Panic on the streets of London....

So the vote was passed, the streets were full of anger and the Daily Mail got their photo to become outraged to. All I keep reading is that we have lost the argument if we resort to violence.  The irony of this is delicious.  The Tory press moan about violence towards monuments that are there as a result of violence.  Nothing of course about the Police charging children with horses, or the more than 100 protesters hospitalised, or the violence by the Police towards a protester in a wheelchair.  Why were the horses brought in?  It was because the protesters were throwing things like snooker balls apparently, but where is the logic in that?  You kettle groups of protesters, they get angry, they throw things, and then you charge at them with horses.  This is supposed to be a calming measure!!!  Unbelievable rank hypocrisy.  Still the Mail complain about cruelty to Horses, whilst celebrating hunting and field sports in general.  My MP was, as usual, on the money of course.  Not a word about the issues, she was only concerned about the horses, that the Police CHOSE to employ.  Don't worry about the students being beaten unconscious of course.  Then we have the idiot decision to parade Charles and Camilla past the protests, and the feigned shock that they threw some stuff at them.  There is a student in hospital at the moment undergoing an operation to stop bleeding on the brain, but the pot of paint on a Rolls Royce is more important of course.  I am sick to death of hearing that violence never works when my taxes are going to fund illegal wars and I am supposed to pay again for my children's education.  Violence works when it suits the government and media, and I am afraid to admit, I genuinely believe it might have to continue in this case.

The Education cuts are proportionately bigger than virtually every other cut, they were a choice, and an ideological one at that.  If we continue to be lied to, ignored, kettled, attacked, abused and pilloried, then violence is inevitable, and will soon become absolutely necessary.

No ifs not buts this woman drives me nuts

Whilst fully supporting the students, I wish they would choose another chant....anyway...

My favourite MP has come out and blogged in favour of the education cuts.  Hardly surprising of course, but this time, I am going to take it VERY personally indeed.  She makes references to courses being "Mickey Mouse".  I am currently taking one of these "Disney Based" courses.  I am doing a BA Hons in Theatre Studies.  It is part time, and distance learning based, and as a result, I am getting into debt paying for it, but it was my choice to do so I suppose.  This "Mickey Mouse" course has helped me to set up my own small business; a Theatre Company. It provides employment of varying levels to 7 people, and whilst we have struggled through the recession, we continue to survive.  We provide work and income for Venues, Lighting and Sound Companies, Costumiers, Make Up companies, Publishing companies and Licensees.   Her government have already began the process of cultural pillage of the Arts, which impacts on so many in society.  In spite of the fact that the Arts industry is reckoned to bring in to the economy twice what it takes out, the cuts go ahead.  There is not much sound economic sense behind the decision, and it smacks of an ideology rather than an economic necessity. The cuts in the arts, and perhaps more importantly to the local authorities that have done so much for the Arts will have a negative impact on every child.  The ability to  think creatively and channel imagination is SO important to any child, and it will stifle much of the business world in the long run.  This is long term thinking though, and as we know, our MPs think in terms of five year cycles.  Businesses like mine should be celebrated, helped, nurtured and encouraged.  Not stifled, blocked and insulted.  The arts are a "Soft" subject.  Terms like "Mickey Mouse" just help to reinforce these ridiculous and unnecessary prejudices.  Small businesses all over Bedfordshire have suffered during the recession.  My MP would have us believe that the recession is all the fault of the Labour party, and I would not agree with her on that, but I would hope she would agree with me on one thing.  Small and medium businesses are crucial to the recovery in this country.  Without them, any possible recovery will be next to impossible.  So tarring people in Media, Photography and humanities that you do not understand serves no purpose other than to disenfranchise, discourage and belittle.  Is that the way the government want to go?  Really?

Where do the figures come from about four hours of lectures?  Is it another Daily Mail horror story based on nothing other than bile?  Or are there any real figures to back this up?  I suspect I know the answer.  I study for around 20 hours a week as well as run my own small business and a household.  I know how hard it is to thrive in further education, and I am not alone in this.  That doesn't suit your rhetoric though does it?

