Dr No altered the position of the CCTV camera to one where they knew they would catch him groping Gina.”
A chance meeting with Blofeld in the Commons library gave me an introduction to Bambi and Thumper. Two Tory grandees well into their 80s. After a long car journey up the M1, I was led blindfold into an oak-panelled living room lined with wood. After three bottles of whisky, they began to relax. “The thing is, the Tory party has become riddled with sex maniacs these days. Dr No won’t let anyone become an MP unless they are shagging like rabbits. You can’t move for rapists and paedophiles. The whips prefer it that way to keep party discipline. If only it had been like that in our day. Tremendous stuff. Shame about The Plot Against Boris and all that. It’s amazing MPs could stop having sex for long enough to elect Rishi.”
There was just one more person to see. Vesper Lynd. Someone who could drone on for pages about how rubbish Rishi was, how he didn’t care about anything, was just trying to impress his in-laws and who was just the fall guy for Kemi. But she had one last surprise. Kemi was only a front for Gove. The whole plot against the Tory party had been a 25-year campaign aimed at getting the Govester into the leader of the opposition’s office some time in 2027. It’s what the party deserved.
My task complete, I went to take leave of My Bozzy Bear.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said cheerfully and happily. “I will be OK. I’m earning a fortune these days. How about you?”
“If things don’t work out with Carrie, you know where to find me.”
S.W.A.L.K.
Digested read, digested: The Plot Against Reality.
Depraved New World by John Crace (Guardian Faber, £16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
