I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! 2012: Nadine Dorries
The controversial MP became more controversial - and a lot more famous - following her decision to go on I'm a Celebrity...
Name: Nadine Dorries
Age: 55
Famous for: being the first serving MP to appear on I’m a Celebrity…
Biography: The Member of Parliament for Mid Bedfordshire will be the first serving MP ever to take part in I’m a Celebrity… – although she does follow in the pawprints of Celebrity Big Brother alumnus George "Pussy Cat" Galloway, as an active Member who has appeared on a reality TV show.
Nadine's decision has seen her castigated by a wide variety of commentators and fellow politicians, not least members of her own party which has since suspended her for taking time off during a Parliamentary session (and without consulting them).
But Dorries argues that this is work, because I'm a Celebrity... is her chance to connect with the voting public: “I’m doing the show because 16 million people watch it. Rather than MPs talking to other MPs about issues in Parliament, I think MPs should be going to where people go. If people are watching I’m a Celebrity... on television, then that is where MPs should be going.”
So what sort of campmate is Nadine likely to be? Put it this way, she lies at the right of the Conservative party (despite her protestations that she "doesn't think in terms of left and right" – see the clip from Have I Got News For You, below) and once prompted a Daily Mail columnist to nickname her "Mad Nad" the “sexist dinosaur”, identifying her – as far back as May 2011 – as “attention grabbing”.
Watch Nadine being ripped to shreds by Ian Hilsop and Alexander Armsotrong on Have I Got News for You...
...and see her discussing Europe with an unimpressed Malcolm Rifkind on Newsnight...