This entry was posted on
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 at
11:15 am and is filed
under Tories! Tories! Tories!.

Just before the recent holiday break, Nadine Dorries posted the following statement* in reaction to these questions about her expenses claims:

“For anyone who cares to know, blogger, Tim Ireland, who chooses to write blogs which are malicious, un-founded and for the most part totally untrue, has been warned by Police not to enter Bedfordshire.” – Nadine Dorries (source)

Just in case you’re new here, I should explain that this time last year (May 4 2010), Dorries claimed that I had stalked her and several other MPs, and claimed quite specifically that a police investigation was in progress.

This was an outright lie, and Dorries was in a position where she could not even prove that she had made a formal complaint that might allow her to credibly claim that she was initially mistaken about this. So, using her magic time machine, Dorries sought to cover herself by making a complaint to police about my presence at the same public meeting where she made her entirely false claim that a police investigation was already in progress.

This complaint prompted an investigation so lacking in merit that no crime reference number has been assigned to it, because no crime (potential or otherwise) has yet to be detected, even among the distortions Dorries fed to police; I was invited to a public meeting, and even secured permission ahead of time to both record and broadcast the event.

Since this later/genuine investigation began, Dorries has repeatedly sought to politicise it by leaking privileged details that police have shared with her, which then appear in distorted form either through her blog or via anonymous comments made elsewhere on her behalf.

Here is an example of the latter, for your reference:

The claim that I was arrested is entirely untrue, and the accompanying details are a gross distortion… but this claim and others like it contain just enough privileged information to make it clear that Dorries is the source (even if she is not typing these anonymous comments herself).

What makes this situation even worse is that Nadine Dorries knows there are cyber-vigilantes targeting me who have been publishing these same lies and distortions alongside my home address and other details of my whereabouts (latest).

I am trying very hard to avoid leaking any details myself, and I hope to better explain my position in coming days/weeks, but there’s been widespread reaction to what Dorries has claimed/implied about my freedom to move in and out of Bedfordshire, and I have to publish something in the short term to address this, so please excuse my generics:

It is the role of police to not only uphold the law, but keep the peace. With two parties in dispute, they may choose to give advice to either or both parties in an attempt to avoid a potential breach of the peace.

Given Nadine Dorries’ reaction to my presence at Flitwick alone, it should not come as an enormous shock to anyone if police (or anyone else with a vested interest in keeping the peace) were to suggest that I may wish to avoid any future meetings in Bedfordshire where Dorries might be present.

But this advice might be portrayed in any number of ways.

If one wanted to support Dorries and her contention that I have stalked her and others, it could be interpreted as a warning with the weight of a court order behind it, or even the mere potential of arrest in entirely theoretical circumstances. This would at least imply that there is some weight to the repeated claims and implications that I have been following Dorries around and/or paying her undue attention. (I haven’t.) To those unfamiliar with the law and/or likely to trust a lawmaker making claims on behalf of police, it might even suggest that I am a stalker in the eyes of the law. (I’m not.)

However, if one wanted to highlight the risks to my family resulting from the web publications that follow Dorries’ outbursts (i.e. false claims that I stalk women and send death threats to MPs published alongside my home address) it could be interpreted as a measure I should take for my/our own sake.

Using a more aggressive distortion, if one wanted to portray Nadine Dorries as hysterical, one might liken it to being advised to stay away from Eleanor Abernathy (the ‘Crazy Cat Lady’ from The Simpsons) for the sake of my own wellbeing… and that of the cats she throws at her perceived persecutors.

Mind you, IF anything like the latter were the case, it is worth noting that we are talking about advice here, with no legal force behind it, or even an implied threat of potential legal action… so if Dorries were to decide to throw cats at me anyway, see if you can guess what that does to my motivation.

To close, I wish to make it completely clear that police have not claimed or even implied that Nadine Dorries is mentally ill or a danger to cats… but neither have they claimed or implied that I am a stalker, a danger to humans, or even at risk of breaking the law by blogging about this MP, attending relevant public meetings, or passing within the boundaries of Bedfordshire.

–

(*Psst! Dorries’ latest outburst is what is known as an ‘ad hominem’ attack, and the thugs who support Dorries often pretend to take a principled stand against such things when falsely portraying any criticism of this MP as a personal attack of this nature. Needless to say, they’ve not said a word against this attack from Dorries, just as they’ve turned a blind eye to the many other false accusations levelled at me because I dared to subject Dorries and/or her Tory mates to scrutiny. One of these people even attempts to excuse/minimise false accusations of stalking and death threats by equating these specific allegations of criminality to my use of the word ‘thug’ to describe the same people who carry on like this and/or publish personal details such as my home address and home phone number in order to intimidate me. It’s all political gameplay to these people; any claim of adherence to moral/legal principles is primarily pretence. Were it otherwise, they would spare some criticism for scumbags like Iain Dale and Anne Milton; people who have knowingly stood by and willingly allowed even smears of paedophilia to pass unfettered for personal/political gain.)