Nadine Dorries: Best-selling author, nurse, reality star and, now, cabinet minister

"All day long housewives complained about their lot but they got on with it," wrote Nadine Dorries in a novel about 1950s Liverpool inspired by her own upbringing. "No-one ever thought it would alter. Their way of life was constant and familiar, as it had been as long as anyone could remember."

Growing up in a council house in that city, and enduring a sometimes hungry childhood, the Conservative MP might once have felt life's riches were beyond her reach. But from nursing, via a best-selling writing career and a stint in the Australian jungle for reality TV, she has risen to the cabinet.

Appointed culture secretary by Boris Johnson on Wednesday, Dorries has taken responsibility for setting strategy and policy across huge industries such as broadcasting, sport, museums and tourism. Among the big decisions ahead of her are setting the level of the BBC licence fee, whether to privatise Channel 4, and picking a new head of the broadcast watchdog Ofcom.

Since landing the job, many in entertainment have been scathing of a politician who once claimed "left-wing snowflakes" were "killing comedy, tearing down historic statues, removing books from universities, dumbing down panto, removing Christ from Christmas and suppressing free speech".

Critics argue she is too divorced from the arts, citing her opposition to the gay marriage bill - though she has since said this was her "biggest regret" - and her statement that Boris Johnson "didn't go far enough" when, in 2018, he compared Muslim women who wear burqas to "postboxes" and "bankrobbers". Supporters believe she is herself a victim of snobbery within the artistic establishment.

"Some people were a bit taken back in terms of her suitability for the role," one Tory MP tells the BBC, but adds: "We're going to have fun."

Another admits there "was a bit of surprise that she would get such a big job", while another still says: "She's feisty. I'm sure she'll be up for the fight."

Whatever your opinion of Dorries, her background is far from the norm for a Conservative MP. Born Nadine Bargery in Liverpool in 1957 to a Protestant mother, Sylvia, and an Irish immigrant Catholic father, George, she has described her childhood as warm and loving. But, the mother of three says she remembers a downside to working-class life in the '60s and '70s. "We used to hide from the rent man, as we couldn't pay him," she told the Guardian. "Some days there would be no food."

Brought up an Anglican, Dorries was abused by a priest and family friend at the age of nine, but never reported this to the police. "My childhood was stolen from me," she told the Mail on Sunday. "I was not an innocent girl enjoying things in the way other children were."

Her parents divorced during her early teens, and her father, a bus driver, became ill. He died when she was in her early 20s. Her younger brother, John, also died in a car accident, aged 26.

After school, Dorries trained as a nurse. Her profession gave her an ongoing concern with one of the political issues she has spoken about most passionately - abortion. She has frequently pushed for the time limit for terminations to be reduced.

In 1984, she married financial adviser Paul Dorries. She came late to active politics, and until 1997, had considered joining Labour. However, she disliked Tony Blair's attitude to the Right to Buy scheme. Set up by Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, it allowed council tenants to buy their flat or house.

It was something that Dorries's own mother had used. "Suddenly, the packing cases that divided people's fronts were replaced with handmade fences, and all the green front doors were lovingly painted different colours," she recalls. "People were fighting to express their individualism, because suddenly they weren't part of this great mass. Now they were homeowners and they had something to shout about."

Once involved in politics and convinced of her Conservatism, Dorries ran unsuccessfully to be an MP in the 2001 general election. She found work instead as a special adviser to Sir Oliver Letwin, then the shadow chancellor, running his communications.

"It isn't often that someone with Nadine's energy and chutzpah arrives on the political scene," Sir Oliver, now retired from the House of Commons, tells the BBC. "When they do, one can expect all sorts of fireworks. And now she is in charge of a department that will give her every chance to light up the sky. This is likely to be a spectacle worth watching."

In 2005, Dorries was elected MP for Mid Bedfordshire, a seat she has retained since, enjoying a majority of more than 24,000 at the last general election. But it is her exploits outside Westminster which have gained her exposure far beyond that of most backbenchers.

In 2010, she appeared on the Channel 4 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, which challenged politicians to live on a council estate and get by on jobseeker's allowance. Two years later she signed up for the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

She camped in the Australian jungle with darts player Eric Bristow, TV's Birds of a Feather star Linda Robson, and 1980s pop vocalist Limahl, among others. One challenge saw Dorries having to eat a camel's toe and an ostrich's anus.

The thought of her appearing 12,000 miles (19,300 km) away on peak-time TV while other MPs were at work was almost as unappetising to senior Conservatives, who suspended her from the parliamentary party. But she returned to the Tory fold within a few months.

In 2013, Dorries signed a contract to write the Four Streets series of novels based on her experience of growing up in Liverpool. Savaged by the critics, they went on to become best-sellers, as did the Lovely Lane series, about a group of young nurses in the city.

"I've worked with quite a few celebrities in the past and sometimes it's not always very easy," says Rosie de Courcy, senior editor at Dorries's publisher, Head of Zeus. "But I found her an absolute delight. She's hardworking. She's easy to get along with. She's humble. She listens. She's very quick on the uptake."

Dorries did not enjoy such cordial relations with Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, once describing them as "a pair of posh boys who don't know the price of a pint of milk". Neither Cameron nor successor Theresa May made her a minister.

But Dorries expressed her admiration for Mr Cameron's fellow Old Etonian Boris Johnson and they became firm allies. She was a strong supporter of Leave in the Brexit referendum and, when Johnson entered Downing Street in 2019, he made her a health minister.

A few months later, she became one of the first few hundred people in the UK to be diagnosed with Covid, but recovered from what she called a "very severe dose". She was promoted to a more senior position in the Department of Health and Social Care, with responsibility for suicide prevention and mental health.

In a Times column, she revealed that her own cousin had taken his own life, writing: "I know the sadness, the blame, the anger and the grief."

There was surprise and considerable scorn in the media and among politicians and celebrities when Johnson made Dorries culture secretary.

"Of course, she has extensive TV experience," one Conservative MP notes, archly referring to her time on I'm a Celebrity.

The reaction elsewhere was more severe. "Nadine Dorries… Culture… this is like the result of some drunk bet," tweeted comedian Dom Joly, while Green Party MP Caroline Lucas wrote: "Nadine Dorries as culture secretary? Satire is dead."

But Doctor Who scriptwriter Gareth Roberts has called such comments "unhinged", arguing: "Dorries may not win plaudits from the arts world. But as her book sales show, she has a quality her detractors, and let's face it, her peers and predecessors, will never have: an understanding of what people actually enjoy."

Whatever her reception, Dorries takes on the culture brief at a challenging time. As well as those decisions on the BBC, Channel 4 and Ofcom, she will oversee cyber security and the prevention of online harm to young people. A review of the way football in England is run is due out this autumn, too.

Then there's the task helping sports and the arts recover from the pandemic.

"She's not filling big shoes following [her predecessor] Oliver Dowden," says Paul Fleming, general secretary of Equity, the union for actors and entertainment workers. "She's inherited some small flip-flops from someone who didn't have good relations with the industry. We'll work with her and hope that she listens to everyone, at all levels."

On a previous occasion, Dorries defended the right of women to wear high heels, saying: "I'm 5ft 3ins and need every inch of my Louboutin heels to look my male colleagues in the eye."

But she chose not to wear them - or flip-flops - when she left her first cabinet meeting, instead opting for a pair of white trainers as she hurried back to her new office.

Additional reporting: Pete Saull and Ian Youngs