In a book filled with startling claims, former chief whip Simon Hart has recounted surreal moments from the ailing Conservative government’s final months.
Serialised in The Times, it covers orgies, Matt Hancock’s abrupt departure to the I’m a Celebrity... jungle, a Tory MP becoming stuck in a brothel, and the various misconduct scandals that engulfed members of Rishi Sunak’s government.
Hart was the Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from 2010 to 2024, and his diary covers the final 21 months of Tory leadership before the party’s crushing defeat at the last general election.
Here are the most bizarre takeaways from his book, ‘Ungovernable’:
Tory MP asks to be rescued from a brothel
Hart recalls that, just one month into the job, an MP elected in 2019 called him at 2.45am to report that he was in a brothel with a woman he suspected was a Russian agent.
Hart recounts the MP telling him: “I met a woman as I left the Carlton Club who offered me a drink, but I now think she is a KGB agent. She wants £500 and has left me in a room with 12 naked women and a CCTV.”
After discussing the issue with a special adviser, Hart sent the MP a taxi to return him to his hotel, before receiving a second call at 4.10am in which he was told that the taxi driver was an “Afghan agent” who had asked for £3,000 for a sex act.
Sunak appoints a ‘f***ing useless’ minister
In his diaries, Hart says Rishi Sunak appointed a minister to his cabinet during a reshuffle despite saying: “Let’s all agree about one thing. She is f***ing useless but we can’t get rid of her.”
He also criticises the minister for failing to appreciate her new role, writing: “[She] is less grateful than her promotion deserves and more entitled than professionals should be when selected by the PM for high office.”
Hart does not disclose the name of the minister, but only three women were promoted to the cabinet or given enhanced briefs during the February reshuffle.
Kemi Badenoch, now the Tory leader, was handed business brief on top of her role as international trade secretary, while Michelle Donelan was promoted to become science and technology secretary.
Lucy Frazer was promoted to culture secretary, having previously been housing minister.
Senior married MP makes sexual comment to journalist
Hart recounts being told that in February 2023, while at dinner at the Hurlingham Club, a senior married MP got “a bit fruity” with a journalist and suggested that her “dress would look better discarded on my bedroom floor”.
Boris Johnson asks to ‘kill off’ Harriet Harman report
When Hart informed Boris Johnson that Harriet Harman was to publish her privileges committee report, which would recommend he be subject to a 20-day suspension, the former PM asked if there was a way to “kill off the report or at least vote it down”, the book claims.
“In any normal circumstances, a former PM asking for special treatment would be a big deal, but this being Boris, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” writes Hart. “Worryingly, it doesn’t even annoy me that much either.”
Upon being reminded that it was he himself who had set up this process and accepted Harman as its chair, Johnson replied: “But I was in India and I wasn’t concentrating. I left it all to the whips.”
Special adviser defecates on someone’s head
Hart reports that, on Halloween 2023, a special adviser went to an orgy and another employee dressed up as prolific paedophile Jimmy Savile.
“Among today’s HR joys is the report that a departmental Spad went to an orgy over the weekend and ended up taking a crap on another person’s head,” he writes.
“To make matters worse, in a separate incident a House employee went to a party dressed as Jimmy Savile and ended up having sex with a blow-up doll, for which he has been subsequently dismissed. Just another day at the office, I guess.”
Suella Braverman launches ‘ghastly’ 10-minute rant
Hart claims that, upon her sacking in November 2023, the former home secretary launched a “ghastly 10-minute diatribe of vindictive and personal bile” while on loudspeaker.
“It’s hard to know how to react at moments like this, or where to look. Part of me feels that this is a private call and that we are all eavesdropping, but the other part realises that for the protection of the PM and the government there needs to be a note taken and a record saved,” he writes.
“So, we sit in astonished silence, doing our best not to grimace, smile or give any indication of what we feel.”
