The reason conspiracy theories are so resilient, reproducing themselves from one generation to another, is that they are unfalsifiable. Evidence against them, however solid, has obviously been faked. Anyone who tries to demonstrate that Americans did land on the moon or that J.F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald is obviously in the pay of people who stand to benefit. If you ask who those people are, since there seems to be no evidence of their existence, the answer is always the same: they are very good at concealing themselves. And so the theory finds credulous punters.

To save time, I should probably point out that The Spectator, which is identified by the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries as a key player in secret attempts to destroy British political life, has asked me to write about her book. Still worse, I will reflect critically on it, and get paid. You may draw your own conclusions. 

Mrs Dorries – to her open regret, never now to be Lady Dorries – has written an excitable book about the hidden dark forces in the Conservative party. These, working in a secret cabal, were dedicated to overthrowing the immensely popular administration of Boris Johnson. When Liz Truss was elected instead of Rishi Sunak, measures were taken to destroy her within weeks and replace her with the Chosen One. Now this immensely powerful group is working to install Kemi Badenoch as a puppet leader. 

For the most part, Dorries is confident about mentioning names involved in the conspiracy. At its head are Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, but also Oliver Dowden and Nick Gibb, a schools minister over the past decade who many people think, in their apparent naivety, has been notably successful. Dougie Smith, Lee Anderson, Cleo Watson, Simon Case and other party officials, Spads and civil servants come in for various degrees of blame.

Worst of all is a gentleman who can’t be named, referred to as ‘Dr No’. Various crimes including rabbit crucifixion to terrify exes, voyeurism at sex parties, threats of violence and real violence are laid at this shadowy figure’s door. No one has ever heard of him. He has been at the centre of the Conservative party for more than 40 years, apparently escaping the notice even of that patient chronicler of Margaret Thatcher’s political life, Charles Moore. Yet whenever Dorries mentions this figure to any of the many people she talks to, they know exactly who he is. 

I will say straight away that, little as I believe anything in The Plot has much relation to reality, I have a total lack of belief in the existence of Dr No. ‘He is attracted to very wealthy people, turns on the whole long charm and grooming offensive, and slowly, like an octopus, wraps his tentacles around them, one by one.’ It seems very possible to me that the lawyers, who have been all over this text, demanded the exclusion of the most grossly defamatory suggestions, and Dorries has come up with the wizard wheeze of ascribing them to someone who can’t possibly be identified. 

Who, ultimately, is behind this mammoth conspiracy, which, unlike the government of the past few years, has, she claims, been run with staggering efficiency? Why, who else? ‘It is thought,’ an interviewee suggests of ‘Dr No’, that ‘he is on the payroll of a number of billionaires. Some say he has connections to Mossad.’

Underlying all of this is a fundamental misapprehension about not just political reality but constitutional propriety. Sunak (though, oddly, not Truss) has, Dorries implies, no right to be prime minister since the last general election gave an administration led by Johnson a majority. This would also disqualify Gordon Brown, Jim Callaghan, Alec Douglas-Home and Anthony Eden in entirety, and Theresa May’s, John Major’s and Harold Macmillan’s first administrations. In short, it’s nonsense. 

The truth of the matter is that Johnson’s colleagues, some of whom had always harboured doubts about him, came to a general and often regretful conclusion that the experience of lockdown had fatally damaged his reputation with the electorate. It was not just the question of his office ignoring health protocols while enabling the prosecution of the general public. It was also the clear sense that a prime minister who, we thought, stood for freedom and personal responsibility had, no doubt unhappily, promoted the most rigid intervention by the state in British history, and acquiesced in a colossal rise in government expenditure. The principles many voters supported just weren’t there.  

Though it may seem trivial, there is one thing about Dorries’s book which I think goes to the heart of things: she actually can’t write. Writing is a matter of seeing things accurately, without leaping to anyone else’s predetermined conclusions, and stating them clearly. Sometimes she just doesn’t know things: ‘The Gordian knot that I would begin to unravel’ is almost comic. But she can’t convey even small things clearly: ‘“You’re mad,” my youngest had said as I caught the flying bread from the toaster and began to butter it ten minutes earlier.’  So how is she going to shed light on larger obscurities? Sometimes it’s just demonstrably misleading. It’s a little surprising that she describes herself as a ‘young mother’ when she was 43 years old. To say it was a ‘total mystery’ how the Parliament Square protestor Steve Bray ‘managed to live in one of the most expensive houses in Westminster’ is dishonest: 30 seconds’ investigation shows that (no doubt misguided) crowd funders found £12,000 for an apartment for two months for him.

This writerly casualness with facts and expressions really matters: the account Dorries gives of the election, leadership and defenestration of Iain Duncan Smith after 2001 is completely unrecognisable. ‘I stood at the side and listened to Iain’s “quiet man” speech. The speech was fantastic.’ But it suits her pre-decided narrative of a terrible conspiracy-theory cheap thriller, as does so much of her reported dialogue. If you see things in linguistic clichés, and clichés of genre, you may be missing a good deal. ‘“All very mysterious,” I interjected.’ Reality is sad and confusing and mixed in motivation, with few total villains or heroes, but writing about it needs a certain dedication to the craft, and to listening. 

Better writers and more serious investigators will go into this tumultuous period, describing genuine triumphs – Johnson’s support of Zelensky’s resistance – as well as conspicuous failures. As a contributor to that historical knowledge, Nadine Dorries will be negligible.