Britons will soon take to the polls to decide who will lead the country in an election that was called unexpectedly early on July 4.
It was at first expected that the general election – which had to take place no later than January 2025 – would be called in the latter part of 2024 but there was one man in the heart of the Government who wanted to get going earlier.
Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden reported urged Rishi Sunak to call an election sooner rather than later. Opinion polls were showing the Conservatives were at a record low, and Mr Dowden was understood to have taken the view that a vote should be held sooner before the party struggled more.
Sources said Mr Dowden was among those to have expressed this view because of concerns the party could be wiped out if the election was called too late.
But, as the campaigning heats up, what do we know about the deputy prime minister?
Who is Oliver Dowden?
Oliver Dowden has been the MP for Hertsmere in Hertfordshire since 2015. He is the deputy prime minister.
He grew up near Watford and he said he had an “excellent state education”, attending a comprehensive school before reading law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His father worked at a factory and his mother at Boots.
Before becoming an MP, Mr Dowden worked for PR firm Hill & Knowlton and as former prime minister David Cameron’s deputy chief of staff.
He was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in October 2022 before being appointed Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office in February 2023.
Mr Dowden is a key ally of Mr Sunak, and backed him strongly in both Tory leadership contests in 2022.
Over the years, the deputy prime minister has been minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office between September 2021 and June 2022. Before that, he was digital, culture, media and sport secretary between February 2020 and September 2021.
He has also been paymaster general and a parliamentary secretary.
Cancel culture and the war on ‘woke’
Mr Dowden has hit headlines over the past couple of years by intervening in the national debate over the so-called “cancellation” of controversial historical figures.
Speaking to the Evening Standard in 2021, Mr Dowden said that “woke culture runs contrary to the great liberal traditions of Western democracies”.
As culture secretary, Mr Dowden opposed the return of historical artefacts held in British museums and galleries that had been brought to Britain during colonisation. In particular, he argued that the Benin bronzes, most of which had been removed by British armed forces from Benin City during a punitive raid, should remain in Britain.
In an interview with Channel 4 News in September 2021, about the bronzes held in the British Museum, he said: “The collections of our great national institutions have been developed over many, many centuries, in many times in questionable circumstances. I think the question now is about what we do with these.
“I love the Benin bronzes, I’ve seen them many times throughout my life, and I think them being in the British Museum, which is a world repository of heritage, allows people to see it but that doesn’t stop us from sharing it.”
Dowden was also embroiled in a controversy over claims that his department was behind an anti-woke purge of arts board members deemed to be on the wrong side of a cultural war surrounding statues, wealth derived from the slave trade and the representation of colonialism in museums.
During his time as co-chairman of the Conservative Party, Dowden continued to be identified with the controversy over “woke culture”.
In February 2022, Dowden gave a speech in the USA to the Heritage Foundation in which he called cancel culture a “painful woke psychodrama” sweeping the West and sapping its confidence.
