Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned

According to The Mourning Bride, a play by William Congreve, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and this seems to be the ideal description of MP Nadine Dorries.

Former Minister of Culture under her ‘patron’ Boris Johnson, the MP, author, contestant in I’m a Celebrity was quick to announce that she planned to resign from Parliament after Johnson left and allegedly promised to make her a Baroness in his resignation honours list.

In the end that was blocked and she has been sniping at new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak once he succeeded Liz Truss demanding to know why her elevation has been blocked.

Finally in a 1,700-word letter to Sunak sent on August 26, she finally confirmed her decision to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds (the mechanism whereby an MP can step down) so that another  by-election could be called with effect from September 4.

Her letter basically congratulates herself on being such a popular Member of Parliament for 18-years during which she took the Conservative majority in Mid Bedfordshire from 8,000 to 25,000 making it one of the safest seats in Parliament.

She clearly has no time for the Prime Minister and early in the letter when referring to his role as Chancellor of the exchequer she said “You flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit from behind a camera, but you just weren’t listening.”

Dorries explained that she was asked not to resign which would cause yet another by-election but as an author she believed that it was inappropriate to stay in Parliament whilst writing a book which “exposes how the democratic process at the heart of our party has been corrupted. As I uncovered this alarming situation I knew, such were the forces ranged against me, that I was grateful to retain my parliamentary privilege until today.”

Next Sunak is accused of deliberately allowing misinformation about her situation to be released as “You failed to mention in your public comments that there could be no writ moved for a by-election over summer. And that the earliest any by-election could take place is at the end of September. The clearly orchestrated and almost daily personal attacks demonstrates the pitifully low level your Government has descended to.”

According to Dorries there have been threats on her person thanks to the way in which criticism has been levelled at her “It is a modus operandi established by your allies which has targeted Boris Johnson, transferred to Liz Truss and now moved on to me. But I have not been a prime minister. I do not have security or protection.”

She further accuses him of presiding over a ‘Zombie Parliament’ and her last observation was “It is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, a Blair, or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you.

“Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy.”

With her seat now ‘up for grabs’ at the end of September it would be a tremendous and brutal turnaround for the Tories if they lost the seat to either Labour or the Liberals and if the result goes against the ruling party, it would certainly point to a potential drubbing in any General Election.