About a quarter of the way through Nadine Dorries’ appearance before the digital, culture, media and sport committee and suddenly she let out a fruity cackle.
It was the turn of Steve Brine (Con, Winchester) to quiz the new(ish) Culture Secretary and he had just addressed his honourable colleague by her formal title of ‘Secretary of State’.
Dorries’ piercing blue eyes twinkled and in her feathery Scouse lilt she proclaimed: ‘Never thought you’d get to say those words, did ya Steve?’
You can imagine a Vincent Price-worthy laugh. However, she is correct.
Who could have foreseen this Liverpudlian wire ever affecting the ministerial cars fleet? Mad Nad What is the Cabinet like? We laughed, give it up. Too loud, too loose.
Well, she’s laughing now.
Dorries’ piercing blue eyes twinkled and in her feathery Scouse lilt she proclaimed: ‘Never thought you’d get to say those words, did ya Steve?’
She was fiery yesterday. It is certainly a stark contrast to Oliver Dowden’s dainty predecessor.
Competent chap, Mr Dowden, but I know who I’d prefer next to me in the trenches when the grenades drop in.
The trio of spads and Miss Dorries, all slightly fearful-looking, arrived just after 2.30 PM. Alongside her sat her department’s permanent secretary, Sarah Healey.
The stooty kind. Jumpy. Gets a permanent, wide-eyed expression of panic. It’s possible to make a fool of yourself by trying to second guess Nad. John Nicolson (SNP and Ochil) opened the bowling. He was curious about the vacant chairman’s job at Ofcom.
In particular, he wanted to know if the committee would be able to reject Nadine’s chosen candidate if they didn’t think they were up to muster.
Dorries pointed to the fact that there was no such veto in the committee. ‘Never has done, never will do,’ she replied robustly.
He loves radiating outrage whenever Mr. Nicolson is on the committee. This outrage bubbles from him like magma. It stiffens the neck. Skin goes red.
‘Well, that’s just great for Parliamentary scrutiny, isn’t it?’ he spat, jowls visibly juddering.
But turned out Dorries didn’t want to talk about the Ofcom job much. It was an ‘ongoing process,’ she dismissed. Nor was she keen to chat about who’d be the next Charity Commission chairman. And about possible sales of Channel 4.
These were all ‘ongoing processes’ too – so, naturally, she couldn’t comment.
‘What’s a snowflake Leftie?’ asked Efford. ‘Probably my kids,’ Nadine sighed. You can hear the laughter.
Clive Efford (Lab, Eltham) wanted to get stuck in to the remarks Dorries made earlier in her career, particularly her denouncement of the BBC as a bunch of ‘Leftie snowflakes.’
‘What’s a snowflake Leftie?’ asked Efford. ‘Probably my kids,’ Nadine sighed. You can hear the laughter.
Committee chairman Julian Knight (Con, Solihull) was concerned that Dorries hadn’t read the reports his team had prepared in recent years carefully enough. For these pages to be worth reading, large swathes had been removed from the rainforest.
Did she look at the latest one about the possible sale to Channel 4?
Dorries admitted she’d skimmed it. Knight encouraged her to fully read the book. Oh, absolutely she would, Nadine insisted.Odds-on she’d already used it as kindling?
Are there other nuggets you like?
She made no reassurances about the licence fee, suggesting it would seem archaic in ten years’ time. I find this a bit archaic.
She also didn’t appear to agree with Dowden’s decision earlier this year not to decriminalise non-payment of the fee.
Oh, and she thought the organisers of the Brit Awards’ decision this week to scrap gendered categories would result in too many male winners.
Dorries once wrote disparaging remarks on Twitter about radio presenter bore James O’Brien which, it was pointed out to her, would potentially fall foul of the Government’s proposed Online Harms Bill
Things heated up when Nicolson confronted her regarding her past on social media. She once wrote disparaging remarks on Twitter about radio presenter bore James O’Brien which, it was pointed out to her, would potentially fall foul of the Government’s proposed Online Harms Bill.
Dorries looked at her, shuffled her feet forward and back. She wasn’t there ‘to answer questions about tweets I sent out years ago,’ she complained.
Besides, she’d seen Nicolson’s own Twitter account and it was ‘nothing to be proud of’.
‘Oh, you’ll find no abuse in my tweet history,’ Nicolson retorted with a satisfied shake of the head.
But turns out that wasn’t quite true.
Later Nad unearthed a tweet in which Nicolson called her ‘unstable’ back in 2017.
Well, well, well! This bunch of preening, old gasbags might need to be more careful with Culture Secretary. This one is a bit harsh.