08/11/2012 This Week

Tonight This Week heads deep into the political jungle. President

Obama is voted four more years in the White House. Talk show host

Piers Morgan judges just how much talent he's got. Historian Sharm

El-Sheikh will be giving his view from the -- Simon Schama will be

giving his view from the cabin. Nadine Dorries swaps the snakes in

Westminster for bushtucker trials in the TV reality jungle We've got

one MP in the Australian outback and the Prime Minister in the

desert, yet the Westminster Jungle still full of creepy-crawlies.

who will secure the people's vote in the rainforest? With politicians

all over the world desperate to be popular, former Coronation street

star and Celebrity Big Brother winner, Denise Welch, is in the

celebrity chest. All Loose Women want to be popular, Andrew.

Andrew Neil, get me out of here! Evenin' all. Welcome to This Week,

the cold bikini shower of BBC current affairs. And you join us in

yet another lather about nothing of any importance. Forget Obama versus

Romney - whatevs! There's only one thing we care about tonight: the

cat-fight we've all been waiting for - Mensch versus Dorries. The

ex-celebrity MP for Corby versus the ex-Conservative MP for Mid-

Bedfordshire. The sort of contest in which sensible folk want both to

lose. Two Tory deserters who've gone west, and east, in search of

fame, fortune and column inches. And while Nadine prepares to sink

her molars into a kangaroo penis, Louise has sunk hers into Nadine,

with an audacious attack on Naughty Nad's decision to bring fantasy

politics to reality television. "She must have had some idea how

unpopular this move would be," says Louise, who turned her back on

Parliament after only two years. It's "demeaning of the role of an

MP" says the star of a GQ photo spread. "People expect their

politicians to do more than appear on game shows" says the woman who

appeared on Have I Got News For You. "Performing humiliating tasks on

air is not consistent with being an MP, unless you're retired or

desperate" says the woman who was once a guest on the This Week sofa.

And it doesn't get any more humiliating or desperate than that.

Speaking of those without sin, but who are always ready to cast the

first stone, I'm joined tonight by a boy band lacking any direction,

never mind one direction - the Zayn Malik and Harry Styles of late

night political chat. I speak of course of #manontheleft Alan 'AJ'

Johnson. And #sadmanonatrain Michael 'choo choo' Portillo.

Thank you for the plug Didn't mention the programme: Moment of

the week. I think probably the appointment of Justin Welby as the

next Archbishop of Canterbury. Partly because it demonstrates that

Downing Street is incapable of keeping a secret. Or of appointing

someone who hasn't been to Eton. That was my punch line. They've

gone to Rowan Williams to a man who owned -- who earned �100,000 a year

at one stage. And is famous for conflict resolution. I want to wish

him well, as I think the Church of England is fundamentally a good

institution. It is great at last to see an Etonian getting to the top

of establishment. It is. I was uplifted to have an Etonian as

Prime Minister and as Archbishop of Canterbury. Once again church and

state have come together like the good old days. My moment of the

week is the living wage on Monday. I was the Minister when we

introduced the national living wage. Many people said it is not a living

wage. It is not suppose to do so be. I think this idea, and there's

legislation around that, this is a voluntary movement. There's

companies like KPMG and Lloyds et cetera, and �8.55 in London, �7.45

outside. Regional differences? That's the national minimum wage

there are no differences. But the living wage, which is supported by

Conservatives and Labour. And by Boris. Does the Labour Party pay

the living wage in London? We do. If you have to pay more for

something you can buy less of it. We've done the living wage. It is

not an encyclopedia of the week, just a moment.

Now, thousands of miles travelled, billions of dollars spent. Yes,

Michael's train journeys are an expensive drain on the BBC. But I

digress. The US presidential campaign was an extravagance too,

and for what? The incumbent re- elected, the House still controlled

by the Republicans, and the Senate by the Democrats. Other than the

Fox News bloviators looking especially glum, what's really

changed? And what, if any, are the lessons for our own politicians?

