Nadine and Helen go head to head with a bush-tucker challenge

Figures just in show that 9.8 million viewers tuned in to watch maverick Tory MP Nadine Dorries temporarily entombed and showered with cockroaches, maggots, meal-worms and other horrible bugs on I’m A Celebrity Get Me out of Here last night.

Not quite the 16 million she was hoping for. And, as she wimped out half way through the  challenge, condemning her jungle camp-mates to a near starvation rations of beans and rice, I bet she’s relieved that fewer than 10 million people actually witnessed it.

At least she did better than whinging former Corrie star Helen Flanagan ( already nicknamed Helen Flapagain) who baled out of the Bug Burial challenge within seconds of the lid coming down on her cockroach-enabled ‘coffin’.

The great British public obviously liked what they saw – a quivering, hysterical soap actress and a noticeably distressed  MP who has deserted both her parliamentary duties and her constituents for a trip to Australia and a chance to be on the telly – being subjected to humiliating horrors by a gloating Ant and Dec.

They promptly voted for the pair to go head to head again tonight in one of the show’s infamous bush-tucker trials. Wonder if the viewing figures will rise with the prospect of watching Nadine chowing-down on a marsupial’s member. It could be a tough one in every sense of the word.  Nothing like the Spotted Dick they serve in the House of Commons restaurants.