‘She often speaks without thinking’: Nadine Dorries, our new minister for culture wars

Her appearance on I'm A Celebrity sealed her headline-grabbing reputation. Now all eyes are on the former nurse and novelist as she is appointed the new culture secretary. Her fellow MPs and political insiders have plenty to say

There have been 13 culture secretaries in the past 14 years. Most came and went without troubling the attention of even close followers of politics. Who, after all, remembers Matt Hancock's brief stint three years ago? Or what about (or perhaps, who is) Jeremy Wright? Or Baroness Morgan of Cotes? Public indifference, however, is unlikely to be the response to the woman who last month was made secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport.

Nadine Dorries is by almost universal agreement a character". Whether it's a good or bad character seems to be a secondary issue to the fact that she is forthright and reliably quotable. She's someone who is known for speaking her mind, and then changing it, for her moral stands and political falls, for her down-to-earth charm and long-running feuds. More than anything she is defined in the public imagination by her participation, as a sitting MP, in 2012's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!