Shall we all do what Eric Pickles says, and that is to vote for Nadine Dorries so she can totally indulge in kangaroo’s goolies, washed down with a bucketful of maggots, and all other jungle delights during her stint on I’m a Celebrity.

To me, her appearance on this show is a sign that she’s coming to the end of her parliamentary career and setting her sights on being a media star. Her political future is unclear as her seat in mid-Bedfordshire is under review following proposed boundary changes and she could well find herself without a job come the next general election as she may not have a constituency to defend – and she has to be selected as a Conserviative candidate first! What are the chances of that happening now!

Nadine could find that this backfires spectacularly, and this may be part of her game-plan. Nadine did herself any favours following her participation on Channel 4’s Tower Block of Commons when she was accused of stuffing her bra with £50 notes when she was supposed to be living on benefits, as well as offering to give away prescription sleeping pills. She wasn’t brilliant at engaging with residents on this sink housing estate, and I wonder if she has kept in touch with any of them.

My heart goes out to Conservatives in her mid-Bedfordshire constituents who hoped they had put all their problems behind them when they selected her back in April 2005. Her predecessor, Jonathan Sayeed, had attracted a stream of terrible national newspaper headlines which led to him being censured and suspended from parliament for two weeks for running a company which offered paid visits to parliament; everyone was glad to see the  back of him.

I was Conservative Eastern Region press officer at the time and attended the selection meeting when Nadine was greeted as a breath of fresh air and instantly charmed the audience. She impressed them with her desire to be their dedicated MP. They were looking for a change as they did not want “another dark man in a suit”, and they thought blonde and vivacious Nadine, who promised to move to the constituency, was the perfect antidote to Sayeed.

I know one of the other prospective parliamentary candidates she stood against Nadine that night, and he would have been outstanding as their MP. He certainly would not have upped and vanished to the jungle for a month without telling his local party. That is unacceptable, it shows a flagrant disrespect and lack of consideration to her local party and constituents, it is political suicide. She  clearly feels she had enough of being a politician.

Paul Duckett, chairman of the Mid Befordshire Conservative Association, is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that he struggled to accept that Nadine was already in Australia, insisting he had been ‘trying to track her down’.

“If that is what she is doing we will be taking a very severe view. There is a range of actions open to us, everything from reprimand, de-listing, deselection for the next election.”

While Nadine struggles to survive against the rats in the jungle, I am sure she will have much worse to contemplate when she returns home. Those rats in the jungle could end up being her new best friends!

*You will not be surprised to learn that Nadine has been suspended by the Conservative Party. Such a shame, she promised so much to her local party.