We've asked CNN's Piers Morgan for The battleground state of Ohio for

President Barack Obama, which means you are looking at the President of

the United States. This has been my first time covering an American

election over here in America. It was an incredibly exciting

experience. It was incredibly long. From start to finish, from the

start of the Republican nominee race it is nearly two years in the

gestation period. So by the end everyone is heartily fed up with it.

For me Obama's victory this time round was more impressive than the

first time. The first time he came in on the back of a very unpopular

President, George W Bush, and he was able to sell hope and change in

a way that was dynamic and fresh. It was no surprise that he won

easily against John McCain. This time round it was a much harder

battle for him, because you are talking about a country with 8%

unemployment, $16 trillion of debt. There is no logical reason why

Obama should win. He won I think through brilliant campaigning and

being able to strategise the simple prim is. Things were so bad when we

got in that it took us a while to even get things back to normality.

Now we can put our foot on the gas and really make a difference.

Romney's big problem I think was he was able to communicate what he

stood for. The reason for that is that he's an odd mixture of in his

personal life an incredibly principled man. He's a Mormon, a

committed Mormon. It means he's never had an alcoholic drink or an

illegal drug, November smoked a cigarette. He's never had an affair.

He's been with the same woman since he was 17. However, in his

political life he's about as unprincipled as a politician can

get. He has flip-flopped on almost every major issue. Obama was true

to himself and Romney was true to himself in this election. When

Cameron and Miliband come to the election, be yourselves or you will

regret it. I have got great hopes for Obama. I think it was

impossible for anybody to live up to the messianic expectation. The

wol world thought this guy is going to change the world. He inherited

one of the biggest problems in history. Now he's got four more

years. It doesn't matter if he is unpopular. He can take the

decisions he really wants to take. But he's got to learn how to

negotiate with Republicans. He's got to go to Washington and bash a

few heads, play golf with them. He's played 106 games of golf in

his first four years and only once with a Republican. Bomb needs to

get on the golf course with John Boehner and other Republicans and

start to do deals. If he can do that, he can go down as one of the

great presidents. If he doesn't he will go down as somebody who

promised a huge amount and came up short.

Piers Morgan in his office in New York. To our office in Westminster,

where we are joined by Hadley Freeman of the Guardian and Simon

Schama. Was this a watershed election? I think it was actually,

even though watershed is slightly an overused term. But it marks the

end of the Karl Rove machine being able to depend on white males to

deliver an election providing you add to the white males many

hundreds of millions of dollars. Was it a watershed in the way that

1932 was a watershed, FDR, 1980 and Ronald Reagan. As an historian, is

it the in that category of watershed? As a historian. Thank

you. I said it twice. They are difference things. 1932, it was

about ideology. This is not? It is a watershed in the nature of the

democratic animal of American politics. There it is. There has to

be a new kind of politics if the Republicans are going to survive.

Is there really a new democratic majority, as some pundits are

saying in America, for the foreseeable future? For the first

time Caucasian births were in the minority. A huge expansion of

Hispanics voting for Obama. What you also have to think about with

this election is is it was a huge vote against the Republican Party

and Mitt Romney as well. You that, but if it's a watershed and there's

a new democratic majority, how can Obama won on a much reduced

majority, indeed the lowest majority of any President of the be

re-elected? The Republicans held the House, and 30 of the 50 State

Governors of the United States are Republican? It is no good trying to

turn this into a Republican. In the Senate they lost all but one of the

races they were going for. Sometimes you measure the magnitude

of political change, not just in terms of the pure figures of votes

cast. It would take a very weird skewing I think to represent this

as anything but a huge piece of damage to the Republican vote

machine. OK. Michael, was it a watershed? I think it was in this

sense that the Republican candidate needs to do one set of things to

satisfy the activists of the Republican Party in order to be

selected as a candidate and then do a different set of things in order

to be elected as President. This gap between what the activists

believe and what if general public believes is a very serious problem.

