Serial plotter who never seems far from a conspiracy – and is now full of regret (and self-pity)
WEDnESDAy at Westminster and Tory WhatsApp groups were in meltdown. It had just been revealed that MPs, staffers and journalists had been caught up in a humiliating cyber honeytrap.
One name in particular came up again and again in conversations, as MPs feverishly speculated about which of their colleagues was at the centre of the scandal.
now we know it to be William Wragg, the portly and openly gay MP for Hazel Grove in Greater Manchester, after he outed himself in a newspaper interview yesterday.
In a monumental mea culpa dripping with self-pity, Wragg, 36, confessed he had shared intimate photographs with a stranger he met on the gay dating app Grindr. Incredibly, he also confirmed that he had meekly allowed himself to be ‘coerced’ into handing over the names and telephone numbers of unsuspecting colleagues who were targeted in turn by the same shadowy figure, using the pseudonym ‘Charlie’ or ‘Abi’.
Wragg claimed he was ‘scared’ that the man ‘had compromising things on me’ but few Tory MPs I spoke to yesterday had a shred of sympathy for him.
In a withering put-down, the former Tory culture secretary nadine Dorries spoke for many when she said: ‘William Wragg is not a victim. He is a dangerous player. He has been involved in every conspiracy against every Tory leader since he became an MP in 2015.’
Indeed, amid the intital speculation about the honeytrap scandal, it was Wragg’s name that came up in Tory circles because he never seems far from conspiracies. He wears his sexuality on his sleeve and is rumoured to spend much of his time with the 20 or so gay Tory MPs in the Commons: there is a long- standing joke among political commentators that he never returns calls to female journalists.
A serial plotter, he was implicated in the failed coup attempt earlier this year against the Labour Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay Hoyle. Wragg triggered a Commons confidence motion after Hoyle was accused of accepting Labour leader Keir Starmer’s entreaties not to call a vote on a ceasefire in Gaza, because it would have exposed serious divisions in his party’s ranks.
Wragg also was one of the first to announce he’d lodged a no-confidence letter during the short-lived premiership of Liz Truss.
But, more significantly, he was one of the first Tory MPs to call for Boris Johnson to quit over the so-called ‘parties’ at Downing Street during lockdown, despite being among a small minority of Tories who opposed lockdowns.
In 2022, when his demand for Boris to quit was ignored, he went further, alleging the whips, who are in charge of party discipline, were blackmailing backbench MPs into staying loyal to Boris.
Even Boris’s enemies were appalled at his unfounded claims that the unnamed whips were threatening to withhold public investment in rebel MPs’ constituencies or to release details of their private lives on social media if they didn’t back the Prime Minister
Wragg took his lurid allegations to the police who took no action when MPs refused to corroborate them. But it was a gift for Labour, who used the smears to weaponise their attacks on Boris.
One outraged Boris loyalist told me: ‘Wragg was scheming against Boris from day one. He was a Brexiteer but got no ministerial preferment under Boris because he wasn’t good enough. He was not up to the pressures of ministerial office. He helped bring down Boris and now he has plunged the party into a another sex scandal.
‘Once again the agenda is Tory sleaze because of the reckless conduct of an obscure MP most people have never heard of.’
Wragg, a former councillor, was elected to parliament in Hazel Grove in 2015 when he was 27.
One of the youngest MPs, I’m told he often cut a lonely figure at Westminster. Living away from home, with few friends in the Tory parliamentary party, he returned to stay at his parents’ home when visiting his constituency at weekends. He took time off in 2022, suffering from depression.
In a statement on Twitter titled ‘Banishing the black dog’, he explained: ‘ I have lived with depression and anxiety for most of my adult life. At the moment, both are severe.’
This perhaps explains why some of his colleagues always feared he was vulnerable — and a target for potential blackmailers.
But soon enough, Wragg was sucked into the trap of self-importance and entitlement that affects so many MPs. The political world, of course, has always attracted young men and women who lust after power and influence.
When Wragg was elected vice chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs — the so-called ‘men in grey suits’ — his already puffed-up selfimportance exploded.
In January 2020 he became chairman of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee whose remit is to improve the operation of the civil service. Only last month he was revelling in his role as one of the select committee chairmen who quizzed Rishi Sunak.
‘He has become insufferable,’ said one Tory MP.
The political ramification of Wragg’s lack of judgment will be felt within the Tory p arty for years to come.
In 1997, after the Tories had been in power for 18 years, John Major’s administration was buffeted by a string of sex scandals which added to the sense of a party in terminal decay.
There are close parallels to be drawn with today’s Conservative government as, once again, the government’s agenda has been sunk by sleaze allegations.
Some months ago Wragg announced he was standing down at the next election, which was no surprise. With the polls pointing to the Tories’ worst election result since 1906 his 4,400 majority will be buried in the likely Labour landslide. But there are plenty in the Tory party who think he must step down immediately.
One senior gay Tory MP telephoned me to complain bitterly about Wragg after he handed over his colleagues’ telephone numbers to his blackmailer. ‘He’s let down everyone,’ he said. ‘The finger of suspicion is pointing at all of us. People are asking which one of us recklessly sent intimate photos to a stranger on a gay dating app.
‘ I’m already getting abusive messages on social media suggesting it’s me and it absolutely isn’t. Wragg has shown how unsuited he is to being an MP. When he realised he was being set up he should have gone immediately to the police.
‘After all, he went to the police with those stories about Downing Street using the whips to black
Wragg was sucked into a trap of self-importance
‘There should be no wall of sympathy’
mail MPs over Boris. He was never off the TV with his accusations. But on a crucial issue affecting the safety and security of his colleagues he stays silent. He could have prevented many more of his colleagues being targeted.
‘He could have been the hero of the hour. His weasel words of apology don’t wash.
‘What he has done will be causing lots of heartache for MPs, their staff and their families. I’m glad he’s standing down. But I still think he should be suspended and if there’s a by-election, so be it. We will lose it but it will be worth it to see the back of him.’
nigel Farage, the former Brexit Party leader, made the same point: ‘William Wragg has been a fool. He has been conned online by a blackmailer. There should be no wall of sympathy. He has given out personal phone numbers to a blackmailer. That is unforgivable.’
Last year Wragg, in a self-serving statement about former ministers and the revolving door between Whitehall and the commercial sector, declared they had to have a ‘ robust system in place to uphold standards’. He said there should be proper sanctions for those who break the rules.
Why doesn’t he take his own advice and resign today?