Nadine Dorries quits again with final blast at Rishi

Nadine Dorries is off – and this time it’s for real. Following weeks of criticism, the former Culture Secretary has finally announced that she will be quitting the Commons when parliament returns from recess on Monday 4 September. That will trigger a by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency, helpfully timed to coincide with Tory party conference. Dorries first declared she would leave the Commons at the same time as Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams back in June but has hung on ever since, giving the Lib Dems in her constituency time to organise.

In a scathing letter published on the Daily Mail’s website, Dorries says Sunak has ‘squandered the goodwill of the nation,’ ‘discarded’ levelling up, and put ‘personal ambition above the stability of the country’. She also used an accompanying interview to accuse Sunak of betraying Conservative principles and behaving irresponsibly, putting her personal safety at risk by ‘whipping up a public frenzy’ against her.