You may be aware that I’ve been asking Nadine Dorries a question via Twitter about whether she has dontated her MP’s salary for the period she was in the I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! jungle, as she promised she would.
I’ve been asking this question for sometime now, a couple of months. If you click the link, you’ll see that I’ve been perfectly reasonable and polite, no abuse, no swearing, just a reasonably worded question.
when I was getting the tweets together for this I realised Nadine had blocked me. I don’t know when as I don’t use Twitters web interface very often, but I do know that I wasn’t blocked when I started asking.
Dorries has seen the question and instead of engaging in anyway whatsoever, not even a ‘sod off’, she’s chosen to block me and ignore a valid question about her taxpayer funded salary, her integrity and whether she is as good as her word.
So, another approach is needed. I iwould write a letter or email to her, but as I’m not one of her constiuents, she is under no obligation to reply. Dorries will immediately bin and correspondence I have with her. Good or bad.
What I need is a little help.
I need someone who Dorries represents in Parliament to ask her directly whether she has kept her word and donated 12 days worth of her parliamentary salary to charity. Hopefully finding out how much and to which charities, but that bit is even more unlikely as the charities (i think) will be under no obligation to verify.
Anyone fancy writing a polite letter to their MP for me?
Nadine Dorries is to stop claiming personal parliamentary expenses to avoid being further ‘targeted’ by investigations.
Speaking exclusively to the Times & Citizen, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire revealed that she will forego around £3,040 a month in expenses including cash for Westminster accommodation, council tax, travel costs and meals.
She said: “For me the problem is the moment I put my head above the parapet and campaigned to have the abortion limit reduced from 24 weeks to 20 I became a target.”
Well, yes wanting to be more restrictive on abortion is one of the reasons Dorries gets a load of shit, and it’s not just the time limit that she want’s introduced that’s got peoples hackles up, but her proposed restriction on who can give counselling that would see many non-religious, pro-choice organisations excluded and the only choice many women would have would be to receive counselling by anti-abortion organisations.
But the reason Dorries keeps getting her expenses investigated is not because of her views on abortion, it’s her attitude to claiming them. See Ministy of Truth here or really just enter into the search box of the site “nadine dorries“.
She added: “Even though I’m completely innocent it’s tough for my office staff because they are the ones who are responsible for compliance.
“Every time there is an investigation it goes on for months and I can’t keep putting them through it.
We shall have to see if Dorries is completely innocent or not, but an appeal for everyone to stop reporting her not-so-straight-forward-expenses reporting would be a nice touch, if she didn’t keep giving IPSA reason to investigate her.
The only person able to stop the ivestigations if Dorries herself.
“I’ve had to take this decision it’s been horrible to see how stressed they have been, even though the investigations always fully cleared me.”
She said: “I feel that the best thing to do is to remove all claims and I’m lucky because I’ve got personal support and can do that. I’ve got a great partner.”
She added: “I’m going to work for free, I have to live in Bedfordshire because it’s what my constituents expect from me, but as I sit on and chair committees I have to have accommodation in Westminster.”
Another, fairly major sleight of hand there, as she won’t be working for free, being paid nothing. She will still get the £65k-ish salary. But not claiming expenses is not the thing to do. Dorries here, knows she’s going to get her knuckles rapped. She may not get a proper bollocking, but she knows it looks bad and so instead of looking at why her expenses look so bad and trying to organise things better, she’s trying to make herself a matyr.
Fair enough. If she doesn’t want her expenses, fine. She’ll be the one to lose out.
While we’re talking about Dorries’ salary, she did promise to donate to charity her salary for the time she spent in the jungle on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!. She was on it for 12 days which works out at about £2,100 -ish.
If any abortion provider is to come to Northern Ireland, Marie Stopes is probably the best bet. Marie Stopes is one of the most professional and non-advocacy-driven abortion providers. It has no political ideology and is concerned only for the health of the woman, and it operates in a professional manner. So I think that, if Northern Ireland is to have an abortion provider, Marie Stopes are the people to have.
That is a hell of a lot of praise considering what she implied about Maries Stopes back in September 2011…
“Under present legislation, doctors or pregnancy advisory services have no duty to offer professional, impartial help to women considering an abortion,” the MP for Mid-Bedfordshire said.
