Can Dorries help Farage and Reform land the Tory big beast in exile?

Nadine Dorries has never forgiven the Conservative Party for ousting her hero Boris Johnson, on whom she continues to lavish praise.

Now she's taken her revenge on the Tories by declaring her support for another charismatic political leader: Reform UK's Nigel Farage. Of course, the ex-MP dubbed "Mad Nad" by Labour MPs when she was in Parliament has one thing in common with her new party leader.

They've both appeared on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, Dorries in 2012, without permission, for which she had the Conservative whip withdrawn.

And Farage went into the jungle in 2023. So perhaps the pair can now fondly recall eating pigs' testicles, fish eyes, worms and crocodile anus.

Or perhaps not. "The Tory party is dead," she declared in the Daily Mail.

"Its members now need to think the unthinkable and look to the future." Dead? Like the dead parrot in the famous Monty Python sketch? "No, it's not, it's resting," Tory loyalists will no doubt claim. Not entirely convincingly at present, however.

But when Nadine Dorries talks about Conservatives thinking the unthinkable, is she advocating a pact with Reform UK or more defections? It's not clear. Another intriguing question: does the Dorries defection increase the possibility of Reform UK landing their biggest catch, the Tories' biggest beast in exile, Boris Johnson? Unlikely.

Mr Johnson has said the best way for the Conservatives to counter Farage is to ignore him and not mention him. Sound advice for the Tories and Labour, many would say.

Read more:Nadine Dorries becomes latest Tory to defect to Reform Dorries was so devoted to Boris that back in 2016 she sobbed at the news conference when he bottled it and announced he wouldn't stand in the leadership contest after David Cameron quit following his Brexit referendum humiliation. She never had any time for Cameron.

In 2012 she denounced the then PM and his chancellor George Osborne as "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk". And when she quit the Commons she launched a "posh boy" attack on Rishi Sunak, claiming that as chancellor "you flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit.