Nadine could run for PM ‘to keep Boris f lame alive’

NadiNe dorries is considering running for the Tory party leadership as a ‘disruptor’ candidate and ‘to keep Boris Johnson’s flame alive’, her friends have revealed.

The Culture Secretary, who was a passionate, last-ditch supporter of the outgoing Prime Minister as his enemies circled, would run on a ticket of defending Brexit, levelling up and fighting woke culture.

Mrs dorries, 65, a former nurse turned bestselling novelist, would be able to harness as her ‘back story’ her working class upbringing on a Liverpool council estate and her reputation as a ‘disruptor’ of the establishment.

She has campaigned for radical reform of the BBC and Channel 4, arguing that the broadcasters have been ‘captured’ by the Left. a friend of Mrs dorries said yesterday that she would be ‘a continuation of Boris’.

They said: ‘Nadine is seriously considering throwing her hat in the ring, as she is passionate about Boris’s levelling up agenda, defending Brexit and fighting woke culture. She wants to keep Boris’s flame alive.’

as Mr Johnson suffered a string of ministerial resignations in his final days, Mrs dorries was urging him to call a general election to lend his crumbling administration a fresh mandate.

The friend added: ‘Nadine is convinced that he would have won an election. She is furious about the treachery of the MPs and ministers who brought

‘Furious about treacherous MPs’

him down. She is also privately scathing about many of her putative opponents, such as Penny Mordaunt [Trade Minister], who is on the wrong side of the woke debate over her obsession with transgender rights.

‘She wants to blindside the arrogance of those who have been plotting against him for months. Unlike them, her word is her bond. She doesn’t stab them in the back, or brief, plot or scheme. if she says she will do it, then she goes ahead and does it.’

Mrs dorries is understood to be particularly likely to run if pro-remain former health secretary Jeremy Hunt enters the race, regarding it as a ‘moral duty’ to block his path to power.

‘Nadine subscribes to the widely held view that Jeremy is basically Theresa May without the personality,’ said the friend. Mrs dorries’ appointment to the Cabinet in September was a surprise to many political observers, and a nightmare for the BBC in particular.

Having criticised it as an organisation which favours strident, Left-wing, hypocritical and patronising views, Mrs dorries froze the BBC’s £159 annual licence fee for two years. She vowed: ‘i’m from the roughest streets in Liverpool – they can come after me if they want, but i am resolute. it’s over for the BBC as long as i am in this job.’

■ Mrs dorries has demanded an apology from the Church of england over the sexual abuse she suffered at the age of nine from a ‘hideous’ vicar.

She told in 2015 how the anglican rev William James Cameron, who died in 2011, preyed on her.

yesterday she told Times radio she had complained, but ‘didn’t hear a word back’.

She said she now wants the church to ‘openly agree with what happened’, say ‘i’m sorry’ and prevent further abuse.