Former health secretary Matt Hancock has been suspended as a Conservative MP after joining the cast of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
Mr Hancock will swap representing his constituents at Westminster for eating bugs in the jungle.
But Tory party managers have taken a dim view of the West Suffolk MP’s decision to take part in a reality TV show while Parliament is sitting.
The Tory chief whip said it was serious enough to warrant suspension.
I wonder what attracted Hancock to the jungle … 
I would have thought they would be glad to see the back of him.
He wont last in the jungle,he`s never been in the real world, a bit like most of themin there.
Whaddya reckon? Approx 2 year’s salary for a week or two’s work? Might as well quit his MP job properly and have done with it.
Wonder if he is trying to update his cred? If he does take part, then his MPs pay should be suspended. An indication here that he is perhaps under employed as an MP. Not that I believe there are many of them that are deserving of their pay.
But it was ok for Nadine Dorries to appear on the show. Also, the ex Speaker, John Bercow’s wife, Sally was on it too.
So was Edwina Curry.
Were they serving MPs at the time Art?
Worse was to come when Tory party bosses suspended the whip over her decision to leave the country to appear on the reality programme
Probably not… but they all had an attachment to the Conservative party at the time and their image could be tarnished.
Tory MP Nadine Dorries has apologised to the Commons for failing to declare her fee for appearing on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! programme last year, after being censured by the parliamentary standards watchdog.
Dorries said she was “fully and unreservedly” sorry after the Commons standards committee said she had breached the code of conduct by her attitude to the inquiry and refusal to say how much she was being paid.
The committee ordered her to apologise after she did not declare her payments for eight pieces of media work on the MPs’ register of members’ interests, claiming she did not have to because they were made to her company, Averbrook, rather than to her personally. She also refused to tell Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, how much she was given, saying she had a confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee to appear on the show.
The standards committee, a cross-party group of MPs, found Dorries should never have signed such a confidentiality agreement. It also agreed with Hudson that Dorries had breached the code through her “attitude to the commissioner’s inquiries”.
During her correspondence with Hudson, Dorries appeared to threaten legal action against the parliamentary watchdog (1). “I should inform you that I feel your report amounts to a witch-hunt and I have forwarded it on to legal professionals for further advice regarding my position in relation to the committee and you personally,” she wrote.
“You are choosing to use a vexatious complaint made against me to reinforce your ‘on the hoof, make it up as you go’ policy. I will not tolerate that or any report which invokes libellous negative coverage against me as a result and will not hesitate to pursue you personally should that be the case.”
Dorries has now asked to register that Averbrook had an income of around £142,000, a profit of £82,000, and paid a £10,000 dividend to her at the end of October.
During a brief statement, Dorries told fellow MPs: “I wish to apologise to the house fully and unreservedly for what was a genuinely inadvertent breach of the rules.”
She also got into hot water with the Conservative Party for appearing on I’m a Celebrity last year. The party suspended the whip temporarily over her decision to disappear to the Australian jungle for filming without informing them.
(1) Who does she think she is … 
IIRC Edwina Curry had long since left the Tory Party when she went on it, and her reputation had been well and truly tarnished by other things. As for Bercow, well she had married that little twerp so I doubt she really cared what anyone thought about her judgement 
I didn’t bother reading down to the bit about her threatening legal action.
It’s one thing to have a second job which you fit in a few hours every so often around your main job as an MP, and taking 2 or so weeks unauthorised leave of absence.
Mike Tindall could be crowned the next ‘King’ before Charles, that will make Christmas get together awkward.
Oh the ego that makes them do it! Plus the dosh, infamy and the opportunity to self publicise for their future snout in the trough book, tours, speeches etc
He’s obviously decided to exploit it to the max and to hell with his constituents and responsibilities, they should just sack him
But I still don’t think this is going to be a big seller, not enough Christmas feel good factor somehow 
“On Monday, Mr Hancock announced he would publish a book about the coronavirus pandemic in time for Christmas.”
Makes me laugh how they already see him as the winner. Unless the votes are rigged.
We saw that with Harry Redknapp, tipped as the winner all the way through.
Oh ffs!..I haven’t watched that show for years,but I will this time…He should feel right at Home in a snakepit along with all the other creepy crawlies,
Me too, it should be a bit of a laugh.
Just like the rest of them … truly tarnished
I think Matt Hancock’s career as a MP was probably over anyway and it was just a matter of time before he was put out to pasture. Who on here would turn down the opportunity to earn a few quid before they retired. Good luck to the bloke I say, and its certainly done its job of attracting a few more viewers, just on here…
Never chosen to watch it, just caught bits when visiting others.
Voyeurism.
Me Foxy, it’s only integrity you get to take out of this place! 