“Moreover, most counselling is offered by the big abortion providers themselves, like the British Pregnancy Advisory Service or the Marie Stopes clinics, which are paid millions by the NHS to carry out terminations – and so profit from the process.”
That’s not such a ringing endorsement, and the last sentence, especially the “and so profit from the process” part make Marie Stopes sound like a for-profit company, doing these abortions and offering counselling to make a fast buck, to satisfy it’s shareholders. Marie Stopes International is a not-for-profit company. Any profit doesn’t go to shareholders, but go towards furthering it’s aims and goals here and abroad. You may not agree with some of those goals but it’s so far removed from the profit making organisation that Dorries implied.
A study by the Centre for Sexual Health Research at the university of Southampton and the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the university of Kent found that 41% of women who have second-trimester abortions do so because they were not sure about having an abortion and took a while to make up their mind to ask for one. I believe that one positive effect of reducing the limit to 20 weeks might be to focus the mind slightly sooner than 23 weeks. Because abortion is available until 24 weeks, there is a laxity, as people have a prolonged period to make up their mind. The research says that women took a long time to make up their mind. Maybe reducing the upper limit will help.
*imagines Dorries stood in front of a pregnant woman, impatiently tapping her foot saying “Come on. Make up your mind. It’s not a hard decision, ffs”)
The medical profession cannot make two arguments. Doctors cannot say that a poorly baby’s life is worth trying to save from 20 or 21 weeks onwards while stating at the same time that there is no chance of life up to 24 weeks, so it is okay to abort up until that point. There is an inconsistency in retaining 24 weeks.
There is no inconsistency. An abortion is granted, for whatever reason. Rightly or wrongly. Effort is spent trying to save a premature baby because the legal guardians that have the say of whether to resuscitate or not say resuscitate. If they didn’t, the premature baby would be left to die. This, I guess, happens with nearly every premature baby because they are wanted babies.
This next bit of bullshit speaks for itself…
[Dorries:] Doctors cannot have it both ways. They cannot say in the NHS, “We try to save babies from 20 weeks because they are viable,” and then say, “We abort at 24 weeks because they are not.” The two arguments cannot stand. That is an anomaly, and it must end.
Dr Wollaston: I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. On that point, we are not trying to save babies at 20 weeks. No babies survive at 20 weeks’ gestation. If she refers back to the British Medical Journal paper considering two periods of survival, the increase in survival of pre-term babies after the 2000 period was due entirely to babies born at 24 and 25 weeks. The absolute limit of survival is about 22 weeks; that is when we try to save them. Will she please stop suggesting that the NHS is capable of saving babies at 20 weeks? It is simply not true.
Boom! The Tory from Totnes gets Dorries bang to rights with her bullshit statistics. And Dorries’ reply?…
Maybe the NHS should stop trying to save babies from 20 weeks. My neighbour 10 years ago was a 22-week survivor. Although she had slight problems, they did not prevent her from going to school and living a full and wonderful life. Babies do survive from 22 weeks, which is my argument for viability. If the RCOG wants to say that viability is at 24 weeks, it must look at the living babies born at 22 weeks and say, “That’s wrong.”
The only measure of viability that we have is the premature poorly baby—the baby who arrives early for a reason. Doctors must fight to deal with two complicated situations: whatever made the baby arrive prematurely, and the fact that it has arrived prematurely, which involves lung function and other things. I am afraid that a healthy aborted baby and a premature poorly baby cannot be compared, particularly not at 23 weeks.
Huh? So no defending of her 20 weeks claim then? Dorries has plenty to say about 22 week babies though for some reason, even though that age of gestation is questioned?
“While a research fellow at Oxford, Dr Anand became aware that many premature and early gestation babies died during in-utero operations due to shock induced by pain during the procedure. General thinking at the time, in the 1980s, was that no baby could experience pain before birth—that until birth, a baby was not sentient. In his pioneering work, Dr Anand developed anaesthesia to be delivered to foetuses. Thanks to that work, introduced at the John Radcliffe hospital, anaesthetising babies during in-utero operations is now standard procedure, and babies now live.
