Michael Dolley, globetrotting ‘comms’ expert whose work took him to Iraq, Somalia and Kenya as well as Tory campaigns across Britain – obituary He was brought up as a Catholic Unionist in Belfast, son of a scholar of coinage who claimed descent from medieval Irish king Brian Boru Dolley in northern Iraq, 2018 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).