Nadine Dorries

Nadine Dorries in 2017

Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2021 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire from 2005 until August 2023. As a backbench MP, she campaigned to reduce the time limit after which an abortion cannot be legally performed. During November 2012, Dorries participated in I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without the permission of her party's chief whip leading to her suspension from membership of the Conservative Party for six months.

Quotes

2007–2014

• On the pro-life side of the fence, the public takes little notice of those who want to abolish abortion. They are dismissed as extremists. If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles because one person’s opinion is as valid as another's.
  My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit.
• I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use.
  • "The War Cry" The War Cry (No. 6812, 2 June 2007), pp. 4–5
  • The War Cry is the official newspaper of The Salvation Army.

• If we were in government and David [Cameron] didn't give me a front bench position, I would barricade myself inside his office until he did.
• I started blogging because I believe my constituents, who pay me, have a right to know what I get up to in Westminster. Many MPs are so secretive about how they spend their time but I say b******s to that.
  • "The Tories' Nadine Dorries: Bridget Jones, MP" The Telegraph (4 November 2007).

• Do you know the people who have no voice in this country? Who are never written about, who journalists never talk about? The mums. Mums who decide that they will give up their careers and stay at home and look after their children.
• [In the 2005–2010 parliament, it was] very difficult to talk about the family unit, and to talk about mothers and children . . . as the foundation of society, because it was seen as a very unsexy, untrendy thing to do and the opposite of what a woman should be doing.
  • From an interview for "The mom supremacy", New Statesman (5 October 2010).

• My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact. It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.
  • According to statement in documents released by the standards and privileges committee of the House of Commons, as cited in "Nadine Dorries says her MP's blog was '70% fiction'" The Guardian reprinting a Press Association release (21 October 2010).

• Unfortunately, I think that not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don't know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others - and that is their real crime.
  • Commenting on Daily Politics about Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (23 April 2012), as cited in "MP Dorries calls PM and chancellor 'arrogant posh boys'" BBC News (23 April 2012). Asked by the Financial Times earlier in 2012, she had said the government was "being run by two public school boys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunch boxes. What's worse, they don't care either."

• Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords].
  • Comment in article published on the CosnservativeHome website (6 May 2012).

• Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor... using your own front teeth. Do you get that?
  • Tweet sent to Ben Glaze, a journalist on the Sunday Mirror newspaper, reported by Darren Boyle "Tory MP tells Sunday Mirror reporter 'I'll nail your balls to the floor' in Twitter rant", Press Gazette (24 November 2013).

• [On relaxed EU restrictions on immigration from Bulgaria and Romania] There has been no tidal wave but there might be tomorrow, there might be next year - we don't know – and that is the problem.
  We could have a tidal wave from Yugoslavia.
  • On Question Time (9 January 2014), as cited in "Nadine Dorries warns of a 'tidal wave' of immigrants from Yugoslavia - which no longer exists" The Independent (10 January 2014).
  • Yugoslavia disintegrated during the 1990s

2018–present

• This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner.
  • On Theresa May’s Brexit deal; quoted in "Leave-voting MP Nadine Dorries slams May's Brexit deal because UK won’t have seats in European parliament", The Independent (17 November 2018).

• [On the question of privatising Channel 4, later an abandoned policy] I would argue that to say that just because Channel 4's been established as a public service broadcaster, and just because it's in receipt of public money, we should never kind of audit the future of Channel 4 and we should never evaluate how Channel 4 looks in the future, and whether or not it's a sustainable and valuable model, it’s quite right that the Government should do that.
  • During a meeting of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (24 November 2021), as cited in "Nadine Dorries flails when presented with Channel 4 funding questions" The National (24 November 2023).
  • Channel 4 is publicly owned, but is funded by advertising, not the television licence fee or other means levied by the government.

• I can personally tell you that the Prime Minister, when he stands at the despatch box and makes quotes like the one you just quoted, is because the researchers and his advisers will have given him that quote, and that's... and he was truthful, to the best of his knowledge, when he made that quote [...]
  The Prime Minister does tell the truth.
  • Interview on Times Radio (5 February 2022), as cited in "Boris Johnson tells truth 'to the best of his knowledge' - Nadine Dorries" The Scotsman (5 February 2022).

