Thatcherite from Anfield to lead abortion battle

Apr 19 2008 By Rob Merrick, Liverpool Daily Post

NADINE Dorries is the girl from the Liverpool council estate in Anfield who grew up to be a Conservative MP and a lone Scouse voice in a party still dominated by Old Etonians.

She is the 50-year-old mother-of-three who proudly calls herself a Thatcherite – although her mother still spits “Bloody Margaret Thatcher!” at the mere mention of the ex-premier’s name.

She is the MP poised to dramatically change Britain’s abortion laws, after a campaign that won the ear of David Cameron – and brought death threats, of which more later.

And to understand why, we need to go back to her “traumatic” days as a trainee nurse, witnessing abortions on the wards of Liverpool and Warrington hospitals.

But, first, the looming row that has thrown Ms Dorries into the national spotlight – her amendment to cut the legal limit for most abortions from 24 to 20 weeks, on which MPs will vote within weeks.

It is the issue Ms Dorries pledged to make her own soon after arriving in Westminster in 2005.

She is credited with winning over Conservative leader Mr Cameron to a 20-week limit, setting the stage for a titanic battle when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill arrives in the Commons.

But why the strength of feeling? Well, this is a subject Ms Dorries knows at first-hand, from her work at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Broadgreen Hospital and Warrington General.

Remembering those days, 30 years later, Ms Dorries says: “I was very traumatised by a number of the abortions that I saw when I was a young nurse.

“I’ve seen babies lying in bedpans struggling to breathe and being left to die – and that, to me, is murder.”

Ms Dorries wants to cut the abortion time limit to 13 weeks, but says sex education must be dramatically improved first. What teenagers are taught now disgusts her.

She reveals: “I sat at the back of the class for a lesson, which was given by a vicar. It went, ‘This is why men need sex most of the time, this is how you apply a condom, using a banana. Now go and try it yourself. Go out and have sex’.”

Her action plan – unlikely to find favour across the Tory benches – also includes the morning after pill handed out free of charge at Tesco and by nurses in every school.

After running her own business and a school in Africa, Ms Dorries joined the Conservatives in 1996 – just as the nation prepared to put John Major’s government out of its misery. She describes herself as “passionate about the NHS and education”, but explains: “My family would still be on a council estate if it wasn’t for Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy. But it’s deeper than that for me – it’s about freedom.”

Ms Dorries rejects the widespread view that public services were run down in the 1980s and 90s, remembering her shift in a casualty department, during the 1981 Toxteth riots.

She adds: “I was there that night. There were 360 admissions and there was nothing wrong with the healthcare services at the Royal at all.”

Her outspokenness on abortion has prompted death threats. Unusually, they come from both the pro-choice and pro-life camps, the latter condemning her support for some terminations.

Undaunted, Ms Dorries says: “There’s a strong chance we will win the 20-week amendment, from the information I am gathering in from all the parties.”

With national newspapers rumoured to be about to copy her “name and shame” campaign, the atmosphere can only get nastier in the weeks ahead.

I don’t think the council house Scouser, turned Thatcherite MP, will be flinching.