Nadine dorries

The parliamentary standards commissioner’s inquiry into Nadine Dorries’s appearance on I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here was evidently an eventful process. Here are the headlines from the report: 1). The standards committee, the cross-party panel of MPs which sanctions MPs after the standards commissioner has reported, ordered Dorries to apologise to the House of Commons for failing to declare earnings from the show. However, the commissioner said that Dorries’s failure to register her shareholding interest in a media consultancy company called Averbrook until June 2013 was an ‘inadvertent’ oversight. 2). Dorries said that she had to undertake media work because she was facing bankruptcy. She wrote to the commissioner, ‘As a single parent

I will fight for the rights of ordinary backbenchers! I make people admire this mother of all Parliaments once again! I am friendly with a sense of humour! I am professional! Each of the speeches given by the candidates for Deputy Speaker at hustings this afternoon consisted of this guff. As one candidate Gary Streeter said, this election is fought by ‘seven candidates, seven friends’. So, who is standing and who will MPs vote for? Eleanor Laing (33 per cent chance of winning) was keen to extol her passion for Parliament, stressing the need to make the Palace of Westminster open to the public, yet ensuring it remains a place

Normally you might lump Nigel Farage and Bill Cash together on the political spectrum. But today there wasn’t much love lost between them, judging by their almighty clash at a Bruges Group fringe today. The Ukip leader aimed both barrels at Cash, who had asked Farage not to fight Tories in marginal seats: ‘I have to say Bill, and I hate to say this, but listening to you this afternoon I’ve realised that you are a hopelessly, out of date tribal politician who has not recognised that British politics has fundamentally changed. ‘To ask me, to support a party lead by Mr Cameron, in order we can get back our

It’s not often you see Tory MPs celebrating anything, but on Monday a bunch of them were packed into an office high in Portcullis House to toast the rehabilitation of Nadine Dorries. Last autumn the Mid-Bedfordshire MP was suspended from the party after appearing on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! For six months she has been in limbo, unable to call herself a Tory. Last week, she was allowed back into the club. We met in the House of Commons after her bustling ‘Return of the Prodigal Daughter’ reception. Her fellow Tories, she says, are pleased she’s returned. Every day, she’s accosted by

Following Isabel’s revelation that the newly-reinstated Nadine Dorries will be pursuing an electoral pact with Ukip, Nigel Farage reveals he is open not just to Dorries’ advances but also those of other Conservative and Labour MPs. Speaking on this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Ukip leader says: ‘If Nadine Dorries’ association come to me and say they’ve passed a resolution, and they want her to run as a joint candidate in 2015, I will go and ask my local association how they feel but my inclination would be, why not? What on earth is wrong with doing this? ‘I would also say this could apply to other Tories too. It

MPs are having a party next week to celebrate the return of Nadine Dorries to the Tory fold. But as they pop champagne corks for the Prodigal Daughter, they might be wondering whether a similar drama could unfold with another of their number. Dr Sarah Wollaston appears to be growing increasingly angry with her party’s leadership, and isn’t afraid to say it in the press. She may be a very different Conservative to Dorries, but there’s a risk that she moves into the same open stand-off territory that led to her colleague flying to the jungle. Many observers wrongly assume that the trouble began when Dorries told Giles Dilnot that

Nadine Dorries has been given the Conservative whip back by Sir George Young, Coffee House can exclusively reveal. Sources in the Tory party tell me that the MP, who was suspended in November for appearing on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, has just been told she can now return from exile. This is a huge relief for many Conservative MPs, who have been growing increasingly worried that the continuing absence of the Tory whip was beginning to look vindictive and sexist, and risked pushing the Mid-Bedfordshire MP into the arms of UKIP. As David Davis argued this weekend, Nadine Dorries is a working

Fresh from the jungle, Nadine Dorries is the Spectator’s diarist for this week. As well as observing that each of her 11 fellow contestants on I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! was ‘probably more right wing than I am’, she also explains why she thought it was acceptable for a ‘working class woman to take a few parliamentary days off’ to go on the show, writing: Many MPs take jollies from the House of Commons, but in seven years I have never spent a day away from my Westminster duties. This is why I thought I would be allowed to devote a few days of my holiday to

Nadine Dorries has returned to the UK today, with a meeting between the first evictee of I’m a Celebrity: Get me Out of Here! and the chief whip due soon. Will she remain suspended from the Tory party? Dorries has already rehearsed some of the arguments she presumably plans to present to Sir George Young on her Twitter feed and in an interview with Fraser at the weekend, arguing that she only missed three days when Parliament was actually sitting, and listing other MPs who have taken more time away. She expects to have the Conservative whip restored to her now she has returned. The whips face a huge challenge

Let me salute Nadine Dorries’s principled ambition to bring I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here to a wider audience. For too long this edifying documentary series, which sheds light on the concerns of real voters, has been closed to Westminster’s lumpen commentariat; but no more: by inviting Nadine on the show, ITV has signalled its intention to stop treating MPs, lobbyists and political hacks as if they don’t exist. We do exist and we’ll be following our plucky heroine as she meets the challenges of the rainforest. We’ll be voting as well. (Many times, of course: fixing polls is one of our specialities.) Ms Dorries’ career is being closely monitored by

Tory sources have confirmed that Nadine Dorries has had the whip withdrawn until she returns to Westminster to explain to the chief whip why she has gone on ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!’ Her constituency association was shocked by the revelation, which appeared in this morning’s papers, and a number of Conservative MPs have been suggesting she should resign as an MP. Dorries’ justification is that the programme reaches a far wider audience than Parliament usually does, but this is the latest in a long string of what teachers might call ‘challenging behaviour’ from the Tory MP. David Cameron and colleagues will not be well-disposed to her