Naked Attraction host Anna Richardson has made it clear Nadine Dorries is not welcome on the Channel 4 show in a scathing attack on the culture secretary.
The presenter hit out at the minister after last week’s announcement that the government plans to privatise Channel 4, which has been publicly owned since it was founded in 1982 and is funded by advertising.
In an interview on Times Radio, Anna claimed that Dorries had “shown her true colours” and said the MP could never appear on her naked dating show as it is ultimately about “personality” and they would not be able to reveal “any part of that woman that is in any way enlightening or attractive”.
Asked by host Luke Jones if Dorries would change her view on Channel 4′s privatisation if she appeared on Naked Attraction, Anna replied: “Well we would never have her.
“I just think that, even though Naked Attraction is about the beauty of the body, I think ultimately it comes down to personality, doesn’t it? And I think that Nadine has shown her true colours in all ways. And so for that reason, she’s out of Naked Attraction.
“I don’t think that we could reveal any part of that woman that is in any way enlightening or attractive, I’m afraid, so she’s off the panel.”
Anna added she was “devastated” by plans to sell Channel 4, calling it a “huge concern” to public service broadcasting.
Anna’s comments came as Dorries clashed with fellow Channel 4 presenter Kirstie Allsopp on Twitter over the sale of the state-owned broadcaster.
The pair exchanged messages after an opinion piece by the MP was published in the Mail on Sunday, in which she described opposition to the move as “lazy, overwrought and ill-informed rhetoric from the Leftie luvvie lynch mob”.
Kirstie, who presents property show Location, Location, Location, questioned whether it was “really ministerial” to describe those contesting privatisation as a “lynch mob” while “at the same time complaining about having been accused of fascism”.
She’d previously responded to the announcement by tweeting that “no true Conservative would sell Channel 4” and that “Lady T [Margaret Thatcher] will be spinning in her grave”.
Replying to her posts on Sunday night, Dorries suggested Thatcher’s memoirs, The Downing Street Years, proved she intended Channel 4 to be sold.
She also said Channel 4 could not be preserved in its current state because of “decreasing advertising revenue and decreasing investment in new content”.
Plans for the sale will reportedly be set out in a White Paper later this month and will be included in a new Media Bill for next spring.
A string of Tory MPs and peers, including Sir Peter Bottomley, former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee Julian Knight, and former cabinet ministers Damian Green and Jeremy Hunt have publicly questioned the plans.