That's why Romney flipped. He did exactly was needed to be selected

and then what was needed to win the election. He didn't do the latter

well enough. If that's your analysis of the Republican Party,

is the Republican Party now going a learn these lessons quickly or is

it in for a ferd of prolonged civil war? I would think probably the

latter, because the right of the Republican Party at activist level

has very tight control. I don't think the Republican Party has even

begun the fightback against about activists capturing this small

minority in charge of the party. In this country I believe we are

further down this road, because at various times both the Conservative

Party and the Labour Party have either been seized by their

activists or have been under threat of being seized by their act

activists and both have had to deploy major poss to get them out

of that rut -- policys to guess them out of that rut. Those who

would like to move the Republican centre more to the centre or have a

rebirth, the activists, the Tea Party live it at church, at bake

sales, in their schools. It is more almost like a secular church for

them. They recite the constitution, the bits of it that find favour

with them, as though it where are the Bible. America is a

Commonwealth of these little republics of enthusiasm. When it

becomes organically rooted it just takes a serious of political

disasters... It's the most active part of the Republican Party and

has been since 2009. Their candidates lost Indiana, which they

should have won. Mr Murdock, with a K. They lost 50 seats. They are not

the Republican Party and they could be in retreat as a Militant

Tendency went into retreat after Mr Foot lost in 1973 with Labour.

That's true. Some of them are saying the problem with the Romney

candidacy is that it is too moderate. People like Murdock and

people who spoke up for women lost out. Mr Boehner circuits his

tendency that will win the day or does the Tea Party move to take

There will have to be leadership on the issue. People like Romney will

have to analyse the problem. Romney will be irrelevant now to the

Republicans. Here is something for Labour to think about. What Mr

Obama shows is that even in tough times, the incumbent can win.

Cameron will draw some strength from that. But don't forget, Obama

was there with Gordon Brown at the G8 summit in April 2009. It was

Hank Paulson and Bush that got it wrong, in my view, and Obama took

the view that he would not go down the austerity route. They had a

fiscal deficit about the same size as ours. Stimulus for the

automotive industry was a big issue in the election, health care reform

was a huge issue. And all of that, if you can equate it to a British

situation, should give comfort to Ed Miliband. The Republicans have a

demographic problem in the US. They got almost no black votes, they get

only about 30% of the Hispanic vote, even less of the Asian vote, they

don't get much of the women's vote, particularly the young female vote.

Mr Cameron has his own problem. He does not give the Scots vote, the

Welsh vote, the black vote, the Asian vote. -- he does not get them.

He has his own demographic problems. Of course he does. Putting that

altogether, he got 37% of the vote last time, not enough for a

majority. And there is no instance of her Government end of his

increasing its percentage of the vote. So, whereas a bomber was in a

position where he could lose a bit, Cameron is not in a position. --

whereas Obama was in that position. What exactly will Mr Obama do with

a second term? You really do wonder. I will tell you one thing he is

going to do, and that is immigration reform. It is one area

where there are elements inside the Republican Party, even the new

fairly hard tea-party senator in Texas, who may have a -- an

interest in some version of the dream Act. Weirdly, George Bush,

actually, with his much better connections to the Hispanic

community, was in favour of some sort of solution which would

ultimately make not just the children but illegal immigrants the

eagle after a while. He could do that. We will see if he does. Here

is the thing. In modern times, nearly every second term goes

belly-up. Regan, Nixon, Clinton, almost impeached, George Bush,

Katrina, disaster. What is to stop the same thing happening with Mr

Obama. He could be assassinated. Thank you for bringing that up!

Obama will not be impeached for the reason that Clinton was. He does

not have that weakness. But he will see having won the electoral and

popular votes as huge mandates and will be energised by that. He did

not win the popular vote by much. He won it by enough. And with a

President who has had 8% unemployment throughout the first

term, that is amazing. He said in his victory speech that he will

talk about immigration and climate change. He never talked about

climate change once during the campaign. And now he does not have

to worry about re-election so he can push forward on the issues.

he going to be a great President, or not? Yes. Absolutely not. Yes,

absolutely. I do think he will have to buck the trend in the second

term. He has a chance, actually, to summon his energies and to tell

America where it is in its history. For someone who is half historian,

half President, he has been peculiarly in articulate and

reticent about that. Did you watch his speech? It was fantastic.

never spoke like that during the campaign. We have run out of time.

