NADINE SPEAKS: “Just because I’m critical of Cameron doesn’t mean I’m about to defect.”

Speaking at her home in Westoning after touching down at Heathrow, Nadine said that she didn’t regret a thing about appearing on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, despite the controversy it has caused.

Nadine, who will face Chief Whip George Young in Westminster tomorrow, said: “I think my constituents have been fed a huge line. This how I have chosen to spend my holiday and this is what I’ve chosen to do. When MPs go on holiday they switch their phones off, I think there has been a slightly hysterical reaction.”

She added: “I think that some of the attention that I am receiving is to do with people thinking I’m going to go to another party, but I’m not. Just because I’m critical of Cameron it doesn’t mean I’m about to defect.”

And Nadine claimed that, although many of the views she promised to air in the jungle were edited out of the show, the appearance means that more people with take notice of her causes in the future.

She said: “I was in the jungle with 11 campmates that are far more right wing than I am. What David Haye would want to do to convicted paedophiles you couldn’t write.

“What the time in the jungle has meant is that no one doesn’t know who Nadine Dorries is in terms of being an MP. When I speak out about subjects in the future people will know who it is that is talking about it, and I will have more of an audience. My colleagues in Parliament say that I am now the best known MP in Britain.”

While Nadine has been in the jungle some people have criticised her for being paid as an MP while being paid to take part in the programme. But Nadine claimed that other MPs make money alongside their Parliamentary salaries and that her salary for a month will be donated to charity.

She said: “One MP has criticised me from a beach in Antigua. Any money that I earn from this has been massively exaggerated. The final amount is still to be decided but anything I do get from doing the programme, which is subject to Australian Withholding Tax will be declared in the Register of Members Interests.

“I haven’t been away for a month, but I will donate my parliamentary salary to playschemes in Mid Bedfordshire. When my babies were very little I struggled starting up a playgroup and it’s such a difficult thing to get funding for.”

To read more from our interview with Nadine pick up your copy of Thursday’s Times & Citizen.

And don’t forget to have your say below or send a tweet to @bedfordTC