Dr Anand went on to continue his work and research in America. When I sat on the Science and Technology Committee, we considered abortion, and one of the members of that Committee—Evan Harris, the former Member for Oxford West and Abingdon, who lost his seat at the last election—described Professor Anand as a little doctor from Little Rock. Dr Anand did much of his further research in America, first at the university of Arkansas and now as the St Jude chair for critical care medicine and professor of paediatrics, anaesthesiology and neurobiology at the university of Tennessee health centre in Memphis.
My only point in relation to Evan Harris’s comments about Professor Anand is that Dr Anand is a gentle, polite academic who is well renowned and respected and has a successful career. To describe such a man as a little man from Little Rock, and to have binned and not considered the evidence on abortion that he presented to the Science and Technology Committee, was a travesty. I complained about it to the Clerks at the time, and I will continue to complain about it, as it tainted the report.
So far as the allegation that Dr Anand has been excluded or not invited to address the committee, well as member of the committee, herself, Nadine Dorries should know perfectly well that the process by which parliamentary committees invite witnesses – other than those from government, the civil service and other areas of the public sector, is by publishing an open call for written submissions to the committee. The committee states its brief and the information/opinions it is seeking, and it is then up to any interested party to submit their written views, opinions and evidence to the committee for consideration.
Based on the submissions received, the committee will then invite people to appear before the committee to give evidence in person.
As already noted, not only single submission to the committee FROM ANY SOURCE, refers to Dr Anand, his work or any published research paper on which he is cited as the author or co-author.
And Dr Anand, himself, has not made any written submission to the committee.
I move to the feminist argument. As the mother of three young adult daughters, I am a strong believer in a woman’s right to choose. Never, ever would I want to see a return to the bad old days of backstreet abortionists, or restricted access to early abortion. Do I champion this issue from the perspective of religion? No, I do not. I do not come to this from a religious perspective.
Bloggerheads…
Second, those same groups are coordinating/enabling her latest efforts where Dorries and others are masquerading as “pro woman” campaigners seeking to protect vulnerable adults from the physical/mental harm they and other religious groups claim is a common post-abortion problem… but this article/interview from 2007 makes it very clear that Dorries is driven primarily NOT by a desire to protect women, but instead a deeply religious decision to reduce the number of abortions by any means possible, even if these means appear, intially, to be at odds with the anti-abortion agenda:
“I’ve been told my Bill will get nowhere while I have pro-lifers and abortion rights people against me. But my argument is: How can anyone argue – on any grounds – that my proposal is not right. Currently there are about 600 abortions a day in the UK. I’d like to reduce that number by at least half. The public is not interested in banning abortion. Those who hold out for a complete ban have not changed the law – they have not saved a single life. To me, saving some lives is better than saving no lives at all. I hope pro-lifers will come to share my view that some progress is better than no progress. ” – Nadine Dorries (source/PDF)
Someone really should have a word with Dave about Nadine Dorries. The sort of word that you’d have with someone that had their shirt poking out through their trouser zip…
There is so much in that tweet that says so much about Dorries, that it is a little gem that just sums her up.
It’s hysterical. It tries to shut down her opponent immediately. It is threatening, whilst taking a victim stance. And as to the law, it is completely wrong. It is also completely at odds with a couple of other tweets from Dorries over the previous two hours…
Now, without implying @mrhazzers was trolling (he wasn’t, it was a good point that Nadine continuously refuses to address), that’s a funny old laugh Dorries has got.
*If you don’t know what @mrhazzers is referring to then you want to read the following:
There’s still no word on where the Right to Know campaign is getting it’s funding.
I thought I would add my little voice to the throng of people wanting to find out so I sent them a letter via their ‘contact us’ page…
hello.
Would you mind publishing where your funding comes from, please?
People are asking questions and they think they, quite rightly, have a ‘right to know’, especially as you guys have made such a fuss of where other people get their funding from.
Abortion Rights have made it known where all their funding (and biscuits) come from after you chaps huffed and puffed about it.
Don’t you think it’s fair that you now spill the beans?
My local newspaper editors and journalists are well aware of him and describe him as a ‘menace’ and much, much worse.
