Nadine Dorries

Nadine Dorries is the Culture Secretary.

Do accents still matter in politics?

14 min listen

The new MP for Kingswood has been under fire for apparently changing his accent over the course of his political career. Does this matter? And if so, what does this tell us about British politics today? Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and author and former cabinet minister, Nadine Dorries. Produced by Cindy Yu and

Why I should never look at Twitter

Foreign trips can offer a sense of perspective. Heading to Saudi Arabia, I prepare for my first stint of diplomacy. While most of the world has been fixated on Ukraine, a different subject has dominated the news in Britain for the past few weeks. I wonder how, if asked, I’d explain to a Saudi minister

Full text: Nadine Dorries’s scathing resignation letter

Nadine Dorries has just announced that she is stepping down as an MP. Below is the full text of her blistering resignation letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: Dear Prime Minister, It has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life to have served the good people of Mid Bedfordshire as their MP for

The Nadine Dorries Edition

46 min listen

Nadine Dorries is the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and MP for Mid Bedfordshire. After leaving school at 16, Dorries went on to become a nurse and an entrepreneur before entering politics at the age of 49. She was a minister in the Department of Health during the pandemic,

Diary – 29 November 2012

As I returned to the House of Commons, it was clear I had swapped one jungle for another. For the last few weeks I have been in Australia filming I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! and the Conservative leadership were less than impressed. In desperation to prevent me from taking part, No. 10

The Embryology Bill, cui bono?

A guest blog from Nadine Dorries, MP.  The Human Tissue and Embryology Bill will be the show of the year in Parliament. The amendments I and others will lay down to reduce the upper limit at which abortion takes place from 24 weeks will be controversial and explosive. I had been concerned that this debate

Abortion lobby on the back foot

On Wednesday the Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo MP (pictured), will be giving evidence to the Science and Technology Select Committee. She has already provided her answers to our assumed questions via The Independent newspaper this morning. I won’t even go there with regard to how this is simply an attempt to use the media to

David is ready

David looked so smart when he walked onto the stage with his hair slicked back, I thought he was going to break into a verse of Mack the Knife. He was the antithesis to Brown. Brown was big on spin, David huge on substance. Brown was stale and re-hashed, David fresh and new. He went

Not the way to warm up an audience

Standing in the press gallery waiting to go into the 5 Live bubble. Just finished BBC, Anglia and Sky. The BBC make up woman has made me look like the cookie monster!   Conservative conference goers are creatures of habit. They like to go into the auditorium in the morning, put their towel on a

The Night Before

We were finally served our dinner at 10.30 last night. Thank goodness I was with the Countryside Alliance who are good fun and tolerant. It was then onto the News International reception, which is the gossip reception of the conference and the only one it is impossible to get into unless you have been invited.

The quiet man roars

I am in the Hilton at a dinner hosted by the Countryside Alliance. There is someone I know on almost every table in the restaurant. Everyone is talking about the speech Iain gave tonight and absolutely everyone is talking about how the tears flooded their eyes and the hairs on the back of their neck

Told you so

I have tried so hard all day. I have kept myself distracted. Fully immersed in meetings and preparing for my fringe tonight. I forced myself not to look at the comment section on my blog – and then it happened, someone noticed and now I just can’t help myself. Here goes – I told you

Will Brown dare not go to the country?

Bumped into Baroness Peta Buscombe at the bar in the Imperial Hotel last night – Peta is the CEO of the Advertising Association. She told me that last week she had attended the Labour party conference, for business purposes only I hasten to add. I asked her how it had compared to our own conference.

Gordon lends the Tories a helping hand

This is such a good week. Commentators have said that Gordon has taunted us into announcing policies that we would have preferred to leave until later in the electoral cycle, whenever that may be. If he has, then he has done us a favour. Surely electoral success owes a great deal to getting the message

What I would do if I were Gordon

Everyone is very upbeat this morning, despite the fact that I have yet to speak to anyone who got to bed before three am. There is a real buzz that if Brown does call an election we have everything to fight for; especially if we close the poll gap this week following some good gritty

If the shoe fits

Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid-Bedfordhshire, will be blogging for Coffee House during conference. Heading for Blackpool. Slammed the boot of the car shut on far more luggage than any woman not obsessed with shoes would normally have, when my BlackBerry warbled with a couple of messages. First message was from my researcher which