Ellie Abraham
May 31, 2023
The Secret Tory
The person behind the popular Twitter parody account The Secret Tory has finally been revealed and it’s not who you might expect.
The Secret Tory Twitter account was started in April 2019 and has since gathered a following of almost 200,000 people by tweeting about the dire state of the government, even releasing a book last year.
Followers of the satirical account include people such as Gary Lineker, Gary Neville, James O’Brien and Dermot O’Leary.
The account has purported to be run by an “anonymous Conservative MP”, though, over the years, guesses from Twitter users have ranged from people in politics to high-profile comedians.
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Now, the identity of the person behind the account has been revealed as Henry Morris – a personal trainer from Yorkshire.
Who is Henry Morris?
In a bizarre clip posted on Twitter, Morris revealed his true identity saying he is the man who has been “amateurishly lampooning [the Conservative’s] proto-fascist antics”.
\u201cWho is the Secret Tory?\n\nAll is revealed in...\n\n The Tories!\u201d— THE SECRET TORY - OBE \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 (@THE SECRET TORY - OBE \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7) 1685519954
Speaking to the BBC, Morris explained how it all started, saying: “I inadvertently started parodying Mark Francois at the height of Brexit when I was bored between training clients in my gym.”
Morris continued: “It took on a life of its own almost immediately, I remember people in the gym laughing about the account without knowing it was me, and it was very nice to have my hunch confirmed that I could make people laugh.”
The account began life named Mark ne-Francois-pas, mocking the name of the Conservative MP Mark Francois. Other iterations saw it named Michael Govern Ready before becoming The Secret Tory.
It seems some were rather disappointed by the news that he is not actually a real politician.
One person replied to revelation: "Moral of the story, never trust a Tory real or fake."
\u201c@secrettory12 Moral of the story, never trust a Tory real of fake\u201d— THE SECRET TORY - OBE \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7 (@THE SECRET TORY - OBE \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7) 1685525364
Another said: "What a crock of s**te."
\u201cWhat a crock of shite.\u201d— antisyzygy@mastodonapp.uk (@antisyzygy@mastodonapp.uk) 1685521219
"To be fair - @secrettory12 does look like an MP. Just one from a suburb of a major Australian city…" another person suggested.
\u201cTo be fair - @secrettory12 does look like an MP. \n\nJust one from a suburb of a major Australian city\u2026\u201d— Krister Halvorsen (@Krister Halvorsen) 1685531367
Morris, who now lives in Wales, made a small apology to those who truly thought it was an anonymous MP mocking their own party.
He said: “If people are feeling cheated I'm not a real MP, I'd like to say I'm sorry. But I'm not. It's got a lot more to do with the behaviour of the people sitting in Westminster, than my skills as a con artist.”
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