Nadine Dorries: Wrong, wrong, wrong… again

November 29th, 2010 § 9 comments § permalink

What the fuck is it with this thing about abortion and ‘informed choice’? That women should be told of all the choices about what they can do when they discover they are pregnant and don’t want a baby?

As far as I can tell the options are

  1. Abortion.
  2. carry the pregnancy through to term and put the baby up for adoption
  3. carry the pregnancy through to term and keep the baby.

Have I missed any? No, I didn’t think so. Are there any women anywhere in this land that doesn’t know about these choices or are there women about that think the only way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy is to terminate it, that have never heard of adoption? Who is ‘witholding vital information’ about the alternatives to abortion?

So why is Nadine Dorries going on about choices?

The other thing that Dorries may have a point about is the psychological after effects of having an abortion. No one disputes that having an abortion is a serious matter that needs to be thought through with careful consideration. I don’t know if I would be able to go through with it, and I’m sure many women are the some and wouldn’t know what to do either until placed in the situation.

The problem Dorries has is that she may have apoint that there may be serious mental consequences but, as usual, her sources for her information is erm, bollox.

The ‘plethora of studies Dorries cites to support her case are either not very scientific or do not actualy support her point at all.

Several times The MP for Mid-Beds has used the phrase “multi-million pound abortion industry”. It is nothing of the sort. The largest provider of abortions to the NHS (and it’s only one service they provide) may have an income of £25 million, but it is not all profit, as Dorries implies…

For 2009-10, the standard NHS tariff for abortions ranged from £502 for a medical abortion to £649 for a ‘D&E’ (surgical dilation and extraction). Had BPAS done nothing else that year but carry out medical abortions for the NHS at its standard tariff then, with 93% (51500) of its clients having their treatment paid for by the state, it would have generated an income of £25.85 million from the NHS.

This would be £840,000 more than its actual income for the year. Far from making ‘vast amounts of money’ it seems that BPAS actually provides the NHS with a range of cost effective services at less the NHS’s own internal tariffs.

So on all three counts, choice, evidence of mental health issues and of an abortion industry positively rolling in profits, Dorries is wrong, wrong, wrong.

  1. Choice: Women already know what the choices are when it comes to unwanted prgnancy.
  2. Mental health: There is no conclusive proof that women that have abortions are more likely to have mental health issues in the future as a result that women that carry through to term.
  3. The implication that people are getting filthy rich on the back of all these abortion is a fallacy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up the Honorable Member for Mid Bedforshire.

(via Martin Robbins)

Update: For a thorough fisking of Nadines article see Unitys’ post at the Ministry of Truth.

On stopping the export of executions and how it’s paid for

November 18th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

So, Legal Aid is being used pay for a Judicial Review on the decision by Vince Cable not to block an export licence for the UK company to export to the USA a drug used in executions.

The review is being brought o behalf of two death row prisoners by Reprieve who…

Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo Bay.

We investigate, we litigate and we educate, working on the frontline, providing legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it themselves. We promote the rule of law around the world, and secure each person’s right to a fair trial. And in doing so, we save lives.

Without looking into them further, they sound quite an admirable organisation.

But, on the the point of using Legal Aid for this review, fair enough. The UK government, in allowing this export, is complicit in the execution of prisoners. These two guys on death row do not have the means to challenge Vinces’ decision. It is a UK company, enabled by the UK government that is knowingly providing the means for these executions to go ahead. It is only right that this should be challenged.

The UK doesn’t extradite to suspects to countries when, if found guilty, the result is execution. So what is the difference between exporting people to their deaths and exporting the means when it is known it will be used for executions? None.

The reason for allowing the export of this drug?

“Sodium thiopental is a medicine. Its primary use is as an anaesthetic … Legitimate trade of medical value would be affected by any restriction on the export of this product from the UK.” Any ban would be ineffective, he added, because supplies could be obtained from elsewhere.

Try changing what’s being exported from a drug to weapons. Would the government allow the export of weapons, whose primary and legitimate use is for defence against invaders, to a country that was shooting up it’s own people? (Ok, the government probably does, but you get the idea.)

And the reason that supplies could be obtained from eslewhere anyway is just risable that it hardly needs rebutting. The point would be that we, as a country would not be part of something that we are supposedly against.

This then, the actions that Reprieve are taking and how it is funded, I think is A Good Thing.

On saying stuff on the internet

November 12th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

This is a bloody travesty.

The man convicted of “menace” for threatening to blow up an airport in a Twitter joke has lost his appeal.

Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old accountant whose online courtship with another user of the microblogging site led to the “foolish prank”, had hoped that a crown court would dismiss his conviction and £1,000 fine without a full hearing.

But Judge Jacqueline Davies instead handed down a devastating finding at Doncaster which dismissed Chambers’s appeal on every count. After reading out his comment from the site – “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” – she found that it contained menace and Chambers must have known that it might be taken seriously.