• [On how well Channel 5 was doing] they were privatised a small number of years ago, three years ago, five years ago maybe.
  • Interview on LBC (28 April 2022), as cited in "Nadine Dorries Channel 5 gaffe shows 'ignorance' of her own brief" The National (29 April 2022).
  • Channel 5, which began broadcasting in 1997, has always been a television station outside the public sector.

• There is a process and the last thing I would want to do would be to cause a by-election in my constituency.
  • Interview with TalkTV (9 June 2023), as cited in "Nadine Dorries standing down as MP with 'immediate effect' triggering by-election", Sky News (9 June 2023).
  • Four hours after these comments, Dorries announced her intention to resign as an MP "with immediate effect", but did not so formally until 26 August (see below).

• It is my belief that when Rishi Sunak told Boris Johnson he would sign off the list returned to him by Holac, he was using weasel words [...] He already knew who was and wasn't on that list because he had engineered it via his aide [James] Forsyth.
  I'm not going to lie. I believe sinister forces conspired against me and have left me heartbroken - but that emotion gives me all the strength I need to keep on fighting.
  • From a column in the Daily Mail, as quoted in "Nadine Dorries claims 'sinister forces' were behind House of Lords snub" Sky News (13 June 2023).
  • On being denied the peerage for which Johnson nominated her in his resignation honours.

• This expert legal opinion shows that the inquiry was a biased, Kafkaesque witch hunt – it should now be halted before it does any more damage. (Daily Mail, 1 September 2022).
• [T]hey [the privileges committee] have nothing. He protested his innocence all along and he was right. It was a gross miscarriage of justice, at the very least. (Twitter, 3 March 2023).
• I don’t think there was ever a world in which this committee was going to find Boris innocent. The committee have demonstrated very clearly that they have decided early on to find him guilty. (TalkTV, 23 March 2023).
• [W]e also need to keep a close eye on the careers of the Conservative MPs who sat on that committee. Do they suddenly find themselves on chicken runs into safe seats? Gongs? Were promises made? We need to know if they were. Justice has to be seen to be done at all levels of this process. (Twitter, 15 June 2023).
  • Comments concerning the House of Commons' Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson as reproduced in the privileges committee report on other parliamentarian's conduct during the Johnson investigation, as cited in "The remarks that got these Johnson allies in hot water with the Partygate committee" ITV News (29 June 2023).
  • "Gongs" is a British colloquialism for knighthoods and other honours awarded in the New Year and Birthday honours lists; "chicken runs" is a reference to rubber chicken dinners reputedly served at Conservative Association dinners when the party's new parliamentary candidates are in the process of being selected. Dorries, six other Conservative MPs and a member of the House of Lords were accused of placing "improper pressure" on the MPs investigating Boris Johnson.

• I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call.
• It is a modus operandi established by your allies which has targeted Boris Johnson, transferred to Liz Truss and now moved on to me. But I have not been a Prime Minister. I do not have security or protection. Attacks from people, led by you, declared open season on myself and the past weeks have resulted in the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person.
  Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved? You hold the office of Prime Minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs. You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?
• It is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, Blair or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you.
  • Extracts from letter to Rishi Sunak formally resigning as an MP, as cited in "Nadine Dorries' resignation letter in full - as she accuses Rishi Sunak of whipping up a 'public frenzy' against her", Sky News (26 August 2023)
  • Dorries announced her intention to resign as an MP "with immediate effect" on 9 June 2023, but did not so formally until 26 August. In the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, the other candidate Penny Mordaunt failed to gain sufficient nominations. It was claimed Boris Johnson could have gained sufficient nominations from MPs to stand for election as leader (the electorate being Conservative Party members), but decided not to do so. Sunak gained the public declarations of support from more than 50% of Conservative MPs.

About Dorries

In alphabetical order by author or source.

