Nadine Dorries
Nadine Vanessa Dorries (née Bargery; born 21 May 1957)[2] is a British Conservative politician serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2019, and has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005. She is considered to be on the political right of the Conservative Party.[3]
Born in Liverpool, she began work as a trainee nurse and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to the UK, she founded Company Kids Ltd; which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998.
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election as MP for the safe Conservative seat of Mid-Bedfordshire, with a majority of 11,355 votes. She has introduced several unsuccessful Private Member's Bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education.
She is an opponent of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, and attempted to have him removed from the post. She also clashed with the former party leader, David Cameron, describing him and George Osborne as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2008, Dorries won The Spectator magazine's Readers' Representative Award,[4] and in 2012 she was voted best MP on Twitter by the politics.co.uk website.[5]
On 6 November 2012, she was suspended from the parliamentary Conservative Party owing to her decision to take part in reality TV programme, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! without informing the Chief Whip.[6] The Conservative Party whip was returned to Dorries on 8 May 2013[1] and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.[7]
On 10 March 2020 she became the first British MP to test positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Early life
Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool. Her father was a bus driver who became a lift operator having suffered from Raynaud's disease.[9] Her father was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent, while her mother was an English Protestant. She was raised as a Protestant.[10] She was raised in Anfield, Liverpool, and educated at Rose Heath Primary School[11] and Halewood Grange Comprehensive School,[12][13] before her family moved to Runcorn.[11] She grew up on a council estate. She entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital.[14]
According to an interview with The Times in 2014, her parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.[9] From 1978–1981, she was a nurse in Warrington, near Liverpool, and Liverpool according to a 2009 report.[15] Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse.[14] She left the Merseyside area after she married Paul Dorries, a mining engineer.
In 1982, she became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84)[14] as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine.[16] Dorries founded Company Kids Ltd in 1987 which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.[14]
As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the Prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove in Spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August[17] before being centrally imposed. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes.[18] Dorries worked for three years[19] as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, then Shadow Chancellor, including managing his relations with the media.[13]
Selection and all-women shortlists
In 2009, she gave this account of her 2005 selection:
"Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place."[20]
Dorries's account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which The Times ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:
"Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point."[21]
In a debate on Woman's Hour, broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change.[22] In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of David Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."[20]
Parliament of 2005–2010
Entering parliament
Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid-Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed, with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005.[23] She was re-elected in 2010, with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Lib Dems.[24]
Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative",[25] is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group.[26] A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "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."[27]
Dorries initially supported the attempt of David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005[28] but later withdrew her endorsement.[29] David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of."[30] In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools.[31] However, she did defend the selection of Elizabeth Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.[32]
Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee. In the year to November 2008, she attended only 2% of sessions.[33] The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session.[34] In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.[35]
Abortion time limits
Dorries has said she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions,[16][36] an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.[37]
On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period.[38][39] Dorries alleged she had received death threats from pro-choice activists and was given police protection.[39] Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.[40]
In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams[41] then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship,[42] Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries.[43] According to Guardian journalist Kira Cochrane it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years.[44]
Dorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit.[45] She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it’s every baby’s right to have a life."[27]
Channel 4 documentary
In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy.[46] The programme included footage of a LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.[47][46]
Damian McBride email affair
In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger.[15][48][49] McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue",[50] and demanded an apology[15] intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".[51]
Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened".[52] Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.[53]
Expenses claims
In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph, as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries's constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 Additional Costs Allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards.[54] The newspaper also queried hotel bills including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting David Cameron's public criticism.[55] She claimed everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other.[56] Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the Daily Telegraph, had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.[57]
In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by John Lyon, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses[58] There was some debate as to the location of her main home.[59] It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.[58]
High heels at work
In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office"[60] which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.[61]
Criticism of Speaker Bercow
Dorries is an opponent of the former Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. Prior to his election in June 2009, she accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party and questioned his mental stability.[citation needed] She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party".[62] After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of Speaker.[63]
Benefit claimants
In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.[64]
In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.[65]
Parliaments of 2010–2017
The Conservative Party returned to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats following the 2010 general election. A Conservative majority government was elected at the 2015 general election.
Bercow and Dorries' new expenses issues
She was reportedly part of a plot to oust John Bercow from the Speaker's chair in the run up to the 2010 general election,[66] and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.[67]
On 9 May 2010, two days after retaining the Mid-Bedfordshire seat at the general election, The Sunday Times reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it.[68] Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog.[69] She subsequently told the Biggleswade Advertiser that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.[70]
On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the Daily Mirror that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses.[citation needed] Three days later, The Sunday Times reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration.[71] In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.[72]
On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so.[73] Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.[74]
Blog
A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority."[75]
On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries said: "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."[76] Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire[77] she said "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."[76]
She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.[78]
On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."[79]
The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his Telegraph blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Miss Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then."[80]
Abstinence advocacy for girls in sex education
On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16 which was presented as teaching them "how to say no."[81] While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in The Guardian accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity."[82]
The bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the bill's reading.[83] Labour MP Chris Bryant described the bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".[84] Dorries accused her opponents of behaving as though she were advocating "the compulsory wearing of chastity belts for all teenage girls."[citation needed]
The sexual abstinence bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185),[85] after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011.[86] The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.[87]
Abortion counselling
Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions,[88] but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion.[89] David Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind,[90] reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.[91]
Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone[92] who shares Dorries concerns.[93] Clegg's apparent opposition was for Dorries a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister",[94] and a question regarding Lib Dems influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime minister's questions on 7 September.[95] Cameron was criticised by feminists[96] among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.[97]
The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after health minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the government would support the "spirit" of Dorries' amendment.[98] The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250.[99] Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.[98]
Visit to Equatorial Guinea with other MPs
In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea.[100] Equatorial Guinea is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent.[101] She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made."[100] According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.[102]
Criticism of Cameron, Clegg and Osborne
On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised David Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the Financial Times "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys 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 lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either".[103] She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".[104][105]
Following Dorries' claim, in a Mail on Sunday article, that Cameron could be replaced within a year,[citation needed] George Osborne said on The Andrew Marr Show on 6 May 2012: "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".[106] In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on Newsnight in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.[107]
Same-sex marriage
Dorries opposed the government's ultimately successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "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]".[108][109] In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights.[110] In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that issue could cost her (then) party four million votes at the next general election.[111]
In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage.[112] She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.[113][114]
Reality TV and temporary suspension
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