I’m not sure what I can add that hasn’t been said elsewhere. So I say anymore except to point you to Scepticisle and the Heresiarch.

Oh, and this business with Gareth F Compton. Yeah, I said I’d be bloody upset if someone ask for me to stoned to death, but would I call the cops? If it was on Twitter and a one off, a opposed to series of comments like that, then no. OK, Gareth maybe a dick and a hypocrit, but still, just like Paul Chambers, he doesn’t deserve more than a ticking off.

Condoning/not condoning* violence

November 10th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

Just a quickie as I’ve got other stuff to get on with.

Gareth F Compton is, according to his Twitter profile, a Conservative activist and councillor for Birmingham Erdington.

He has some wise words about the violence at todays student demo

Wise words indeed…

Just saying. that’s all.

*delete as applicable

Update 23:40
Oh, look. What a surprise. Gareth has now deleted his ‘stoning’ tweet.

Update 11/11/10
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is not happy and Gareth could be in the shit with this one…

The columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has said she will report a Conservative councillor to the police after he posted a message on Twitter saying it would be a “blessing” if she was stoned to death.

What a lovely aoplogy too…

Twitter is a forum for glib comment of the moment. It was a glib comment. Who could possibly think it was serious?

“Obviously I apologise. No offence was intended.

As ever with these things, it’s not just that Gareth would do something like that, I’m sure he wouldn’t, but that someone else might take it up on themselves to act on it however remote the chance.

If someone publicly, or privately for that matter, called for my death, I’d be bloody upset too.

Slave Labour

November 8th, 2010 § 5 comments § permalink

Workshy fuckers are gonna have work for their handouts, apparently…

Long-term benefit claimants could be forced to do manual labour under proposals to be outlined by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

He is due to outline plans for four-week placements doing jobs like gardening and litter clearing.

He said the message would be: “Play ball or it’s going to be difficult.”

Heh. The lazy shitters are gonna have to do more than just wander down the dole office once a fortnight for their housekeeping/pub money now. They’re gonna have have to do what they’re most scared of – work.

Jobseekers will have to do compulsory work, at least 30 hours per week…

Under the plan, claimants thought to need “experience of the habits and routines of working life” could be put on 30-hour-a-week placements.

Anyone refusing to take part or failing to turn up on time to work could have their £65 Jobseekers’ Allowance stopped for at least three months.

I see a flaw.

If people are made to work, it is not voulantry. If the £65 a week job seekers allowance can be revoked if the claimant fucks up in any way with regard to this ‘work placement’, it could be argued that the allowance is wages for the work. With me so far?

£65 allowance, or wages, a week divided by a 30 hour working week equals £2.17 an hour.

The minimum wage for over 21 year olds is £5.93.

The coalition is proposing to employ people on short term contracts for less than half the national minimum wage.

Utter cunts.

For more flaws in the plan see Liberal Conspiracy.

Votes for Prisoners

November 3rd, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

I was thinking about this earlier. Prisoners getting the vote.

Prisoners are to get the right to vote as the government is poised to throw in the towel in a long-running legal tussle with the European court of human rights, it emerged today.

It is understood that the coalition is to confirm that it is ready to change the law to remove the voting ban on more than 70,000 inmates of British jails.

You know what I say?

Fuck ’em.

If someone doesn’t play by the rules why should they get to say what the rules are?

If it’s all about human rights, how about bringing to an end overcrowding? That’ll do more for the prisoners than the chuffing vote.

Dorries defenders – never addressing the issue

November 2nd, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

In what seems to be fairly typical of someone trying to defend Nadine Dorries Tory Tottie has, well, been fairly typical.

As the Anti-Nads bandwagon rolls into town once again, those on the collective witch-hunt have been well and truly buoyed up this week, by a piece in the (surprise surprise) New Statesman. entitled:

“Is Nadine Dorries MP using social media to both mislead and attack constituents?

The answer is, of course, no.

The ‘Anti-Nads’ bandwagon is not so much on a witch-hunt, more like sat on the porch watching a car crash happen extremely slowly… and the answer to the question is not, of course, no but yes.

My blog is 70 per cent fiction and 30 per cent fact. It is written as 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.

Reassuring constituents that spends more time in her constituency than she actually did. Oh, no. That’s not misleading at all, is it?
This little show (followed by this) wasn’t orchestrated at all, oh no.

The behaviour by certain people on Twitter is more akin to a scene from Mississippi Burning than a civilised social media site.

Twitter? Civilised? I must’ve missed that sign on the way in.

And David Allen Green of the Statesman delights in throwing another burning canister of gasoline onto the flames.

Referring to Nadine as someone who has engaged in

“the astonishing abuse by an elected Member of Parliament of her blog”

he calls her behaviour ‘weird’ and ‘worrying’.

