The Diary of a Secret Tory MP: (Almost!) True Stories from the Heart of British Politics

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With a front-row seat on the, erm, backbenches, the Secret Tory MP has picked up on all the petty rivalries, bad decision-making and scandalous affairs that Whitehall has to offer. That sense intensified after he first started his Twitter account, a parody of the Conservative MP Mark Francois, which he did “desperately hoping that some of these Tories have got more about them, but they’re really not very bright”.

He went to the University of Manchester to study comparative religion, moving to London in his late 20s, “because Ellie was there”. A school friend, Benjamin Harvey, collaborates on the videos “and ended up tweeting it on Ellie’s due date. Into that happy but high-stakes scene, Morris dropped a hand grenade last Wednesday: a video revealing that the Secret Tory, a Twitter account lampooning Conservatives from a thousand directions, has been him all along.Since its inception in 2019, the account – which now has nearly 200,000 followers – has been the focus of magnetised speculation: “Retired anonymous Conservative MP, part-time arms dealer” was how he described himself, though everyone knew that wasn’t real-real. Lots of Conservative MPs were following him on Twitter; people started to slide into his DMs to congratulate him on a point well landed, or make suggestions. Henry Morris couldn’t be further from the Westminster bubble, but for years he has lampooned MPs online.

The bestselling Diary of a Secret Tory MP lifts the lid on one of the biggest periods of upheaval in recent memory (certainly since Nick Clegg broke George Osbourne's printer at the treasury) - the last twelve months of British politics. And we had these baronesses, lords and millionaires coming in and out, really getting off on talking to people with accents.Photograph: Joann Randles/The Guardian View image in fullscreen ‘I made people laugh straight away’ … Henry Morris. I’d always thought [about politicians]: ‘There are some bad apples but largely they are trying to make the world a better place. The anchor didn’t really know what to make of him – what is this regular person doing inside the commentariat? Nobody was in any doubt that it was parody, but somehow, between the dense and granular detail, and the playful, insidery tone, people thought he was very close to the action; a special adviser, maybe? The 2019 Conservative MPs are self-interested, they’re corrupt, they’re mean-spirited, largely stupid and, as far as I can tell, filling their helicopters and firing up the shredders before they get booted out at the next election.

True Stories from the Heart of British Politics, which is really sprightly, droll and powered by deep disillusionment. They are purported to be a sitting member of the UK Parliament and have been leaking reams of sensitive information from the heart of the Conservative government for the last three years. Join the mystery MP as he drunk-texts Liz Truss after a crate of WKD, accompanies Jacob Rees-Mogg (and his kids) to picket a foodbank, takes on the French in the 'Trawler Wars', and euthanises Rishi Sunak's dog - and that's just October.From Brexit to Covid, parties to pig culling, the Conservative government has lurched from crisis to crisis.

He thinks a lot about the role of parody in the age of disinformation, the point at which exaggeration for moral effect just feeds into nobody knowing what is and isn’t true. His other notable big run was to every site where a hen harrier had been poisoned or otherwise destroyed, to preserve grouse shoots; that was for Chris Packham’s charity, Wild Justice. All my mates back home were really clever and sharp, and working behind a till; all they’d need to do is move to London and they would be earning six figures.The Secret Tory reached the end of its natural life, but there is more to come, I feel certain; Morris is not a man who goes home before he has achieved his objective. As his personal training business grew, he was working at a gym with two friends who “were also reformed characters; they’d been in even more scrapes than I had when I was younger. View image in fullscreen ‘Everyone seems to be preoccupied with my mullet’ … Morris at his home in Wales. He and Ellie started Field Maneuvers, a no-frills rave spanning a weekend, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. They currently hold the Conservative Party conference 'WKD Blue Challenge' title, after decimating Ken Clarke's infamous seven bottle record which had stood for thirteen years.