FORMER Conservative minister Anne Widdicombe has backed Matt Hancock for a shock win in the new series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
She told the GB News: “He’s done the things he was asked to do. He got the stars; he led the way when he and Shaun had to go down into the burrow. He obviously can laugh at himself. And although I think it is very silly and very childish, and that he shouldn’t be there, I wouldn’t be surprised if the public started to turn…
“I would have put absolutely nothing on that at the beginning of all of this, but now I do wonder if he might just pull it off
“…Nadine Dorries lost the whip for precisely the same reason, when she went into the jungle, but then she ended up in the Cabinet. So maybe Matt’s reasoning is that if he comes out of this very popular, maybe he’ll also end up back in the Cabinet.”
Speaking to Nana Akua on GB News, Ann added: “I don’t think he should be therefor wo reasons. The first is he cannot vote while he’s in the jungle and parliament is in session, it’s not in recess, I might take a different attitude, if it were in recess. And the second thing is constituents’ emergencies.
“Now I know he’s able to be contacted if there’s a real emergency in the constituency but what people don’t appreciate is that for individual constituents, what they’re contacting their MP about is an emergency to them and he can’t be dealing with every single one.
“So, for that reason, I didn’t think he should be doing it. But I watched the first one. I thought the whole show was remarkably childish.”
Former footballer and Gladiators presenter John Fashanuadded: “For heaven’s sake, I mean, he was great. I mean, that’s what life is all about, how you live your life…
“It’s up to you, as long as you adhere to the rules and the regulations. Leave him alone!”
“Let’s talk about some of the good things he’s done as well. It’s all very well, we can all come and say, ‘this is what he’s done, he’s done a, b, c, d’, but there were good things he did as well, otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed in his position as long as he did.
“They’re going to blame him. If he hadn’t have done what he did, and I think he put his hand up and he said he was wrong. He said he was wrong. And we all know he was wrong, what he did, everybody agrees with that.
“But now to start putting everything on him, putting the muck on him…there was some good things he did.”
Christine Hamilton, who starred in the first series of I’m a Celeb, said: “Whatever you think about it, he shouldn’t be there.
“He’s got a full-time, very well-paid job paid for by the taxpayer and that job does not consist of him being on the other side of the world, he should be between Westminster and his constituency, and all points in between.
“He shouldn’t be there in the first place. And he says, I want to go in first of all so that people can see politicians are sort of real. And I mean, what rubbish! He’s going in for £400,000…”
She added: “I think he is winning some respect for the way he does the trials. And I’m sure he’ll do all the trials, but he will be annoying some of the other campmates, they don’t want to do the eating trial.
“But I mean, Mike Tindall, for example, is longing to do some trials. He’s a big tough guy, he would love to do them. I hope he does get to do, he can change things around because just very quickly.
“When I went into the jungle, I was not incredibly popular. I’d been painted by the media as this pretty frightful woman and people suddenly thought, ‘my goodness, she’s a human being, we haven’t realised that and she’s quite nice. She’s fun’.”