You may, Mrs Dorries, be happy with the Cultural vandalism that your Government calls progressive.  Your disgraceful and insulting put down of people wanting to go into subjects that you do not understand is sadly typical of the prejudice that myself and many other in my Industry have to deal with.  Why put people off of their dreams and aspirations, when it would enhance the cultural health of the nation as well as the economic one?

More on Expenses - The Git that keeps on giving

MPs fear being 'torn apart' for criticising expenses regime: ePolitix.com

So today, I embark on a blog that is not predominantly about Dorries, although, she does feature heavily. It would seem that the issue of expenses is not going away just yet, and that there are many MPs who wish to keep it somewhere near the top of the agenda. This seems to me, to be a bit of a turnaround. It was not long ago that we were being told that the public were bored of hearing about it, and that they wanted to focus on real issues. It was with some degree of surprise therefore that I read that

"that a debate on the topic would garner a lot of interest as it was nearly all MPs talked about in the Commons tea rooms. One of the criteria the committee use to judge whether to grant a debate or not is whether they feel enough MPs will want to discuss the topic.

"There are a lot of people who want to say something, I am sure we could not only fill 3 hours but probably 12 hours,"

This is remarkable really. We have a world recession, the decimation of public services, the looming job losses, the crisis in the benefits system, our allies being accused of human rights breaches, but the single most important topic for our MPs is their own pockets!? We have a new transparent politics apparently. We can trust them all. Dorries may have been found not guilty of the major charge against her recently, but she was smacked on the wrist for failing to keep up with the policy of filling out forms. Now she just wants to be paid without the correct evidence, as it is overly bureaucratic. Well I might try that one with the tax man on my tax return. Surely I should be afforded the same luxury of being able to half fill out forms, send them in with no supporting evidence, and still expect to get away with it? What an absolute shower they really are

Wise Words from Woolas

"It is vital to our democracy that those who make statements about the political character and conduct of election candidates are not deterred from speaking freely"


I hope a certain someone takes note of that

Descent into madness?

Well I suppose it was inevitable really. Dorries has finally, it would appear, "lost the plot" and started to make out and out accusations about a political blogger; Tim Ireland. If you read the rest of this blog you will see that Tim has been relentless in his pursuit of truth and justice for Dorries. In her latest blog entry, she says;

"If you put into place your usual method of operation of continuous telephone calls, blogging, blitz emailing thousands of ranting words etc to people going about their daily business, I am sure the Police may take a strong view."

This is stunning in its concept. She genuinely believes that the Police will be interested in the views of bloggers? She REALLY believes that? Surely not? Whilst much of the coverage that she receives on Twitter is of a mocking variety, and I too have joined in on this occasionally, I have recently made the decision to stick to the cold hard facts of the case. In order to be taken seriously, I suppose I ought to behave in that way. So this revelation that the Police may be interested in Tim makes me wonder if the Rozzers will be banging my door down? After all, I have dared to question and criticise her.

Tim Ireland's pursuit of Dorries must be hugely irritating for her. Political Blogger and Radio Presenter Ian Dale yesterday answered my question about her with "You wouldn't say that if you had to put up with it". The thing is, it would appear to me on further reading, that Tim only writes about a certain kind of MP. The kind of MP who would at best seem guarded and non transparent. The kind of MP, who would appear to be lying. He has singled out MPs for their behaviour. Ian Dale may well be a friend of Dorries, and I admire his loyalty, but there has to come a time when even the most partisan of supporters realise that something is amiss here. In all of the words of support written about Dorries this week, they have pretty much exclusively relied on the "Bloody Lefties" response. There has been no solid and robust defence, no facts to back up Dorries, just name calling and childish tongue poking. Because Dorries just blocks constituents for asking questions, they all seem to think that this is the best way to deal with it. That is fine, Dale for example is not being paid by our taxes as far as I am aware. Dorries is being paid to do a job, and it would appear that this is increasingly spent on things that are not in either the general public's or her constituent's interest.

As for these constituents, how many of you can genuinely claim that this woman should remain in office? I have read little in the way of a defence of her, but was stunned to see one constituent say that it was all just back biting! This woman is clearly not acting in our interests. Many members of all parties have clearly had enough of her incoherent rants (That was not a dig at the Dyslexia, but aimed at her eccentric logic). There are very strong rumours that her demise may not be too far away.