Bartholomew asked, via Twitter, the editor of Bedfordshire on Sunday. The resulting conversation, I must say runs completely against what Steven Baxter reckons about local rags, but then there is alwasy an exception. Oh, wait. Tim would be recognised as a local to Chris Gill, and so I suppose, just like Dorries ‘isn’t accountable to non-constiuents’, Chris doesn’t give a toss about non-locals either.
Whoa! Something has got Nadine Dorries pissed off this evening and she really wants to take it out on someone.
After two lines expressing her disappointment about the judgement of a plumber that harassed his wifes’ lover, with one of those two lines taken up by the hyperlink, Dorries embarks on a tirade against Tim…
I myself am in the position, as noted by Guido, http://order-order.com/ of being subjected to a particularly nasty form of online harassment.
Noted by Paul Staines? With a link to his blog, not where he does actually note it. And what’s this ‘particularly nasty’ form of harassment? Being called out on lies? Bringing to the attention of the public rather large payments to a friend for not a lot work? Trying to get personal information someone is legally entitled to, but being ignored?
Mainly due to the fact that I campaign against late term abortion and for a more responsible society which allows our children to enjoy a childhood free from the influence of an over sexualised culture and for a more responsible approach to sex and relationship counselling.
No, this level of scrutiny is due to avoiding the truth, not telling the truth and hiding the truth, whilst being a public servant.
One of the especially ‘poorly’ compulsive obsessive’s, recently alarmed the Police enough for them to issue a verbal warning on tape following a five hour interview. Following the warning, his tweets and blogs have remain monitored, as are those of people he communicates with on a regular basis in which I am discussed or mentioned.
Oh, I just love the scare quotes around the word ‘poorly’, implying this person not well. Obviously, the scare quotes mean that that is not what is meant. But we know, don’t we? We’ve read newspapers, we know how they work, don’t we? *gives conspiratorial wink*
Yes, this man, fuck it. We all know she is talking about Tim. Yes, Tim was given a warning. A verbal warning. A verbal warning is not anything official, like a caution. It was for one incident, the Flitwick husting. Not for any series of events. If you’ve been following this saga, you would not be surprised that it took five hours for the police and Tim to discuss this issue and it’s complexities.
Seeing as I am in quite regular contact with Tim, and a member of the Nadine Dorries Project, can I assume that, and I am gonna ‘sex’ this up a bit, can i assume that I am being bugged? Probably not. You see, the letter from the police saying that Tim got a verbal warning, for which he had to ask for, also explains that the matter is closed and only relates to the one occassion. Why would the police monitor all the people Tim has contact with to keep an eye on any mentions of Dorries if all they can do is say ‘be a bit careful in future’?
Frankly, I remain blissfully unaffected. I don’t ever read them and never come into contact with anyone in my constituency who does. I believe that to read them lets a sliver of nastiness into my day that I just don’t need.
Dorries doesn’t read anything that isn’t from a supportive constituent either. She leaves it to her staff to filter out the non-supportive and supportive mail.
This particular man also harasses anyone he comes across who has any contact with me, by bombarding them with emails, freedom of information requests and repetitive telephone calls.
No. Tim asks questions. When he gets the run around, he investigates further as to why they are being evasive. And usually comes up with something that explains why they are being evasive.
He even travelled across the country into my constituency once to a local meeting pretending to be a local to film me and lied to the meeting organisers and the audience about what he was doing, until a Labour supporter ‘outed’him.
From Tims’ place to Flitwick is hardly ‘across the country’. Its an hour away. As for lieing to the organisers of the Flitwick hustings? Take a look for yourself…
TIms’ post about it is here, along with independent accounts here and here. Make up your own mind.
Therefore, I cannot mention on my blog where I am going, only where I have been and am very careful about photographing who I have seen, tagging or naming people on photographs. I don’t mention what people have said or who they work for. I am careful about mentioning the names of anyone I am in contact with, where they live or where I am or what I am doing on any particular day, until the day is done. I hardly mention anything, because I don’t want other people to be subjected to what Ed West, of the Daily Telegraph, describes as ‘deranged’ behaviour. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100090868/nadine-dorries-is-right-about-child-sexualisation-why-does-this-make-people-so-angry/
But Dorries does mention all those things, and twist things up. She used the stabbing of another MP as the reason she shut her blog down and closed her Twitter account, saying it was on police advise. The stabbing of the MP happened after she closed her blog though.
