It’s just a few weeks left until Nadine Dorries’ successor is chosen by the good people of Mid-Bedfordshire. But the MP-turned-columnist shows no sign of going quietly, using her perch in the Mail to direct her ire at her onetime Tory colleagues. Today’s offering was another classic example. Headlined ‘I’ve seen how easy it is for hostile states to create spies in our midst’, it ended with a swipe at Alicia Kearns, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee – one of those linked to the alleged Chinese spy.
According to Dories, Kearns is ‘better-known as the ring leader of the so-called “Pork Pie Plotters” – named after her Melton Mowbray constituency – who, in 2022, sought to trigger the downfall of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.’ Her election as FAC chair last October ‘came as a surprise to many of us’, says Dorries, who adds:
Others, who were far more experienced and alert to the dangers from hostile powers — including the wise and knowledgeable Iain Duncan Smith — had stood unsuccessfully against her. Now the link between Kearns and the alleged spy — who apparently lobbied his extensive network to support her appointment — is raising more eyebrows in the Commons. Her appointment was a travesty. Now I fear that electing someone as inexperienced and, frankly, as unsuitable as Alicia to the role may well come back to haunt us.
Ouch. Dorries also writes entertainingly about how simple it is to penetrate parliament, basing her column on the experience of one ‘former colleague.’ She asks the reader to ‘imagine you are a 20-something researcher… most of your disposable income has been passed over the bar of the Two Chairmen pub in St James’s where, because you don’t know anyone in the capital, you spend your evenings drinking with other researchers.’ A sentence that, er, could equally apply to half of The Spectator’s editorial staff…
Steerpike is very much enjoying the musings of the former Culture Secretary and hopes she keeps it up in future. If only those of her fellow Mail columnist Boris Johnson were as engaging to read…
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