Thank you for being with us. Now, as you've no doubt heard today,

health and safety rules now prevent the BBC from looking for

intelligent life across the known universe, which is why we're forced

to keep booking Michael and Alan. So in order to double the IQ in the

studio, we've had to search further afield, all the way up the M6 to

Manchester. And fresh from her This Week mini-cab trip from hell,

waiting in the wings, actress and presenter Denise Welch talking

about something we know nothing about. Popularity. And to prove the

point, you can follow us on the Twitter, the Fleecebook and the

Interweb. Now, forget the American elections,

we're not really interested in the leadership of the free world. That

was all for your benefit, dear viewers. There's really only one

story in Westminster Town, the decision by self-styled conduit for

God, Nadine Dorries, to swap the backbenches for the Australian

back-of-beyond and wave goodbye to her friends, family, and quite

possibly her career. As you know, we're always up for some camp

action, so we sent Sarah Smith, of Channel 4 News, into the jungle for

Welcome to the jungle. People often talk about the Westminster

political jungle, but they don't usually mean it quite so literally.

Until this week, when one MP better known for attacking her party

leader decided having a go at posh boys wasn't getting her quite

enough attention, so she's taking on the creepy-crawlies in the

Australian outback instead. When I heard that the honourable member

for Mid Bedfordshire had been sent to a jungle to eat insects, I

thought, despite the appearance of civility from our new Chief Whip,

this indicated a new disciplinarian approach. Nadine Dorries is the

first sitting MP to be taken a bush tucker trial when she should be at

Prime Minister's Questions. So the Tory party have withdrawn the whip,

her constituents say they are disgusted, and that is before they

have seen her eating kangaroo testicles. It is a case of, I am a

politician, watch me make a prat of myself.

Also jetting off this week, not to the jungle but to the desert, David

Cameron, taking on the role of sales man In Chief. I'm the Prime

Minister, get me some arms contracts, he could be heard to say,

as he toured the Middle East. make no apologies for the fact that

I am here, talking to our friends in the Emirates, our friends in

Saudi Arabia about defence Partnerships, because their

security is important for our security and this is vital for

British jobs. He looked like he was getting a prize for that. The Prime

Minister did not make it home in time to answer questions about his

trip. He left that tricky stuff to a combative and remarkably self

assured Nick Clegg. Is the Deputy Prime Minister pleased that the

Prime Minister is busy selling arms to Saudi Arabia, a country where

human rights is non-existent? have the strictest controls of

almost any developed economy in the world governing the conditions in

which we can sell arms to other countries. If only we could have

heard David Cameron's thoughts in the diary room.

Well, that was tricky. Reassuring the Saudis it is still business-as-

usual, despite the Arab Spring, whilst trying to tell voters we

really care about human rights. Thank goodness everybody is paying

more attention to that annoying Nadine Dorries woman in the jungle.

Allegations this week that top politicians were involved in

paedophile rings meant that the Government had to act, announcing

two new inquiries into child abuse in North Wales. But that did not

stop all questions. A momentary, cursory glance at the internet. It

took about three minutes last night to continually find a list of the

same names. I have those names there. Those are the names on a

piece of paper. You know the names on the piece of paper. Will you be

speaking to those people? I think, Philip, this is really important.

There is a danger, if we are not careful, that this could turn into

a witch hunt, particularly against people who are gay. And I am

worried about the sort of thing you are doing right now, giving me a

list of names you have taken off the internet. The Home Secretary

promised this time victims would be listened to. If you have suffered

and you go to the police about what you have been through, those of us

in positions of authority and responsibility will not shirk our

duty to support you. What actually matters is the thousands and

thousands of children whose lives have been ground into nothing, who

prefer to kill themselves than carry on. Thus the right honourable

Ladies sincerely want to start making amends, or can she live with

being what she has just announced, the next stage of a cover-up?

are now a total of 10 inquiries stemming from the original Jimmy

Savile allegations. One of them is an inquiry into an original inquiry.

