Michael Dolley, globetrotting ‘comms’ expert whose work took him to Iraq, Somalia and Kenya as well as Tory campaigns across Britain – obituary

Michael Dolley, who has died from cancer aged 62, was a Conservative agent whose campaigns ranged from the Tory shires to Iraq, Kenya, and Somalia.

Michael John Edward Dolley was born in Kingston-upon-Thames on March 29 1959, the elder son of Dr Michael Dolley, director of the British Numismatic Society, and his wife Mary (née Harris).

His father, an expert on Anglo-Saxon coinage who claimed descent from the 11th-century Irish king Brian Boru, worked at the British Museum then moved the family to Belfast, where he became a professor at Queen’s University. Michael was brought up as a Catholic Unionist who cheered for Ireland in rugby, but England for cricket or football.

With quick wits and ebullient humour, Dolley could always charm his way out of trouble. Once, accosted in a Donegal pub about the “English rule of Ireland”, he disarmed his questioner with a pint of Guinness and a rendition of The Fields of Athenry.

Successive Tory leaders would draw on his first-hand experience of Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. In 1978, however, his father, who feared assassination, moved the family to Devon.

At the City of London Polytechnic, Dolley did not complete his degree – but played a lot of rugby, and joined the Federation of Conservative Students. He went on to serve with distinction in the Territorial Army.

He began his career as a Conservative Party agent working for the former diplomat Sir Ray Whitney in Wycombe, then for the MP Rupert Allason (the writer on espionage Nigel West) in Torbay. In 1993 he was appointed chief agent for the city of Birmingham, which then included three Conservative MPs.

Subsequently, in the era of “Back to Basics” and Tory electoral decline under John Major, he accepted a job heading the party’s elections unit – running campaigns including the 1997 Winchester by-election, when a disputed Lib Dem majority of two votes was turned into one of 21,556.

In opposition, he returned to the West Country, first in Bristol and Gloucestershire, then as director for the South West region. He also played a key role in the Crewe & Nantwich and Norwich North by-elections, avenging the defeats of the 1990s, and took particular pride in devising the first Conservative campaign in Gibraltar.

The branch he established there proved invaluable when he made the rare move from agent to candidate in 2009, standing for the European Parliament in the South West region, to which the Rock was appended. He was fourth on the list in a year when the Tories won just three MEPs, but campaigned vigorously, helping the party win a vote tally unsurpassed before or since.

In 1992 he married Lynda, a fellow Tory agent, with whom he had a son and daughter. Determined to give them the best education, he left Central Office and set up his own consultancy business, though he remained in demand as a Tory campaigner.

In 2016–17 he was called up to lead Andy Street’s campaign to become Mayor of the West Midlands, a stunning victory for which Dolley deservedly won credit.

Further afield he acted as a campaign adviser to President Rupiah Banda of Zambia, and twice for President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya. In 2018 he helped the Kurdistan Democratic Party to top the regional polls for elections to both the Iraqi and Kurdish parliaments.

In 2013 he was appointed project director for a joint UN/African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia and for 18 months led the biggest outsourced UN communications project in the world.

When one of his campaigns in Africa had cash-flow problems, he went months without payment while reaching into his own pocket to make sure the junior staff were remunerated.

Dolley’s marriage was dissolved. His children survive him.

Michael Dolley, born March 29 1959, died April 9 2021