I’m a Celebrity: Matt Hancock is hoping to perform better than these political ex-contestants
They don’t have the best track record
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Matt Hancock is not the first politician to enter the Australian jungle for I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.
The new series, which begins on Sunday (6 November), will see the former health secretary, who resigned in 2021 after violating his own Covid regulations, join the new batch of contestants a few days in.
His participation in the series has been condemned not only by fans, but by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said on Tuesday (1 November) that, rather than competing in a reality series, MPs “should be working hard for their constituents in the House or in their constituencies”.
But Hancock is not the first politician to have entered the jungle.
Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick kicked off the wave of MPs being asked to take part, signing up in 2008. He finished in seventh place. Former Labour MP and MEP Robert Kilroy-Silk also participated in that year’s series, but was the first celebrity to be eliminated.
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Another former MP, Liberal Democrat Lembit Öpik, took part two years later, and was the second star to be voted off, meaning he finished in 11th place.
Somehow, this was an even better placement than Nadine Dorries, who participated in 2012 and was the first person to be voted off. She was the first sitting MP to take part, and, like Hancock, was suspended by the Conservative Party for her appearance.
Dorries was then forced to apologise to the House of Commons due to the fee she received for signing up to the series.
In 2014, retired politician Edwina Currie finished in fourth place after joining late alongside former X Factor contestant Jake Quickenden, while former Conservative MEP Stanley Jonson, who is the father of former PM Boris Johnson, came seventh two years later.
Kezia Dugdale, the former Scottish Labour leader, appeared on the same series as Johnson, but was voted out before him, finishing in 10th place.
She called her decision to sign up to the series a “political gamble”, but avoided suspension.
Below is a convenient ranking of how each politician did on the series.
Edwina Currie (fourth place in series 14)
Stanley Johnson (seventh place in series 16)
Brian Paddick (seventh place in series eight)
Kezia Dugdale (10th place in series 16)
Lembit Öpik (11th place in 2010)
Nadine Dorries (11th place in 2012)
Robert Kilroy-Silk (12th place in series eight)
Matt Hancock – pending
I’m a Celebrity starts on Sunday 6 November at 9pm on ITV.
Find everything you need to know about the new series here, and the official cast photos here.