Make no bones about it, Dorries is going to give as good as she gets

‘My portfolio is wide and deep,” Nadine Dorries told the digital, culture, media and sport committee yesterday, and if you call her touchy, she will strike you down. The new Culture Secretary covers everything from 5G to Eastenders, even a new Bill designed to fight hate on social media, which critics say is like putting Shane Macgowan in charge of a swear box.

Dressed in black, she sat back when she liked the question; leaned forward when she didn’t. And she leaned forward a lot.

Tell us about the hunt for a new head of Ofcom, asked the committee?

“That’s an ongoing process and it would be wrong to comment on it.”

The future of the BBC? Unknowable without the gift of clairvoyance. The privatisation of Channel 4? I haven’t decided. I’ve only been in the job for eight weeks! It’s a smart strategy to conclude nothing, just yet, so that you’ve got nothing definitive to be caught out on. But if the committee seemed confused, it shouldn’t be naive, because Ms Dorries isn’t here to manage the status quo, she’s here to shake things up. The appointment of Nadine Dorries is the policy.

Let’s talk about your tweets, said John Nicolson (SNP). Ms Dorries leaned forward. You called journalists working for the Daily Mirror, “bottomfeeding scum”, said Mr Nicolson. You said the BBC was like Soviet television. You said James O’brien, the grumpy bear on LBC radio, was a “public school posh boy” (expletive deleted), who was “a hate preacher, a liar, a misogynist, a UK hater and an apologist for Islamist atrocities” (apart from that, a lovely bloke).

“That’s actionable,” exclaimed Mr Nicolson. Is it possible, implied the committee, that by the Government’s own standards of unacceptable online behaviour, Ms Dorries could be kicked off a social media platform?

Bad Nad was having none of it. She tweeted a long time ago; she tweeted as an angry mum. She tweeted against O’brien, she said, because he harassed her on Twitter. And is this the same Mr Nicolson who tweeted in 2017 that Nadine Dorries and the Brexiteers were “unstable”? As a woman who takes mental health very seriously, the Secretary of State declared herself shocked and appalled by that outrageously insensitive remark.

Brilliant, brutal. And straight from the Boris Johnson playbook of never explaining and never apologising, because it gets you nowhere, and nine times out of 10, the person demanding the apology is guilty of the exact same crime.

Can you give a definition of what you call “snowflake Lefties”, asked the committee? “Probably my kids,” said Ms Dorries. She is also not half as Right-wing as her luvvie critics think. She’s not sold on selling off Channel 4; her concern for art and journalism was evident. She just does what the Left hates: she gives as good as she gets.