Boris Johnson was on his way to a dangerous meeting. It was a Wednesday afternoon and he had just finished Prime Minister’s Questions, which is normally the worst bit of any leader’s week. But as he walked back into Downing Street, Johnson gripped a memo from his advisers preparing him for an even worse encounter. They were worried that the man who wanted to meet him was going to try to get others out of the room so it was just the two of them. Do not let him do this, the note urged.

This briefing, photographed when Johnson inadvertently left it on view as he returned to Number 10 in May 2020, was about me. Titled ‘Meeting with Sir Graham Brady’, it read: ‘Following an exchange between you and Graham, he has asked for a catch-up.

‘This is the first since December. It is important that at least the Chief [Whip] stays in the room – he will, as he has previously, seek to ensure that it is just the two of you.’

It went on to warn that ‘he will seek more regular meetings’, but insisted ‘don’t agree to anything’. The author was Ben Gascoigne, Johnson’s political secretary.

This was one of many memos to five different Conservative prime ministers that warned about the apparent dangers of meeting me.

For almost the entire span of the 14 years that my party was recently in government, I was chairman of the 1922 Committee, which, depending on your perspective, is either a sinister parliamentary cabal or, more prosaically, the forum for Conservative MPs to make their voices heard and ensure their leader understands them.

I was the one who watched their faces as the bad news hit them. I was the one who tried to persuade them not to pursue courses that I knew would tear the party apart – and the one who listened to their horror when they realised what they’d done. I understood their flaws, both from my dealings with them and from the way my colleagues would come to me with their complaints. And I was the one who announced – to pin-drop silence – the name of the next person who thought they would be up to the job of leading the Conservative Party.

I can’t say that when I took over as chairman I imagined Boris Johnson would get anywhere near Downing Street, let alone be warned not to meet me alone. By the point that he received that memo in 2020 I had dealt with two prime ministers and had arranged the replacement of one, too. I had seen them up close: sometimes with shoes off and their feet on the table in the case of David Cameron, at others clammy, tense or even tearful, like Theresa May.

Being chairman of the 1922 Committee is meant to be a role that’s mostly performed in the shadows and one thing I always managed to keep from view was the number of letters of ‘no confidence’ I had in my office safe, even though this was a regular preoccupation of the Conservative Party and the press throughout my tenure. The letters were from Conservative MPs calling for a vote of no confidence in the party leader. If a certain threshold was reached – 15 per cent of the Conservative Party in the Commons – then a vote had to be held. I was the only person who knew how many letters there were at any one time, and who they were from.

When I was first elected chairman in 2010, I decided that the only way I could do the job was to give nothing away at all about how many letters there were, regardless of how febrile the political climate was, or how many of my colleagues were attempting their own estimates. And I stuck to that. For 14 years, I kept entirely quiet about my discussions with the country’s leaders too, even the most dramatic or absurd ones. I didn’t reveal how full or empty my office safe really was at key moments. In other words, I was the model of discretion. Until now…

How Rishi Sunak’s downfall played out

Politics is a rough business, and it is harsh that Rishi Sunak faced an election campaign seeking to blame him for ‘14 years of Tory chaos’. If Sunak deserves criticism for anything it is for excessive caution. With no more than two years or so to steady the ship before an election, it seemed it was always his strategy to win back trust for his calm, competent economic management before cutting taxes.

Some of us pushed Sunak and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to move more quickly, but we will never know whether that course of action would have paid political dividends. Rishi was complimentary about my judgment, but he sought it less often than his four predecessors had.

After crushing by-election defeats in late 2023, there were reports that senior Tories that Sunak would replace Jeremy Hunt – rumours that never came to fruition

The political risks I encouraged him to take – such as ending the ban on new grammar schools or piloting the Sutton Trust’s ‘Open Access’ scheme (in which school fees are means-tested) – were resisted. Nonetheless, I would observe that not only is Rishi Sunak decent and competent, he also has rather less ego than is normal for a senior politician.

Attacks on Sunak for his wealth – suggesting it made him ‘out of touch’ – couldn’t have been more wrong. Those who have dealt with Rishi find him surprisingly normal. But maybe Rishi Sunak wasn’t enough of a politician: he made the mistake of being what people say they want, not what they actually vote for.

Reflecting on the five prime ministers with whom I have worked and the two before that, they have an odd mixture of qualities. Certainly, they are all driven by ambition and are all possessed of enormous and sometimes unjustified self-confidence. David Cameron, for example, thought he’d be ‘pretty good at [the top job]’.

