Michael Dobbs was born on the same day, in the same hour as Prince Charles in 1948.

He is the son of nurseryman Eric and his wife Eileen Dobbs and was educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford University. After graduating in 1971 he moved to the United States.

In the USA he attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, which he funded by a job as feature writer for the Boston Globe, where he worked as an editorial assistant and political feature writer from 1971 to 1975.

He graduated in 1975 with an M.A., M.A.L.D., and PhD in nuclear defence studies. His doctoral thesis was published as SALT on the Dragons Tail. In 2007 he returned to Tufts where he gave the Alumni Salutation.

After gaining his PhD he returned to England and began working in London for the Conservative Party. He was an advisor to the then leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, from 1977 to 1979 and from 1979 to 1981 he was a Conservative MP speechwriter.

He served as a Government Special Advisor from 1981 to 1986 and he survived the Brighton Bombing in 1984 at the Conservative Party Conference. He was the Conservative Party Chief of Staff from 1986 to 1987.

He was considered a masterful political operator and was called Westminster’s baby-faced hit man, by The Guardian in 1987. In the John Major government, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1994 to 1995, after which he retired from politics.

Outside of politics, he worked at Saatchi & Saatchi as Deputy Advertising Chairman from 1983 to 1986 and was Director of Worldwide Corporate Communications at the company from 1987 to 1988. He became Deputy Chairman, working directly under Maurice Saatchi from 1988 to 1991.

From 1991 to 1998 he was a columnist for The Mail on Sunday and also wrote column for the Daily Express. From 1998 to 2001 he hosted the current affairs program Despatch Box o