NADINE Dorries’s popularity among Conservative members has nose-dived in recent weeks, according to the latest rankings.
The Culture Secretary, who has been fiercely loyal to Boris Johnson and is now supporting Liz Truss’s leadership campaign, is the least popular Cabinet member among the party’s membership.
Conservative Home’s regular rankings provide the net satisfaction ratings for ministers and other senior Tories, like the Welsh and Scottish party leaders.
Dorries – who is in the midst of yet another scandal for sharing a picture of Rishi Sunak stabbing the interim Prime Minister – now has a rating of just +1.2.
Last month, Dorries was roughly in the middle of the charts, on +19.3. This made her more popular than colleagues like Priti Patel, Michael Gove and Alister Jack.
Ahead of the publication of the rankings, the controversial Mid Bedfordshire MP appeared joyous at the Euro 2022 final as England won the highly anticipated match.
She waved an England flag with DWP Secretary Therese Coffey and reportedly stayed late, sipping champagne with her colleague.
Absolutely incredible. What a match. We are all so, so proud of the @Lionesses. They have been an absolute class act and inspiration throughout this tournament and tonight history has been made.#WEURO2022 #Lionesses pic.twitter.com/4KmQT49XjP
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) July 31, 2022
Dorries also posed alongside Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, writing in a caption: “Girl power radiating from Wembley tonight.”
SNP MP Amy Callaghan did not welcome the pair’s embrace, quoting the girl band’s famous lyrics back to them by tweeting: “Stop right now, thank you very much.”
Spice Girls fans from the LGBT community were frustrated by the image, pointing out that Dorries had voted against same-sex marriage.
The Culture Secretary’s latest ranking comes in stark contrast to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who is on +85.5 and Foreign Secretary Truss on +62.3.
Suella Braverman (above), Therese Coffey and Dominic Raab are all within the top 10.
Douglas Ross’s rating has recovered slightly from negative figures, reaching +8 – far behind his Welsh counterpart Andrew RT Davies on +21.7.
Johnson, too, has brought his own numbers back up to positive figures, reaching +3.9 as he prepares to leave Downing Street.
Those who are no longer in the Cabinet after last month’s mass exodus, like Rishi Sunak or Michael Gove, were not measured.
Over the weekend, Dorries was told to “wind her neck in” by fellow Conservative ministers amid her Tory leadership contest interventions.
The Culture Secretary has faced a backlash after penning a “divisive, disingenuous” column on why she had mocked Rishi Sunak over his expensive taste in clothing, and for retweeting a doctored image showing Sunak stabbing Johnson in the back.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Dorries said she “may have gone slightly over the top” last week by comparing the millionaire former chancellor’s £3500 suit to Truss’s £4.50 earrings from high street chain Claire’s.
“I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the chancellor in Cabinet,” she wrote.
“The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled”.
Dorries accused Sunak of travelling “along a path of treachery” and planning a “Tudoresque” coup against the Prime Minister.
Business minister Greg Hands condemned Dorries’ actions as “distasteful” and “dangerous” in the wake of the killing of Southend West Tory MP Sir David Amess at a constituency surgery in Essex last October.
He told Sky News: “I’m sure Liz Truss would disown this kind of behaviour.
“I think this is appalling.
“Look, it’s not even a year since the stabbing of Sir David Amess at his Southend constituency surgery, so I think this is very, very bad taste, dangerous even”.
Welsh Secretary Sir Robert Buckland, another supporter of Sunak, also denounced Dorries’s behaviour.
“I think that sort of imagery and narrative is not just incendiary, it’s wrong,” he told BBC Radio Wales.
