Bloggerheads

… I’m just standing there minding my own business when I suddenly find myself thinking; “Where the hell did all these boobs come from?”

On a totally different note, here’s a few bloggers talking about a right tit:

Sim-O – Nadine Dorries & abortion: No reasoned argument then Nadine? Just a ‘Pah! It’s biased!’ response.

Oldie but a goodie:

rhetorically speaking – nadine dorries: I’m really quite unpleasant when you get to know me: So, even though Dorries was completely wrong, and smeared Caroline Flint with manifestly false allegations, it’s apparently unthinkable that she should apologise.

Another oldie, showing that she has past form using taxpayer’s money for campaigning purposes:

David Reeves – Nadine Watch: Nadine was found to have clearly breached rules by the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges in 2006 when she used House of Commons stationary to personally endorse a candidate in a local authority by-election. (House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges, 12th Session Report 2005-06).

And, finally, a typically comprehensive post from Septicisle that pulls no punches at the end:

Septicisle – The lying lies and dirty secrets of Ms Nadine Dorries MP: Out of all the MPs that this blog has covered over the last few years, it’s safe to say that none has been as underhand, as genuinely unpleasant, manipulative, vindictive and dishonest as both Dorries has been and apparently is. She is both a disgrace to politics as a whole and a liability to the Conservative party.

Hear hear.

PS – Note here that Nadine doesn’t say 2000 what:

“After a slow start the 20 reasons for 20 weeks web site has suddenly begun to gather momentum. I have watched the ticker clicking by and I reckon within the next few minutes we will have passed 2000!” – Nadine Dorries

I’ve already bet 5 quid that Nadine was kept on a leash until after recent elections were over. I’d wager a second fiver on Iain Dale giving her advice on What Not To Say.

(Psst! And, like Iain, she appears to think that every visit to her website is a vote for her.)

There are already a few angry Tories buzzing about because I’m criticising their precious little darling Nadine Dorries so, to save time, here are two links from the sites of Nadine’s staunchest supporters, Iain Dale and Tim Montgomerie, showing that they clearly disapprove of use of taxpayer’s money for campaigning purposes…

Iain Dale – Labour MP Abuses Communications Allowance

ConHome – CCHQ highlights widespread abuse of parliamentary communications allowance by Labour MPs

… and I look forward to their blogging about it again soon because that’s just what Nadine Dorries has been doing via her website.

I should make it clear that as far as I can tell, Nadine’s website was and is – as stated on her website – funded from the Incidental Expenses Provision and not the new Communications Allowance, but I would advise any MP who is confused/concerned about such things to read The Communications Allowance and the use of House stationery (2.31MB PDF) because, until the Green Book is revised, it offers the most comprehensive guide available on websites paid for with the public’s money.

But in Nadine’s case the misuse of taxpayer’s money is clear and unarguable, so in this post we do not need to go any further than these extracts from Teh Green Book (870Kb PDF)

5.1.1. Scope of the allowance
The Incidental Expenses Provision (IEP) is available
to meet costs incurred on Members’ Parliamentary
duties. It cannot be used to meet personal costs,
or the costs of party political activities or campaigning.

5.13.4. Communications and travel

Allowable expenditure:
– Printing and sending newsletters, establishing
and maintaining websites.

Expenditure not allowable:
– Campaigning on behalf of a political party
or cause
– Communications or travel on personal or
party political matters

There are so many examples of Nadine breaking these clear-cut rules on her website – particularly in that section she laughingly describes as a ‘blog’ – that it’s hard to know where to start (or end) but I think a good example is her recent targeting of four Labour MPs over the abortion issue, as it ticks all the boxes; it’s personal in nature (though most of the purely personal entries on her blog are more vindictive than this) , it’s party-political (look at who she targets), and it’s done in support of a cause.

I’ll be quoting from those entries in full mainly because Nadine’s permalinks don’t work on her joke of a website that you and I paid for:

Nadine Dorries: Beyond The Limit
Posted Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 11:45

Laura Moffatt. Labour MP, Crawley. Majority 37.

As a result of a number of polls, we know that the majority of the public, as many as 72 per cent, wish to see the upper limit at which abortion takes place, reduced from 24 to 20 weeks.

Many MPs, however, choose to use Parliament as a place to pander to their own preference, or ideology, rather than to represent the will of the people.