If this is the case, I just want to go on record with one or two things.

If, as a hope, she has to stand down, there will be the inevitable backlash from her supporters of bullying and victimisation. Just remember the following;

She started the personal attacks on the Labour candidate in the last election

She then accused another candidate; Linda Jack of the Liberal Democrats, of making the campaign personal

She openly lied to her constituents at the hustings in Flitwick

She has attacked a constituent on the grounds of her disability, and fabricated

She has refused to give evidence of apparent reports to the Police

She has allied herself with extreme organisations, and then denied it

She was found to be unhelpful to the enquiry into her expenses, and failed to notify the relevant authorities

She habitually blocks her constituents from contacting her, and has replied to two of my 8 letters in the last four years

She calls her constituents stalkers for asking questions

None of these are points of view, or opinions, I have evidence of all of them. They are facts.

Dorries and her "Evidence"

"Oh not her again?" I hear you shout....but yes dear reader, I believe I am yet again justified in mentioning my elected representative. Dorries is a proud and noted campaigner against abortion, and in a civilised society, we of course encourage differing opinions. I do not necessarily disagree with everything she says, any more than I agree with everything either. However, we find ourselves in a position to be questioning her "facts" and "Evidence" yet again.

On her blog, she has very kindly produced the transcript of the debate the other night. In a nutshell, Dorries wants it to be law that women seeking an abortion get counselling and advice on the alternatives. She cites evidence that in other countries that have this as law, that abortion rates are lower. Now this is exactly the kind of evidence and research that gets her into trouble. There is no direct causal evidence that this is the case, but if she states it enough, it seems to become the truth in her eyes. She mentions

"A major longitudinal 30-year survey published inThe British Journal of Psychiatry in 2008 showed clearly-after adjustment for confounding variables-that women who had had abortions had rates of mental disorder 30% higher than women who had not."

It is very clear when you read the report that it does not come to that conclusion at all. The report was produced in response to the 1994 report that came to the conclusion that there was no effect whatsoever on the mental health of those having an abortion. The 2008 report says that whilst it acknowledges that mental health can be an issue, there is NO CLEAR EVIDENCE to suggest that there is a direct link. In fact, it states quite clearly that there has simply not been enough evidence. Where are the stats to compare the mental health of those who were persuaded not to have the abortion? The report clearly explains that there has not been enough research in this field. Whilst the report does state that many women suffer from mental health issues after an abortion, there is no clear way of measuring whether this mental health issue was as a cause of the abortion or whether it existed already. Again, this is all in the report.

We must also look at the law that currently exists. The 1967 abortion act states that a termination can only take place under certain conditions, one of these is as follows;

"The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman...’"

So there is already provision in the law to ensure that the ongoing well being of the mother is taken into account. In fact the study carried out in 1994 suggest that 94% of terminations are justified on these grounds.

Now I am not suggesting that the law is perfect in this case, but statements such as

"No consideration whatsoever is taken of the state of a mother's mental health when she asks for an abortion"

are clearly not true, and in fact could be quite damaging to the medical profession. Dorries sits of the select committee for health, and should know better.

The conclusion of the report is clearly that there is more evidence required, in fact in it's summary of position, it states

"The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women’s mental health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive – some studies indicate no evidence of harm, whilst other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion."

It would appear that the 70/30% ratio has been somewhat skewed again.

It would also appear that in presenting this evidence to parliament, Dorries is citing a brand new organisation called "Forsaken", and a booklet that they produced which gives some examples of five women who went through terminations. The "Evidence" of five women cannot, under any circumstances, be accepted as evidence of scientific fact. When you look at some of the connections this group has, it would appear that yet again, Dorries is pushing her pro-life agenda by stealth. In effect, she has allied herself with some, shall we say, eccentric Christian organisations that exist simply to preach their views, and will only use scientific evidence when it suits them. This is of course the same on both sides of the argument, and it makes evidence gathering by impartial scientists extremely difficult. It is a far more complex issue than Dorries suggests.