Having been at the centre of the carousel which saw five leaders in eight years, people sometimes ask me whether the Conservative Party has become ‘ungovernable’. That certainly isn’t my experience. MPs think many times before calling for a confidence vote to be triggered. When the dam bursts, it has been in response to intense pressure and often considerable provocation: David Cameron chose to walk away. Theresa May went after losing her majority in an unnecessary election and then finding herself at the centre of an immovable Brexit logjam. Boris Johnson lost the trust of colleagues over Partygate and then his woeful handling of a sexual misconduct scandal. Liz Truss realised that her position had become untenable before there was even time to organise a confidence vote. Rishi Sunak went having failed to persuade the electorate that he was the change that they were looking for.

One problem with the system of using ‘letters’ to trigger a confidence vote is that the numbers must necessarily be kept confidential. In April 2024, the MP Simon Clarke briefed the press that ‘around 50’ letters of no-confidence in Rishi Sunak had been submitted. In fact, I had received nine. Most colleagues understood that, however frustrated they may have been, yet another change of leader would have made us look completely deranged.

I had, however, started to wonder whether Rishi was preparing for a summer election, even though I was advising him to go in October or November. My suspicions had first been raised in March when I was asked to fill in the necessary forms to go to the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Ten days later, a smattering of parliamentary knighthoods and damehoods were announced, and my suspicions intensified.

The fact that Rishi called an early election hardly suggested that he expected to turn around Labour’s lead during the campaign’

Then, a rumour started that if local election results were poor, Rishi would just walk away. I heard this from two different members of the lobby within a couple of hours. During a meeting with me soon after, leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt said: ‘I wouldn’t ask you… but if anything did happen.. if Rishi walked away after the local elections, I hope there is a plan for a calm transition?’

In my experience, when a vacancy arises there is normally a surfeit of candidates and I couldn’t see how such a transition would be assured. Then, in between votes on the Rwanda Bill, the former Home Office minister John Penrose asked me for my views on the Lascelles Principles: ‘If the PM asked His Majesty to grant a dissolution, do you think it could be stopped?’

I said that, so near to the end of the parliament, His Majesty would be bound to grant a dissolution. Penrose agreed. I assumed that he had been asked to sound me out on behalf of team Mordaunt.

‘Can we stop the prime minister from leading the Conservative Party to its destruction?’

The few months leading up to Sunak calling the election were marked by repeated scandals, by-elections and defections. The government had reached the point where it felt as though fortune was always against it – anything that could go either way would always go the wrong way.

On May 22, I was on my way to the London Wine Fair at Olympia, as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wine and Spirits (I know, tough work, but someone has to do it) when I received a call from Craig Williams, parliamentary private secretary to Sunak, asking whether I could take a call from the PM at 1pm. There was increasingly rampant speculation that an early election was about to be called. I started to wonder…

At 1pm Rishi rang. ‘Graham, I wanted you to know first, before I tell the Cabinet: I’ve seen the King and he has agreed to my request for a dissolution… I know that there is a case that we should wait until there has been more economic improvement but… I just think that the public isn’t going to engage with the arguments until they have to make a decision.’

He also told me that there would be a dissolution honours list and my peerage would be on that – so that it would be approved ‘while I am still prime minister’.

The fact that Rishi called an early election hardly suggested that he expected to turn around Labour’s lead during the campaign. There was clearly no point in repeating my argument that he should wait – the deed was done; His Majesty had already granted the requested dissolution of Parliament.

I sat with the Wine and Spirits Trade Association discussing their future programme of engagement, knowing that the events booked in Parliament for the next two months would all necessarily be cancelled. It was all coming to an end.

Returning to Parliament, I chaired the ’22 Executive, where we discussed the swirling rumours of an early election. Most colleagues thought it was madness to face the enemy machine guns from choice while their poll lead was so high. I tried my hardest to give nothing away until reports reached us that there was to be a statement by the PM outside Number 10.

Members of the Executive huddled, watching the statement from ‘Drowning Street’. On a small and distant screen, it looked at first like Rishi was wearing a very shiny suit – surely he wouldn’t be standing outside in a downpour? The words of Louis XV came to mind: ‘Après moi, le déluge.’

The action was now elsewhere. When the thinly attended meeting got back under way, I invited questions. Dame Andrea Leadsom rose to her feet with a question for me, drawing an envelope from her pocket and waving it in the air as though proclaiming peace for our time. She asked, in an astonishing intervention: ‘If enough of us submit letters to you calling for a vote of no confidence – can we stop the prime minister from leading the Conservative Party to its destruction?’

I replied: ‘Technically, I believe it would be possible to trigger a confidence vote, but given that His Majesty has already consented to the prime minister’s request for dissolution, the general election would still take place on July 4. This might not be seen as the most auspicious way for colleagues who are seeking re-election to commence their campaign.’

A rumour spread that Rishi had called the election because I had told him that he was about to face a confidence vote. I had given no such indication.

As we headed off towards the smoke of battle, there were 10 letters sitting in my safe.