Sep 30, 2010

Nadine Dorries: a warning

Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, set Twitter alight today with some poorly-received comments about 'obsessive' use of blogs on her, erm... blog*.

There is detail about Dorries' post that needs documenting (it is a thinly veiled attack on one of her critics, and Dorries is ably supported in this task by Paul 'Guido Fawkes' Staines, and not for the first time) but this important warning must come first.

Nadine is most frequently under fire on Twitter today for this passage:

"In the meantime, do you know of anyone else who has Tweeted more than 35,000 times in less than six months? If so, email my office and let me know. Or, better still, if it's someone you know is on benefits, contact the DWP." - Nadine Dorries (source)


You need to be aware that Nadine Dorries is most likely only adopting this position in order to attack one of her critics with a smear (something she does often). She may not genuinely think, for example, that those who are on benefits due to mental health problems should be reported to authorities for daring to engage in conversation on Twitter.

However, because she is trying to smear this particular critic as mentally damaged (i.e. as well as fraudulent), she certainly gives this impression, and as a result, there are bloggers who are brave enough to write about their own mental health issues who wish to complain about this.

I am here to warn people that if you write to Andy Rayment, the Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association [admin@midbedsconservatives.com], to complain about the conduct of Nadine Dorries, you can expect an answer like this...

"I do not waste my time communicating with nutters so do not expect me to respond to any of your communications, electronic or otherwise" - Andy Rayment (source)


... and when this happens, you can most probably count on Dorries chuckling along like it's the wittiest thing said since Churchill popped his clogs:

"... when a 'nutter' began bombarding my association with telephone calls and emails, this made me laugh out loud." - Nadine Dorries (source)


Finally, I should add that if you dare to press the matter, you will most likely end up getting smeared yourself. You have been warned.

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[NOTE - What Dorries describes as a 'bombardment' is less than half a dozen emails and calls over a 6 month period, none of which earned a civil reply. You can read the background on this here and here. It should also be noted for the purpose of transparency that the two main targets of Dorries' smears referred to in this post are editors of this site.]

[*She calls it a blog, but don't be thinking you can leave comments on it. That would be a foolish expectation.]

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UPDATE - And here's that detail that needed to be documented:

Nadine Dorries Takes Revenge on Twitter Critic: Uses Paul Staines to Push Smear

Thank you, Richard Bartholomew.

Readers may also be interested in this round-up of related posts by the lovely Ms Cushion.

For the record, there have been minor outbreaks of support for Nadine Dorries on Twitter (a few people versus a few hundred, no exaggeration), but so far all they amount to are assurances that she is a lovely person, really and/or repeats of Nadine's smears (i.e. outright lies) that somehow prove in their mind that she's a lovely person, really.

Truth is, Nadine Dorries is the type of person who knowingly publishes and publicises malicious, damaging lies about people she perceives to be her political enemies.