The loose-lipped minister for culture wars tried on a poker face for her first select committee hearing

It seems as if there may be two Nadine Dorries. The first is the one most people know. The MP who bunked off parliament to earn roughly £80K as a contestant on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! and who could pick a fight with her reflection. And then there’s the newly appointed cabinet minister who chose to mark her first appearance before the culture select committee by saying as little as possible in order to avoid any controversy. Quite which one Boris Johnson thought he was getting as his new culture secretary is anyone’s guess.

First to ask questions was John Nicolson. There’s no love lost between Nicolson and Dorries as the SNP MP has frequently attacked her for her anti-gay rhetoric and voting record, but Dorries was determined to keep things civil. At least initially. Asked to explain the fiasco over Paul Dacre’s withdrawal from the Ofcom job, despite the rules having been changed to allow him a second go at applying for the job, Dorries merely shrugged.

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