My concern here is two-fold. Firstly that Dorries has been economical with the truth in terms of what the report actually said

Secondly, that someone within the Health select committee is pushing what is in effect Christian fundamentalism under the banner of "Women's rights"

It's that Woman again

MPs' expenses: Nadine Dorries cleared over second home - Telegraph

I'm sure I don't have to go into the details of the whole expenses case about my MP. It has been widely reported. Interestingly though, the document that seems to "Exonerate" her, actually does far from it. For starters, we have the sickening admission that 70% of her blog is fiction....yes...she admits it. She has since backtracked and said she meant 30%, but that is supposed to be seen as a good thing. So lets get this into context. She says that she is doing this because if she blogs the truth that one of her stalkers will find out her whereabouts. She also says that she doesn't want the electorate to feel let down. Surely on both counts there are some questions that need answering? Who are these stalkers? Well we know that one of them is Tim Ireland, and again, if you look at his blog , you can see quite how far wide of the mark she is in this assertion...but the more she says it, the more it seems to be accepted. So Mrs Dorries, it is time to either give evidence, or shut up. Secondly, she admits to lying so as not to give her constituents the idea that she doesn't care about them. We didn't need you to lie Mrs Dorries, the contempt that you show through this disgraceful admission is evidence enough.

She was found not guilty of a breach of thr rules with regard to second homes, but this is based largely on her word. She keeps no records of her attendance, no records of her stays in the constituency, but the report has taken her on her word. This is despite the fact that one of her neighbours stated that she was in the constituency for 80% of the time. His evidence appears to have been dismissed as it could bee unreliable! This is astonishing! The report cites Dorries blog as part of the evidence, but also publishes her quote about the 70% fiction! Are they sure that "Neighbour No.1" is the unreliable one here?

Even if we accept that what she has said is true, we have an MP who by her own admission lied to her constituents to curry favour, does not treat her constituency as her home, and would appear to be in the Cotswolds for 80% of the time. How can she be a representative for us? We have an MP who expects to keep no accurate record for the purposes of some pretty substantial expense claims, but expects us to take her on her word. If she was in Industry, the financial department would throw the expense claim back in her face.

The report paints a picture of a woman with a regrettable tone, a devious, truculent approach to the collection of evidence, and someone who appears to have wilfully wasted the time of government in the pursuit of her evidence. She posted a picture on her blog some time ago, which showed the Parliamentary standards guide that had apparently blown out of the window of her office....I will assume that this forms part of the 70%, as the document is quite sizeable. I would not expect Dorries to have any interest in a document that encourages "Standards".

A large proportion of her time has been spent lashing out at those who dare to question her. She gives the impression of a woman who believes she has a right to power, rather than treating it as a privilege. She lashes out at her constituents, ignores the majority of them, and I can only assume that the 30% truth figure relates to the comments section of her blog that has long since closed down.

She has returned to Twitter, and of course gone through and blocked large numbers of her constituents. She refers to people who question her as "Nutters"....yes..."Nutters"....She has a position on the Health select committee for crying out loud, and is paid extra to be part of it! If she turns up to this committee, I truly hope she does not encourage use of phrases like "Nutter".

She has spent the last week hollering from the rooftops about the BBC, and it's disgraceful bias towards the Labour Party, and then goes on to appear on BBC Radio to use it as a medium to proclaim her "Innocence".

She was NOT exonerated yesterday, she was shown up to be a careerist serial manipulator, and a self proclaimed liar. This was not a throwaway comment on a blog. He admission came in a government document, that she had the time and chance to request amendments to, she did not ask for that to be changed, so she accepted this admission as the truth. The commission found her to be guilty of the "Non Serious" offence of failing to advise of an address change. It also found her to be extremely unhelpful. She came out of this report worse than if she had been found guilty of the Expense issue. There are some good things to come out of this. The BNP who raised the initial complaint did not succeed. I would hate for the BNP to succeed at anything. Mainly though, it has gained national attention. The media are beginning to pick up on this gaffe prone woman, who is the latest on a long line of female Prince Philip impersonators in the Conservative Party. I want her to be in the National Conscience. I want the rabid Blue rinse brigade to be disgusted at her, I want the very media that she has spent the last few years manipulating to turn it back on her, just so she can taste what she has encouraged in others.

Mrs Dorries, you are a disgrace, you are not fit for Public Office, and you are a cheap, nasty self proclaimed liar.