And there are calls for an overarching super inquiry. Is it

possible we have been bitten a bit too hard by the inquiry bug? The

things they make you do on television! While Nadine Dorries is

probably not looking forward to her first Bush Tucker trial, David

Cameron and Nick Clegg are dreading the Leveson Inquiry report. Because

whilst Cameron may want to go with whatever he recommends, the Lib

Dems will find any curbs on press freedom very hard to swallow. Do I

really have to eat these? Yes. need a strong, free press and we

also need a proper system to protect people from being, as the

Prime Minister said, thrown to the wolves. We must do everything to

ensure we maintain a free, raucous, independent press. It is what makes

our democracy and the country what it is. But also make sure the

vulnerable are protected from abuse by the powerful. Hanging around in

the jungle is not a holiday, you know, it is a competition, all

about winning votes. It is not that different from real life democracy.

So forget Cameron and Clegg, Romney and Obama, and remember, both for

Nadine Dorries or Sarah Smith. Politics has always been a

popularity contest, really. You can only dial for Sarah Smith. Really,

she was in Australia, we pushed the Budget out there. They could not

afford to send me to America. I am not bitter! Michael, did Mr Cameron

sneak off to the Gulf this week knowing that all eyes would be on

the United States? Yes, I think it was a good time to go there. This

is a very difficult balancing act. When I wonder whether I would still

like to be in office, this is the sort of nightmare that you remember.

There are thousands of British jobs dependent on selling arms into the

Gulf. Of course, we believe that if we work closely with these

countries we can avoid them being taken over by Al-Qaeda-like

interests. But these countries do have a lamentable history is on

Human Rights. And, by the way, in the case of Saudi Arabia, their

position on terror is rather more ambiguous than we would like, too.

Yes, remembering where most of the 9/11 terrorists came from. But

didn't Mr Cameron make it worse, as if he was sneaking under cover of

darkness to sell arms to these regimes, by not taking the

journalists with him, saying the political lobby could not come?

a general matter, he needs to get out and give some of these general

press conferences. He is very good on his feet and as a good

storyteller about most things, so I think he must get back quickly to

regular press conferences and take on the best lobby journalists in

the country. Why not? Is it possible to carry on with business

as usual? I remember arms deals with Saudi Arabia going back to the

Thatcher years and I am sure we had done before then. Can you carry on

with business as usual after the Arab Spring? I think you can. The

reason he was out there was because the United Arab Emirates have a

fleet of Mirage jets coming to the end of their useful life and they

want to by typhoons. There is a timing issue, because they are

about to make that decision. As long as you are signed up to the EU

code on this, we pushed hard for a UN arms treaty when we were in

government and his Government tried hard in July as well. Provided you

are doing that as well, I think if it is a timing issue, this would

have been planned a long time ago. I think it was focused on that sale.

You have been a cheerleader, if I may put it like that, of the Nick

Clegg fan club. By common consent, he did pretty well at PMQs this

week. He had no notes and he was in robust form and even managed to

unite the Tory backbenchers. Mr Taken such flak for two-and-a-half

years, Nick Clegg. He really has had his reputation trashed. Yet he

was composed, self-confident, well on top of the issues. For instance

that issue of arms we've just been talking about. His answer on that

was very self-confident, very well expressed. I'm pleased he had a

good day. I thought he did pretty well last time. He did pretty well

in those debates, when he became the most popular leader since

Winston Churchill. For a minute. But that's better than nothing. The

issue of Leveson is an interesting one. There are so many issues -

Trident, windmills, House of Lords - that divide the coalition.

