Nadine Dorries

Nadine Vanessa Dorries (born 21 May 1957) is a British politician. She is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Mid Bedfordshire.

Early life
Born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool, she was educated at Halewood Grange Comprehensive School (when Alan Bleasdale taught there, and now known as Halewood College) on Higher Road (A562) in Halewood. She entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital, and from 1978 practised as a nurse in both London and Liverpool, until 1981. In 1982, she became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. In 1987, she became the managing director of Kids Company Ltd (which was sold to BUPA), before becoming a director of BUPA in 1998 for a year.

Parliamentary career
She unsuccessfully contested the constituency of Hazel Grove as Nadine Bargery (even though married) at the 2001 general election, and was defeated by the sitting Liberal Democrat MP Andrew Stunell by 8,435 votes.

She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire on the retirement through ill health of Jonathan Sayeed. Nadine Dorries has a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on May 25, 2005. . From 2005-2006, she was a member of the Education & Skills Select Committee.

She is socially conservative, a member of the right-wing Cornerstone Group (February 9 2007 entry), and in 2006 introduced a private member's bill, which would reduce the time limit for abortion from 24 to 21 weeks, provide a 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, and would ensure, following the conclusion of the cooling off period, speedy access to abortion.

In May 2007 she criticised David Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools.

Campaigning
On 31 October 2006 Nadine Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill which called for the legal time limit for abortions to be cut from 24 weeks to 21 weeks. MPs voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.

Personal life
Nadine Dorries is a Christian and a regular church goer (Church of England). She is married to Paul Dorries and they have three daughters. She spent most of her life living on a council estate in Liverpool, until taking advantage of the Right to Buy Scheme championed by Margaret Thatcher which led to the loss of much of Britain's social housing. Although her grandfather was one of the founders of Everton Football Club, she is a keen Liverpool Football Club supporter.

Tractor
On July 9th, 2007 whilst participating in a tractor race she achieved fame for accidentally running over a BBC photographer with a tractor.

Audio clips

 * Discussing abortion on Radio 4's Woman's Hour in October 2006
 * Talking to Mark Darcy of Radio 4's Westminster Hour about abortion in 2006

News items

 * Attempting to lower abortion time limit in 2006

Nadine Dorries