This online menace certainly appears deranged as the other people he harasses in a less public way than me will testify.
Who? Who will testify that Tim is that deranged that they have had to involve the police? No one. That would be why there is nothing on police record.
And therefore, for the sake of the people who work for me (he has already forced one member of staff to resign) I had really hoped for a different outcome today.
Dorries’ mate resigned when Tim looked into their business relationship and started asking questions about how little work was seemingly being done for the amounts being paid.
Let’s hope another court case comes up soon with more compelling evidence. Who knows, maybe it will have to be mine.
The amount Dorries bleats on, she should have plenty of evidence to get Tim banged up for a spell.
I wonder why the police have done so little, then…
Update: 18/6/2011 11.20am
Dorries’ post has now been removed, but I have a screen grab here (see next update if this link doesn’t work).
Update 19/6/11
Dorries has reposted her work of fiction, under the title of My Day In Court. It is pretty much the same but with added guff, and no more truth.
I have given the original screen grab a more permanent home. You can find it here, and a screengrab pof the new post can be found here. (Due to a plugin-in or something, you may need to copy and paste the URL into a new window/tab to get a full size look at the screengrabs.)
Some links with regard to Dorries Ten Minute Rule bill wanting manditory abstinence sex education for girls only.
The Ministry of Truth corrects Dorries on who is taught what at what age…
Dorries is playing the tired old tabloid trick of making false claims about the subject matter taught to seven year olds based on the contents of the full PSHE and SRE (sex and relationships education) curriculum, which runs of early years education (3-4 years) right through to the end of secondary education (year 11, 15-16 years), presenting children and young people with age appropriate information at each key stage and year of the curriculum.
Dorries’ speech referenced an interview on the sexual revolution which Joan Bakewell gave last year in the Radio Times, but Bakewill did not come up with these statistics and I find it doubtful that she would have cited them.
The statistics are actually a boilerplate talking-point which has been doing the rounds on Christian websites for years, sometimes attributed to a “Florida State University study”. One example of their use is the 1993 book by Bill Hybels and Rob Wilkins, entitled Tender Love: God’s Gift of Sexual Intimacy.
Tim over at Bloggerheads realises that Nadines’ choice for her all-time favourite song is a curious one given her campaign on “let young girls know that to say no to sex when they are under pressure is a cool thing to do”…
If Nadine Dorries actually means it when she claims she wants to teach teens that it’s “cool” to say ‘no’ to sex (i.e. if this isn’t just a further attempt to halve the abortion rate for entirely biblical reasons), she may want to choose a new favourite song…. because Raspberry Beret is a song about a teenage romance that culminates in what is unmistakably a first-time sexual experience.
and finally The Heresiarch has a thoughtful post, that concludes that maybe Dorries is aiming her campaign at the wrong gender…
Being 18 years old and a virgin is considerably more embarrassing to a boy than to a girl, though, who would more likely be able to thrill her partner with the revelation that she had been “saving herself” for him. But would Dorries tell a boy that it was “empowering” or “cool” to say no to sex? Would anyone?
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.
Without going into the mailicious, unfounded and un-true part of that sentence (I know who I believe, and it’s the person that produces evidence to back up his claims), I do not believe for one second that Tim has been warned off from entering Bedfordshire.
Seeing as Tim has not had a visit from the police [see Tims’ comment below] about his behaviour towards Nadine, they’re hardly going to send someone/a message to him to warn him off from going x miles near Nadine. They might do if they had previously had reason to tell Tim to cool it, but they haven’t.
The police cannot stop someone going anywhere without a court order, ASBO or some other statutory instrument, again, of which Tim would’ve been notified of if there was one against him. Which there isn’t.
So what we have is a member of parliament, again, smearing someone with the accusation that the police are on to him and he is up to no good without any evidence.
However, this doesn’t stop him from wasting tax payers money via freedom of information requests and then letters of complaint to the information commissioner when they don’t work. Stopping that comes next! My poor staff :(
So, how exactly is Nadine going to stop someone submitting FoI requests and writing to the Information Commissioner? What powers, exactly does she have to stop it?