Each day, I am going to highlight MPs who may need to think very seriously when voting on the issue of reducing the upper limit to 20 weeks, because if they don’t, they may see their majorities wiped out at the next election.

Laura Moffat voted AGAINST counselling before the termination of pregnancy in 2007; and abstained during a vote to reduce the upper limit to 21 weeks.

I have no problem with abstention on an ethical conscience issue, if an MP truly does not want to compromise their own principles, and ensure that they do not misrepresent the majority of their constituents’ views.

However, trotting through the noe lobby on a 20 week amendment will be something entirely different.

If you know your MP’s voting intentions, please link to the Alive and Kicking campaign web site and let them know.

–

Nadine Dorries: Beyond The Limit (2)
Posted Wednesday, 26 March 2008 at 12:07

Barbara Follett MP. Labour. Stevenage. Majority: 3139.

Barbara Follett is the founder of Emily’s list, which provides financial help and assistance to women wishing to become Labour MPs. In order to receive funding they have to support Labour party values, and be pro-abortion.

This means that any potential candidate of faith, ie, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Muslim or Hindu would not qualify, which makes the list discriminatory .

Barbara Follett MP has voted against reducing the upper limit and against a bill introduced to provide counselling and support.

72% of her constituents want the upper limit reduced to 20 weeks.

Will she represent their views at the next vote, or her own?

If you know your MP’s voting intentions, please link to the Alive and Kicking campaign web site and let them know.

–

Nadine Dorries: Beyond The Limit (3)
Posted Thursday, 27 March 2008 at 11:28

Jacqui Smith (Labour). Redditch. Majority: 2716.

Jacqui Smith has abstained during many abortion votes, however, she has taken funding from Emily’s list on the basis that she supports pro-abortion values.

As I’ve said before, abstention is fine if she feels that by voting for her pro-abortion beliefs she would be mis-representing her constituents. One to watch.

If you know your MP’s voting intentions, please link to the Alive and Kicking campaign web site and let them know.

–

Nadine Dorries: Beyond The Limit (4)
Posted Wednesday, 2 April 2008 at 10:21

Margaret Moran (Labour) Luton South. Majority: 5650.

Margaret Moran MP has abstained during many abortion votes, however, she has taken funding from Emily’s list on the basis that she supports pro-abortion values.

As I’ve said before, abstention is fine if she feels that by voting for her pro-abortion beliefs she would be mis-representing her constituents. One to watch.

If you know your MP’s voting intentions, please link to the Alive and Kicking campaign web site and let them know.

All but one of these entries included the following banner promoting her cause…

… and now she’s pushing the new 20 weeks website/campaign on the front page:

It’s too much. She’s stepped way, way over the line in pursuit of her anti-abortion agenda and she needs – and deserves – a damn good slapping for it.

—————-

UPDATE – Via Unity, a report that Nadine Dorries has campaigned as a pro-choice candidate. Heh. I’m not sure if this was *quite* what Dr Crippen was after…

Please excuse the mind-dump, which is untidy in places. Wading through Nadine’s bullshit gives me a headache at the best of times, but I needed to get all of this out of my head before starting on a fresh slapping of this stupid, deceitful woman:

1. She presents myths as facts:

The clearest example of this is her use of the ‘Hand of Hope’ myth which – even after a thorough debunking (that she described as “an amazing response”) – she still uses as the lead item in the ‘pictures and video’ section of ‘her’ campaign website. It’s worth looking closely at this one, as Nadine’s apparent belief in this myth now relies on her belief that militant pro-lifers made the surgeon change his story about a foetus capable of punching through human flesh. You can find more here and here.

2. She refuses to be held accountable for her lies ‘mistakes’:

In late 2007, Nadine Dorries aimed a false accusation at Dr Ben Goldacre. Instead of facing up to the many comments in defence of Dr Goldacre (and simple common sense) she simply stopped accepting comments on her ‘blog’ (more)… and then had the temerity to play the victim!

3. She has no bloody idea what she’s doing most of the time:

The above incident showed that Dorries is ignorant of parliamentary procedure, but there’s an even more recent example of her ignorance; this week, Nadine staged her first ever press conference (bless!) but was surprised to learn that in most cases filming is not allowed in the Palace of Westminster without permission (note: in most cases). And, as with the Goldacre matter, she went on the offensive and had a full-on rant over an issue she knows sweet bugger all about. Because she’s as vindictive as she is ignorant.

