Cabinet Reshuffle: Writer of political fiction appointed deputy chairman

Michael Dobbs, author of the compellingly cynical novels House of Cards and To Play the King and a new Tory party deputy chairman, is an experienced backroom operator who first arrived at Central Office in 1975 when the party was in opposition, writes Will Bennett.

He became chief-of-staff to Lord Tebbit when he was party chairman, but committed the potentially fatal political sin of falling out with Baroness Thatcher, due to a lack of personal chemistry compounded by his frankness in telling her that she could lose the party the 1987 election.

After leaving Central Office, he went on a post-election holiday with his wife Amanda, and was, in his own words, 'being pompous' about a novel he was reading. She challenged him to do better - House of Cards, centred around Francis Urquhart, a ruthless government chief whip, was the result.