Michael John Dobbs, Baron Dobbs (born 14 November 1948) is a British Conservative politician, media commentator and author, best known for his House of Cards trilogy. He has been a television and radio presenter and a senior corporate executive of Saatchi & Saatchi.
The Guardian called him "Westminster's baby faced hitman." The Mail on Sunday called him "Perhaps the cleverest man in the country". The Sunday Express said he was "a man who, in Latin America, would have been shot". He is the recipient of many public awards and nominations, including being a five-time Emmy Awards nominee.
Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of nurseryman Eric and Eileen Dobbs. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford.
After graduating from Oxford in 1971 with a third-class BA in philosophy, politics and economics, Dobbs moved to the United States. He attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1977 with MA, MALD, and PhD degrees. His doctoral dissertation on nuclear strategic arms control was published as China and SALT: Dragon Hunting in a Multinuclear World. In 2007, Dobbs gave the Alumni Salutation at Fletcher.
He has been a Senior Visiting Professor of International Relations at The Fletcher School, and a Parliamentary Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.
Michael Dobbs' writing career began in 1989 with the publication of House of Cards, the first in what would become a trilogy of political thrillers with Francis Urquhart as the central character; House of Cards was followed by To Play the King in 1992 and The Final Cut in 1994. In 1990, House of Cards was turned into a BBC television mini-series which received 14 BAFTA nominations and two BAFTA wins and was voted the 84th Best British Show in History. Netflix produced an American version based upon Dobbs's first novel and its BBC adaptation. He was an executive producer of the American series.
His novel Winston's War (2004) was shortlisted for the Channel 4 Political Book of the Year Award, and his Harry Jones novels, A Sentimental Traitor and A Ghost at the Door, for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year awards in 2013 and 2014, respectively. His novels are also published in the United States, China and many other countries.
In 2024 his novel The Lords' Day (2007) was chosen by Queen Camilla for inclusion in The Queen's Reading Room, where it was described as "An entirely gripping and amazingly authentic thriller about what happens when the State Opening of Parliament really doesn’t go to plan."
In March 2026 Netflix announced that it was starting production on a major television thriller series based on The Lords' Day, starring Damson Idris. Dobbs will be an executive producer.
In 2009 Dobbs' play, Turning Point, about the meeting between Winston Churchill and Soviet spy Guy Burgess was broadcast by Sky Arts TV, starring Matthew Marsh and Benedict Cumberbatch, and won a Broadcasting Press Guild Award.
Anthony Howard of The Times said "Dobbs is following in a respectable tradition. Shakespeare, Walter Scott, even Tolstoy, all used historical events as the framework for their writings. And, unlike some of their distinguished works, Dobbs's novel [Winston's War] is, in fact, astonishingly historically accurate".
Gyles Brandreth in the Sunday Express said "Michael Dobbs does for Westminster skulduggery what Agatha Christie did for the country house murder."
Dobbs has been a judge of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. He presented the Huw Wheldon Memorial Lecture in 2015 for the Royal Television Society and has lectured at dozens of literary and fundraising events around the world.
Primetime Emmy Awards, Nominee for Outstanding Drama Series (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
PGA Awards, Nominee for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama (2017)
International Churchill Society’s Blenheim Prize (2017)
Producers Guild of America Awards, Nominee for The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama (2016)
Online Film and Television Association Award, Nominee for Best Writing in a Drama Series (2014)