Nadine Dorries and Matt Hancock
(Picture: Victoria Jones/PA Wire and Ben STANSALL / AFP)Fellow political I’m a Celebrity contestant Nadine Dorries has told Matt Hancock there is one upside to eating creepy crawlies and other animal bits in the jungle before his first appearance this week.
“It’s great because you’re so hungry,” Dorries told us yesterday in Parliament. But the former Culture Secretary warned the show is “hardcore”. “That’s the thing aboug about it. It really is hardcore” she said.
Dorries was on the ITV programme in 2012. She ate ostrich anus and was then voted off first. She then lost the Tory whip and faced a long struggle to get it back. Dorries revealed she had sent Hancock a message telling him to “be careful you don’t lose the whip” when his appearance was announced. “Three minutes later he lost the whip”, she said. Hancock replied when he arrived in Australia to say “everything is going to be fine”.
Dorries said that Matt might not get as much time on TV as he would like. “You only get about 30 seconds to 45 seconds a day because there’s loads of people,” she said. Friends of Hancock have claimed that he’s using the show to get a message to people he represents, calling reality TV “a powerful tool to get our message heard by younger generations”.
And Nadine was equally skeptical that I’m a Celeb will be good for Hancock’s political fortunes. “We did it at different times, I was early in my career” she said. So it won’t help him in his career, we asked? “What is he looking for in his career?” she mused. It’s a good question.
Stormzy’s tribute to Jamal
Friends of Jamal Edwards, the music entrepreneur who founded SBTV, paid tribute to him at the Music Industry Trust Awards in Mayfair last night. Edwards died earlier this year. Stormzy sent in a video recalling how Edwards gave him a chance starting out when another artist didn’t turn up to a shoot, giving him one take to impress. “The rest is history”, said Stormzy. Little Simz performed.
Move over Huw, David’s here
SEMI-Retired BBC election guru David Dimbleby misses his old job. “When we do election programmes, we feel ourselves to be kind of aristocrats of broadcasting,” he told a Political Party show last night, calling news broadcasters “lesser animals”. Dimbleby has been replaced by Huw Edwards, but it wasn’t always that way. “Huw was standing there once, I saw the floor man go up and say ‘move up, David’s here’,” David sighed.
Ali ‘lost for words’ over Braverman’s anti-immigration rhetoric
Author Monica Ali says she’s “almost lost for words” after hearing Suella Braverman describe the refugee crisis as an “invasion”. “Language is very important and we’ve been reminded of that with our Home Secretary,” she said at an event promoting her novel, Love Marriage. Ali was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and grew up in Britain.
Slow Horses screening
Oscar winner Gary Oldman brought his wife Gisele to a screening of his spy thriller series Slow Horses at the Soho Hotel last night. Fellow stars Dame Kristin Scott Thomas and Jack Lowden and writer Morwenna Banks were there too. The second series is out next month. At West End musical & Juliet, the Backstreet Boys, who are on tour, joined star Miriam-Teak Lee on stage at the Shaftesbury Theatre.