4. She’s a liar:

And, when she was forced to relocate her press conference to College Green, she was shocked to discover that she needed a permit there, too (and permission under SOCPA). To get her way and get her face on camera, she lied… outright and without shame:

“As it was we de-camped onto College Green. Within seconds another security guard arrived. He asked me did I have a permit? I said yes. I lied, we began. Perhaps someone would now like to report me to the standards committee?” – Nadine Dorries (07 May)

I’ve used this rather benign example because (a) here she admits it and (b) all of the other times she might be called a liar (example), one cannot rule out her instead being understandably mistaken because she is so impossibly stupid.

5. She claims to be a blogger when she is not:

The permalinks don’t work in most browsers, she no longer accepts comments; let’s face it people, this is not a blog. And it’s nowhere near as popular or successful as Nadine makes out…

6. She misrepresents passing mentions as awards:

Dorries once issued a press release claiming that she had been named ‘princess of the blogs’ by the British Computer Society. Anyone reading that press release or seeing the big button on her website might have got the impression that Nadine had actually won an award or even the competition overall, when this simply wasn’t the case. She even went so far as to state that hers was “one of just three MP’s websites to be highly commended” while completely failing to mention that 11 other MPs, instead of being ‘highly commended’ had to make do with being finalists and/or actually winning awards.

7. She misrepresents overtly critical articles as endorsements:

Nadine has been running another promotional button on her website, and you can see a grab of it to your right. It’s enormous, it’s on the front page and it’s complete and utter bulldust. “As featured in Private Eye” might suggest to more trusting readers that Private Eye had run a positive or flattering feature on her ‘blog’, when in fact they had run a small item (following what can only be described as a rant about that magazine on her site in Nov 06) that read; “Mad Nad appears to be getting even madder”… and “she shrieks on her blog”. It did at one stage say that “the Dorries blog is full of delights”, but the delights they mentioned were her inability to recall the name of the first woman MP and her interest in “hunky personal bodyguards”. They closed by responding to a dark/vague threat (Nadine’s great at these) by asking; “What can the old fruitbat mean?”

Nadine responded (in Dec 06) by thanking them for traffic and claiming to have more readers. Later, when all the fuss had died down, she re-ran events according to her own version of reality and the illusion of an endorsement was born.

She is a piece of work, isn’t she?

8. Even the Daily Mail is embarrassed by her bullshit:

The online version of this story peddling Nadine’s nonsense originally carried a graphic of Nadine’s ’20 reasons for 20 weeks’ list… until it was picked apart again and again and again. Yesterday, they replaced the graphic of Nadine’s list with a stock image of the MP.

Oh dear.

9. Even those who support her campaign’s aims are embarrassed by her bullshit:

Dr Crippen wishes she could be more honest about the abortion debate and her position on abortion.

(Note for regulars: and he manages this with the handicap of generally taking Iain Dale at his word.)

[/ends]

Yes, I know that’s only 9, but like I said, this is just a mind-dump and there’s a fresh item on the way…

:o)

Congratulations, Boris.

For a number of reasons I stayed out of this fight, but let me point you in the direction of some opinion now that it’s all over and the Conservatives have a cherry atop their cake.

(Psst! Enjoy your celebration, boys… but mind how you go on the way home.)

Chicken Yoghurt – Constructivism

Blood & Treasure – the mot juste

Schrodinger’s Pig – An open letter to Labour MPs from Labour voters.

Septicisle – “We’re all fucked. You’re fucked. We’re all completely fucked.”

I didn’t even bother watching any of the election coverage, which turned out to be a blessing:

Liberal Conspiracy – BBC: From dumb to dumber

Ministry of Truth – Election Night Redux

Oh, and I can now share with you the following story:

Months ago, Boris Johnson’s newly-formed campaign team wanted temporary access to his main website so they could add a splash page for a day. Clive and I were a teeny bit insulted not to be trusted to handle this small job ourselves, and a tad concerned about the track record the Tories have on the web (many don’t know how to handle the technology and most who do can rarely be trusted with it), but we sorted out an FTP profile for them and the following is a transcript of the phone call made to issue the password for that profile:

Tim: OK, have you got a pen?

Team Boris: Yes

Tim: Right, the password is; one…

Team Boris: One.

Tim: … two…

Team Boris: Two.

Tim: … three….

Team Boris: (sigh) OK, I see what you’re getting at…