Leveson could do it as well. It is going to be a problem for the Tory

side of the coalition if Leveson, as is likely, comes out for some

type of statutory control of the press. I think the Government would

want to think about that very carefully indeed. I think the great

step forward occurred, the day the Guardian exposed what the news of

the world was up to. If we have a situation in which the dog will not

eat the dog, in which what temperature press gets up to will

not be investigated by other members of the press, we do not

live in a free society. I don't think statutory regulation will

make much difference. I very much hope that we are not creeping back

from the position that we were in, where the bad practises of the

press were not exposed by other parts of the media. Is Labour right

to commit itself to whatever Leveson comes up with, even though

it doesn't know what Leveson will come up with? The worry is that

there's a bit of a campaign going on behind the scenes to lake the

wicket to reject Leveson. Strike bit of. When I was in front of

Leveson, even me, a small tiddler in all this, he was very keen to

ask the people there what they thought about. This you got the

impression he is going to go for more than just a bit of

strengthening of the current code. I think there is be elective

regulation in there somewhere: But no set of politicians would be

sensible to subcontract a matter like this to a judge. The track

record of what judges come up with would not inspire me with a lot of

confidence. We understand it is coming at the end of November,

before the Autumn Statement. TV presenter for ITV, the Prime

Minister probably thought he was going to get an easy time. The

presenter prints something off the internet, with no idea whether it

is true, hands it to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister says

there's a danger of a witch-hunt. Was he right? I seem to be doing a

lot of defending of the Prime Minister today, but I think he is

right. I experienced this in my constituency, there was a witch-

hunt of a man openly gay, who happened to be the leader of the

council. It ended up in court with every charge thrown out by the

judge. You can see what a witch- hunt can do. Particularly when

there is an unreliable witness involved in this. And that was a

clear case of people linking homosexuality with paedophilia. So

I think the Prime Minister is right to be very cautious on this. Do you

think there's a danger of a witch- hunt. There is certainly a trial by

Twitter at the moment. Absolutely. What's going on is very serious and

disgraceful. I thought the Prime Minister performed excellently. I

thought to be confronted by gossip off the internet on a television

programme was a disgraceful level of bad journalism. On the network

that had done the proper investigation into Jimmy Savile

that the BBC hadn't broadcast. And now at a stroke it has hit its

credibility. They should be completely ashameded of themselves.

I understand Philip Schofield is ashamed that the list appeared on

the camera. That is only because he is flightened of liable. And so he

jolly well should be. He should be apologising about such a miserable

level of journalism. There's so many calls for inquiries and

inquiries under way. Barely a day goes by without a hint of a scandal

and another inquiry getting set up. Somebody said politicians ask for

inquiries like children ask for sweets. There was an interesting

intervention by Tim Loughton today, who said there should be an

overarching inquiry. I suppose the argument for that is rather than

all those different inquiries, if you believed there was a paedophile

ring and there there could be connections with Savile and the

rest of it, get it out of the way with one inquiry. I think the

issues probably are different. The Waterhouse inquiry does seem to

have ended very unsatisfactorily. Clearly a lot of names were

supplied and no prosecutions folded. It was alleged by some people that

things they wanted to talk about outside the boys' home were not

investigated. So prima facie, the Prime Minister was right there as

well. He's got a be as open about the Conservative Party as he's

urged the BBC to be as open about itself. We are going to move on.

For all of you who tweeted are we going to name the names? The answer

is no. We don't deal with rumours You have evidence you think can be

substantiated, take it to the police.

Now, it may come as a surprise, but we weren't always part of the in

crowd here on This Week. But when it comes to politics, just how

important is it to be popular? Nadine Dorries is so concerned

about it she'll be eating kangaroo testicles just to get on the good

side of those "16 million" television viewers. Don't worry,

we'd do far, far worse for 16 million viewers. 6 million would be

nice. So this week we're bowing to public opinion and putting

popularity in the spotlight. President Obama has shown that even

if your approval ratings aren't as high as they once were, if you are

more popular than the other guy you stand a chants of winning.

doesn't matter if you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or

native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay

or straight. You can make it here in America if you are willing to

try. Chinese Communists are meeting behind Chinese walls, for their own

once in a decade popularity contest. Make the X factor look like a

paradigm of Athenian democracy. Outspoken MP Nadine Dorries risksed

her popularity in the party by entering the I'm A Celebrity, Get

Me Out Of Here! Jungle, she is bringing politics to the people who

really matter, the voting public. We had no knowledge until this

morning that our MP was anywhere but Westminster. And we all know

how popular the old sky tie is with call me day. If you are surprised

Justin Welby is hotly tipped to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Does success depend on popularity in politics and in life. Please,

pick me, pick me, pick me! They didn't pick me but they wicked

Denise Welchment welcome. Thank you Andrew. Now, you put your

popularity to the test on Celebrity Big Brother and you came out the

winner. But at the time but think this is a brave thing or a foolish

thing to do? Well, it was a necessary thing, because I had

rather a big tax bill to pay, I had been rather silly. They didn't want

me to say that but that was the truth. I think you've either got a

massive ego that you want massaged even more. So many people with low

self-esteem wants to go in there. That's why we come on here. And to

be honest, I'm 54 now, there was an element of a box to tick in my case.

