Nadine Dorries: what's on her agenda for I'm a Celebrity?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/shortcuts/2012/nov/06/nadine-dorries-im-a-celebrity

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Ah, Nadine Dorries. In her ongoing bid to add to the gaiety of nations, it has been announced that the MP formerly known (somehow more fittingly) as Nadine Bargery is out in the Australian jungle, ready to compete on I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here. She decided to go because 16 million people watch the show, she says, and is looking forward to "lively, heated debates" about the abortion time limit around the campfire. But what other treats can fellow contestants – who include boxer David Haye, EastEnders star Charlie Brooks, comedian Brian Conley and former Doctor Who Colin Baker – expect from the tempestuous MP over their witchetty grubs? What will there be for them to look forward to after a day spent masticating a kangaroo's undercarriage? And will learning about Nadine's past and passions send prospective contestant, the inimitable Grace Jones, running for Sydney's blue mountains?

MPs expenses

At the height of the scandal in 2009, as the Daily Telegraph's revelations rolled out day after day, Dorries told the Today programme the newspaper was executing "almost a McCarthyite witch-hunt"; she had already suggested on her blog that "everyone fears a suicide". That blog came into sharp focus when her own expenses were investigated. The site gave the impression she spent most of her time in her Bedfordshire constituency – although she had designated this her secondary residence, which enabled her to claim expenses. She explained this to the parliamentary standards commissioner, who later cleared her of wrongdoing, by stating her 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." Later, she said this was a throwaway comment, and "the figure should have been the other way around". 30% factual? 70% fiction? Keep a close eye, viewers!

Christianity

Nadine has said she's "not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be ... I am just a conduit for God to use". All well and good. But she has also said she constantly tries "to do what Jesus would do", which conjures up the unlikely image of Christ in an alligator tank competing against Linda Robson from Birds of a Feather, while Ant and Dec cheer them on.

Abstinence

Despite evidence that US states that stress abstinence education have some of the highest levels of teenage pregnancy, Nadine last year called for this to be a key part of the British sex education curriculum, aimed particularly at girls. She justified this with much talk of how young kids are being shown to "apply" a condom to a banana. The bill was opposed by Labour MP Chris Bryant who called it "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen", impressively avoiding the quip, "absolute bananas".

Gay marriage

On the Conservative Home website earlier this year Nadine wrote that "gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin. I have yet to meet a gay couple in my constituency or beyond who support it; in fact, the reaction has been quite the opposite. Great Britain and its gay couples don't live on Canal Street in Manchester, shop in The Lanes in Brighton or socialise at [sic] Gaydar in London." Except for all those who do, of course. She went on to say the policy "is divisive, unpopular with the public" – while a YouGov poll published this year found 71% of people support it.

Elitism

In an act of jaw-dropping political harakiri, Nadine took to the BBC's Daily Politics earlier this year to say: "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 understand the lives of others – and that is their real crime." On The Andrew Marr Show, George Osborne replied that "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done". For once, few people could disagree with either MP.

Abortion

She has already said she wants to talk about her support for a 20-week abortion time limit while she's out in the jungle – but will she talk about the 13-week limit she favoured when I spoke to her about the issue in 2008? Or the nine-week limit that someone calling themselves Nadine Dorries while commenting on the Spectator website opted for? When it comes to Nadine, you just never know ...