Nadine Dorries is vindicating Sunak’s refusal to ennoble her

After waiting for months, Nadine Dorries has today served her resignation – as several MPs have done recently. But, enraged by Rishi Sunak’s refusal to put her in the House of Lords, she is also triggering a by-election which the Tories are highly likely to lose. In her letter, released in time for the Sunday newspapers, she makes some fair criticisms of Sunak. But the crux of it borders on delusional: a claim that Boris Johnson was forced out of office, even “assassinated“, by a small cabal of Sunak allies.

I was never wild about the idea of defenestrating Johnson. Sunak’s assessment that the Tory poll lead would soon recover was (to put it mildly) optimistic. But it wasn’t Sunak that brought Boris down. Sajid Javid was the first to resign that day, and so many ministers followed that Johnson was simply unable to find enough Tories willing to serve in his government.