I had been asked to do these shows. I had tried the ice skating one.

But I'm astonished, as are many people, that Nadine Dorries's

reasons for going into there. to set the scene, is it a mistake

to think when you go on to a show like that that you have any control

whatsoever over what happens? it's a mistake. It is absolutely a

mistake. I don't think anybody, I thought I was quite prepared for it.

To be hefrl honest Andrew, livering a chaotic 90 miles per hour life,

like a lot of us do, part of me was thinking, I might get a bit of a

rest. It must have been nerve- racking It is nerve-racking. All

the time I was thinking, what am I do? And my family, my husband at

the time, Tim, and my children, didn't want me go to go in there.

I've had my issues with mental health and I shouldn't have gone in.

What do you make of Nadine Dorries's claim she wants to do it

because the show is popular, she wants to get a political message

across. The moment she makes a political message, ITV will cut

that out. If she starts spouting the Tory manifesto, you know what I

mean? It's so a risk for her? What surprises my and the rest of

the people I've spoken to is that nobody seemed to know what she was

doing. We would all sometimes like to take off and fly to Australia. I

think from a popularity point of view it's the popularity in this

country let alone Australia she's going to have to deal with when she

comes back. There is an elements of the pompous Tory politician, those

of us who aren't politicians, we sometimes feel. She may show a

sense of fun. But at the same time I think that what I do think she is

going in there for her own reasons, to become more famous, to become

more popular. I think if she comes out a success, if she's allowed to

continue her parliamentary career, lit soon be over, because she will

want the Ann Widdecombe effect. there any credibility that you go

on to I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! To get your political

message across to a wider public? Not exactly that, but she will be

very well known to all of her constituents and to millions of

other people at the end of this process. If she had spent a month

in Britain tweeting and sending out pamphlets she would not have

communicate with her constituents in the same way. The high risk is

that her maternal ti is going to be unveiled on this programme. It may

be that people like her personality very much and it does her good. It

may be that they dislike her and she is ruined by it. It will put

her speaking fees up. It will almost certainly do that. In terms

of her parliamentary career it may well be make or break. I think the

Conservative Party were unwise to intervene on this. It would leave

it as a matter between the MP and the constituency. I think there's a

certain amount of hypocrisy here. I have known serving barristers who

are MPs but continue to practice and who leave Parliament for long

periods to go and... It happened on our side of the House. What about

people who are Ministers? How long do they spend in their

constituencies? If you withdraw the whip for Nadine Dorries, you would

have to do the same for Gordon Brown. What I did, apparently, in

defence of Nadine, I don't know what the equivalent parliamentary

term is for attendance but her attendance is 750% and Gordon

Brown's is 15%. There is no question she is there a lot. Isn't

the truth if she wants to get a political message across to a

public beyond the political anoraks like us, she should just appear on

Loose Women. Absolutely, and she is more than welcome to. I hope she

does. You have to like women a lot, and I'm not sure about Nadine.

bet you if you invite her when she comes back, she will come on.

Select Committee be on like a shot, I'm sure. I'm excited like

everybody to see how she does. you going to watch it? Definitely,

and to see how my friend Linda Robson fares with campfire chats

with Nadine. Thank you for being with us.

That's your lot for tonight folks, but not for us, because it's "loose

women" night at Annabel's. So no change there then, and Denise has

promised to take Michael and Alan by the hand and lead them on to the

dance floor and into temptation. But we leave you tonight with some

quite delirious scenes from Beijing, where Chinese Communists are