[1] In 2013, the serial and the Dobbs novel were the basis for an American television adaptation set in Washington, D.C., commissioned and released by Netflix.

Michael Dobbs began working for the Conservative Party in 1977, and from 1986 to 1987, served as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Chief of Staff.

While sitting beside a swimming pool in Malta, Dobbs scribbled the letters "FU" and a drawing of two raised middle fingers on a piece of a paper.

"[7] Dobbs insists that it is not a "book of revenge", but "most of the stuff I put into House of Cards was material from events I'd either seen, or participated in, or done, or watched other people do.

Francis Urquhart, an MP and the Government Chief Whip in the House of Commons, is secretly contemptuous of the well-meaning but weak Collingridge, but expects a promotion to a senior position in the Cabinet.

After Collingridge is ultimately forced to resign, Urquhart then eliminates his enemies in the resulting leadership contest by means of fabricated scandals that he sets up himself or publicizes.

His remaining rival, Environment Secretary Michael Samuels, is alleged by the press to have supported far-left politics as a university student.

Prior to the final ballot, Urquhart murders the party's drug-addicted and increasingly unstable public relations consultant, Roger O'Neill, whom he forced into helping him to remove Collingridge from office.