• [As the Conservative candidate for Mid-Bedfordshire in 2005] The circumstances of this selection are disputed: Dorries has since claimed that the candidate shortlist was made up mostly of men, whereas contemporary reports say it was largely women. This is noteworthy because, before she was selected, Dorries advocated all-women shortlists, but after her election she criticised David Cameron when he floated the idea of using them.
  Changing her mind has been a feature of Dorries's political career. She argued and voted against gay marriage, for example, dismissing it as a policy pursued "by the metro elite gay activists". She has since said that her opposition to the gay marriage bill was her "biggest regret".
• There is perhaps an element of the unreliable narrator about the part-time novelist.
  • Andrew Anthony "‘She often speaks without thinking’: Nadine Dorries, our new minister for culture wars" The Observer (31 October 2021).
  • Published shortly after Dorries was appointed Culture Secretary by Boris Johnson.

• As complex as it is to calibrate how much Dorries can take credit for normalising extreme MP moonlighting, ... her achievement in juggling political duties with the relentless production of novels, a third career on TalkTV and a fourth one as a Daily Mail columnist, looks almost uniquely harsh on affected constituents. Her website features, in the absence of surgery dates and political content, promotions of her TV slots and books. Add to that her all-purpose put-down (her own money being proletarian) of "posh boys", her employment on the public payroll of two daughters, her loyalty to the groper and wife-beater Stanley Johnson and a sideline in aggressive and misleading tweets, and you can almost understand Dorries’s incredulity on being finally, after all that, thwarted. At the point she was denied her peerage, she hadn't even been condemned by the privileges committee for her part in an "unprecedented and coordinated" attack on its members!
  • Catherine Bennett "Nadine Dorries vowed to do her best for her constituents. In resigning, she has succeeded", The Observer (26 October 2023).
  • The Commons Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson found, in a report dated 29 June 2023, seven Conservative MPs (including Dorries) and a peer to have made "unprecedented and coordinated" attempts to interfere with the committee's work. See the extracts from the ITV News report (29 June 2023) cited above.

• It has now been 395 days since the MP spoke in the Commons, 102 days since she voted and a remarkable three years and five months since she held a surgery — though her local office has continued to function. In that time, one pandemic and two prime ministers have been defeated. In addition, Dorries is reported to live 100 miles away from her constituency, in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
• "The slide" began in 2012, after Dorries' appearance on I'm a Celebrity, when eating ostrich anus seemingly went to her head.
  • Siân Boyle "Where is Nadine Dorries? On the hunt for the elusive MP", The Sunday Times (5 August 2023).
  • Dorries had announced her resignation as an MP 58 days earlier but, at this stage, had not submitted the formal letter of resignation needed to permit a by-election to be called in her constituency

• Nadine Dorries has exposed the split in the Conservative party between vulgarity and conformity. The decision of the MP for Mid Bedfordshire to go on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! is an astonishingly rude attack on the well-bred, self-controlled establishment headed by David Cameron.
  • Andrew Gimson "Nadine Dorries: brave Tory rebel or a self-serving stunt woman?" The Observer (11 November 2012).

• Let us examine first the case of the Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who was cleared last month by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner of wrongly claiming some £60,000 in second-home allowances. Central to Dorries's defence was her assertion that she spent the bulk of her time in her old house in the Cotswolds (billed as her primary home) rather than her Bedfordshire constituency, which she stated was her secondary residence (and, therefore, allowable for expenses). Here, though, Dorries ran into an apparently insuperable problem: she had incriminated herself in her blog by giving the strong impression that she spent the majority of her time in Bedfordshire. Miss Dorries got around this difficulty by informing the parliamentary standards commissioner [about her blog being "70 per cent fiction and 30 per cent fact...".]
• In other words, her blog was, for the most part, a lie, designed to give constituents the impression that she was doing her duty as a diligent MP in Bedfordshire when actually she was in another part of the country altogether. This is a wretched state of affairs and if David Cameron were a Tory leader who valued integrity and honesty, he would surely have ordered Miss Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then. Instead, he has done nothing.
  • Peter Oborne "Our Parliament is rotten to the core" The Telegraph (12 November 2010).