Read. Davids’. Post…

I used to admire her blogging in her early days: see my comment here. Accordingly, what I have now to report cannot be dismissed as the smears of some long-time opponent. Instead, it is accompanied by the sadness one has when witnessing any decline and fall.

There is no hint of maliciousness or glee or any show of delight in it. It is worrying that an elected representative can throw around the sort of accusations that Dorries has been doing without showing any sort of evidence or proof to back it up. It is weird when someone who previously may have just been disagreeable starts showing signs of some sort of paranoia.

Decline and fall? Of what exactly. Nadine isn’t declining, or falling for that matter. The strength she’s shown in the face of the perpetual, random and hateful abuse on Twitter has been stellar. And her blog continues to go from strength to strength.

The decline and fall of an MP. What else? The perpetual, random (perceived) abuse Dorries encounters on Twitter may seem perpetual, because she never give a straight answer to any questions. The questions aren’t exactly random, about expenses, her attacks on constituents and claims of being stalked as well as constituents asking other questions. From what I’ve seen, almost without exception, any questions Dorries has received has been polite – there isn’t much room to ask a question and call someone a cunt in 140 characters. I’m not saying Dorries doesn’t receive any abuse on Twitter, everyone does at some time or other and being an MP Dorries will get her fair share, but the people asking the pertinent questions have not been abusive because that would be the one way *not* to get an answer.

She may have blocked a few people here and there, but then wouldn’t you if people persisted in engaging in what constitutes nothing less than cyber-bullying on a daily basis.

Asking questions? Cyber-bullying? oh, come on.

Allen goes on the allude to:

“Other serious allegations about Dorries’ use of her blog”

“A pattern of wayward – almost random – behaviour has been apparent for many months now.

“For example, she recently resorted to a blogpost to raise implicit allegations of impropriety against a constituent who had been engaging with her on Twitter; and then, only last week, she made direct allegations of criminal activity against a critical blogger.”

If the posts I’m thinking of are the ones on this page, Nadine has simply laid bare a few home truths, turned over a few rocks and exposed the crustacea underneath.

Yes, they are the posts, David is thinking of. I have linked to the individual ones earlier in this post, but there is also this one, which incidentally was edited twice before becoming the version left on Dorries’ site.
As far as home truths are concerned, well, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? And as far as Dorries is concerned it’s the truth because she says so. Everyone else can back up what they say, but Dorries’ word is gospel and doesn’t need such inconveniences.

And that’s the problem.

I bet it’s not.

Outrageous left-wing political correctness is at the heart of this. Not Nadine’s behaviour.

Hahahaha! Fucking Lefties! Nothing to do with ‘70%’ fiction or accusing a constituent of claiming disability benefits or accusing a blogger of stalking with no evidence. What. So. Ever.

The kind of political-correctness that breeds the disdainful double-standards adopted by an entire generation of ‘Nu Labour’ since 1997.

Lovingly crafted by Harriet ‘Ginger Rodent’ Harman, in her ridiculous pursuit of some kind of high-brow idealogical concept of equality that doesn’t exist.

The Left jump up and down like rabid oompa-loompas the minute there’s a sniff of challenge to their politically correct utopia, where everyone’s equal, we all live on pink fluffy clouds and just love everybody ‘so hard man’.

So in a society where disabled people are referred to as ‘PWD’s, where prostitutes are now known as ‘sex care providers’, where boring is ‘charm-free’ and BO is ‘non discretionary fragrance,’ it’s hardly surprising that one cannot air one’s own opinions on one’s own blog, without being hunted down by hysterical socialist lunatics!

And that’s what’s happened.

It’s political-correctness-gorn-mad-it-is!

Nadine has dared to voice her own opinions on her own blog.

God forbid.

Once again Tory Totty has completely missed the point. No one gives a fuck about Nadines’ opinion any more than they do any other politician. It’s the fact that these opinions are being presented as fact that is the problem.

If Nadine, tomorrow, said here are the incident/crime numbers of the complaints she has supposedly made against Tim Ireland, you would hear a massive ‘crack’ as a fuck load of people snap their necks turning to look at Tim. Scrutiny would then be on Tim and everything else Dorries has said would gain a bucket load of credibility.

But that’s not going to happen, is it.

It’s not just ‘lefties’ that are challenging Dorries, as David Allen Green says himself in the comments…

I am actually a Coalition supporter, having voted Lib Dem. And I am opposed to socialism and the Labour Party.

and he’s not alone from *that* side of the fence.

*Cue quotes which prove nothing.*

So after all that, what was Tory Tottys’ defence of Nadine Dorries? In amongst all her waffle I think it was something like ‘leave her alone, a woman, speaking her mind. You horrible socialist commies’.

Never mind the evidence, eh?

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