MP Nadine Dorries – politician or journalist?
And the award for political blogger of the year may have to go to … MP Nadine Dorries.
Today, the BBC report that she explained away the discrepancy between her online comments that suggested “she spent the majority of her weekends in the constituency” and her statement to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that “nearly all weekends were spent in her main home” with the memorable phrase:
My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact.
Following complaints by a BNP spokesperson that “she lied about where her second home was and made inappropriate claims” and after a 15 month inquiry, the commissioned cleared her saying she “was not in breach of the rules of the House in claiming against Parliamentary allowances for her constituency home”. However, the commissioner did criticise the misleading comments on her blog.
She has explained that the blog was “a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire”.
I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.
However, I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect. Hence the reason for my blog and my need to reassure my constituents.
In a blog post this afternoon, Ms Dorries opined that
Everyone is getting very excited about my comments regarding my blog. Not that it had anything to do with the complaint lodged by the BNP.
My blog conceals IDs, times, dates, and is often out of synch. This is because I have had more than my fair share of inappropriate attention to deal with. For example – when I do blog exactly where I am going to be – we find ourselves having to deal with some very strange and un invited people.
I suppose if any of my blog were truly fiction, I could call myself a journalist. The fiction, in terms of locations etc, is done to protect my family and staff.
Bet tomorrow morning’s papers take issue with her attack on journalism!
She has explained that the blog was “a tool to enable my constituents to know me better…”
By telling them a pack of lies about herself…err, sorry, a pack of 70% fiction?
or Moron!
Tim Ireland has been on this case for a long time now – have a look?
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/10/nadine-dorries-corrupt-liar/
I’m crossing my fingers that someone books her onto the Andrew Marr show this weekend …
Ms Dorries, if one takes the opportunity to visit Google for information, seems by all accounts to be a piece of work and then some.
Incidentally the photograph of her which accompanies Alan’s post seems to have been taken some decades ago – she is a rather more matronly figure today.
Just another politician trying to make a million any way they can.
It’s the snap from her own website!
You still would though Rory?
or is Caroline Flint more the type to fix you an Ulster Fry in the morning?
Look: the poor girl was in a quandary. To escape being declared a fraud and a cheat, she had to prove herself a fantasist and a liar.
Shall we also forget that was defenestrated by an earlier constituency party, six months after selection, when they discovered she had misled them (and was only rescued by Tory HQ)? That she has been successively aggressively pro-choice (when her main opponent was anti-) and then the proponent of reducing the time limit for abortion? That she received over £24,000 in exes, which were paid to a PR company which, curiously, shares the same address as her “main” home (thus allowing her to claim for her “second” constituency home)? That she has had at different times two of her daughters on the parliamentary pay-roll (one allegedly at £50,000 a throw)? That, about a year ago, she was touting her undoubted talents for the Tory Government front bench?
And it was profoundly reasonable of her to walk out on her ailing husband, of course.
A very confused person (that’s no lady, that’s just Nads).
Malcolm Redfellow
No, no lady, just another politician on the make.
She’s Britain’s leading campaigner against the disabled. Probably the nearest thing they have to Sarah Palin.
Jimmy @ 3:38 pm:
Can you possibly be related to Jimmy, posting a reply @ 10:49 pm on the Iain Dale thread?
If so, a small round of applause for the post:
Nice one, Jimmy.
Driftwood,
This more recent photograph depicting her charms:
http://yhoo.it/ddamTK
I do not find very appetising. As a more outspoken acquaintance of mine remarked upon seeing it, “I wouldn’t take her out dogging,” which I found a bit strange since I have never known him to go to Walthamstow racetrack at all.
If only they would treat the MP fiddlers the same as the benefit fiddlers.
We are “all in this together” afterall
Don’t do yourself a mischief when you read that mind !
The same, although Iain’s pet name for me is “scum”.
Jimmy @ 5:53 pm:
Good grief! Snap! Though in a private email I was once a four-letter term for the female pudenda.
You can take the boy out of Saffron Waldon; but you can’t take the farmer’s slurry-pit out of his mouth. Obviously, lack of imagination, too.
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