MP blasts ‘Jungle’ colleague

Glyn Davies has blasted his Conservative colleague Nadine Dorries for taking a month off work to appear in ITV1's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, which is filmed in Australia.

The Mid-Bedfordshire MP has been suspended by the Conservative Party after becoming the first sitting MP to appear on the show.

She claims the programme’s 16 million viewers will provide a larger audience for her to promote politics, but Mr Davies, MP for Montgomeryshire, said it is “not acceptable”.

“I totally disagree with Nadine taking a month off while Parliament is sitting,” said Mr Davies. “MPs are paid good money to work on behalf of their constituents - not build up celebrity careers for themselves after leaving politics. The first duty of any MP is to constituents - and it’s just not acceptable to just walk away from the job.”

Earlier in the day Mr Davies had joked on Twitter: “People of Montgomeryshire, I will never take a month off to appear in I'm A Celeb - Get Me Out Of Here,  I would eat a rat for £40K though!”

Meanwhile, the man Mr Davies ousted at the last election, Lembit Opik, appeared in the jungle two years ago and says that while he backs her decision, her stated reasons for doing so seem a little naive.

“I used to talk about politics with Shaun Ryder for two or three hours a day when I was in the jungle but not a single minute appeared in the final cut on television,” he said. “You are in the hands of the producers so she may find that none of her political conversations are heard.”

Mrs Dorries has arrived in Australia ahead of the programme's start this week.