Why the GB News film of the Bionic MP Craig Mackinlay might restore your faith in politicians - analysis by Christopher Hope

He is well known in Westminster circles as a member of the so-called awkward squad on the Conservative backbenches, who more often than not does what he is told by his party whips.

A Eurosceptic, low-tax Tory, he is a senior figure in the European Research Group and one of the 28 Spartan Conservatives who refused to accept Theresa May's Brexit deal.

Latterly he has forged a reputation as a net zero sceptic, repeatedly challenging Government efforts to force Britons to accept more impractical measures to cut carbon emissions.

Since September not much has been heard of Mackinlay who has been away from Westminster after contracting Sepsis.

He did issue a carefully worded statement in December revealing that he had had "extreme surgery", providing no other detail.

Until now. As we reveal on GB News in a new documentary, The Bionic MP, the Sepsis led to doctors amputating both his arms below his elbows and his legs below his knees.

In the GB News film, Mackinlay describes how he was preparing for a week's late summer holiday last September when he was struck down by an aggressive form of Sepsis which nearly killed him.

The Tory MP was rushed to hospital in Kent where doctors worked hard to stabilise the vicious virus, but not before it had turned his hands, forearms and legs below his knees black.

Two months later he was moved to a hospital in London where the decision was taken to amputate both his lower arms and his lower legs. He also had some reconstructive surgery to his ears, nose and lips.

I first heard about his condition last December from Tory MPs and went to visit him a couple of times. While I expected him to be laid low by what happened, I was not expecting the sparky, passionate politician I found.

Within minutes, Mackinlay was telling me how he had organised a rebellion by Tory MPs over electric vehicle quotas, and even had a meeting of ERG officers at his hospital bedside.

Quickly, any thoughts of the fact that I was talking to a MP who just weeks earlier had no arms or legs faded away, as Mackinlay's passion for his political beliefs burned brightly.

We came up with the idea of a film about his return to public life. And the result of that chat - 'The Bionic MP' - aired on Tuesday night on GB News and is available to watch on GB News' YouTube channel.

There are some deeply affecting parts of the film - such as when Mackinlay describes his sadness that he cannot hold his four year old daughter's hand again. His brave wife Kati describes how she thought she might lose him.

And perhaps most incredibly Mackinlay was telling me how he was now planning to fight the next general election as Tory candidate for South Thanet, with prosthetic arms and legs in place of his limbs.

Mackinlay perhaps offers a lesson to some of his Tory colleagues who are quitting politics at the election about why he believes the Conservative cause is worth fighting for.

While many on the Left of British politics will agree with very little of what he believes, I hope they can put aside their differences and look again at Mackinlay.

If they watch the Bionic MP they will see him for what he now is: a MP and public servant who wants to return to Parliament and fight and win his seat at a general election. Without his hands or his feet.