Nadine Dorries lashes out with point she imagines she has (and assumes is supported by evidence that isn't quite what she imagines)

There are more Dorries-related updates to come from me personally very shortly. In the meantime, I ask you bear with me during the time-consuming process of (*gasp*) actual research, something Nadine does not bother with herself, even on the most superficial level (see: RTFA manual, chapter one, page 1).

In the meantime, I offer you this diary piece from Hugh Muir:

Finally, what was it the combative Nadine Dorries MP said? "I'm frequently gobsmacked by how journalists forget to check their facts." Lord Justice Leveson would concur. But then he would probably avoid making an idiot of himself in the aftermath. On Saturday, Dorries pointed her Twitter flock towards an article by our own Jonathan Freedland. It referred to the "left's dirty secret" – the extent to which leading figures embraced the idea of eugenics: the theme of the novel Pantheon, written under Freedland's pen name, Sam Bourne. "Thanks to @j_freedland for excellent Cif article," tweeted Dorries, prompting a measure of criticism. "Usual torrent of abuse 4 linking to an abortion article re the left," she said. It's not an "abortion article", countered Freedland. "There's a difference between individual women having right to choose and desire to reduce/eliminate ranks of the 'inferior'." "Yes, but as you know," said Dorries, "abortion was the method used to eliminate the inferior." She had seen Freedland being interviewed on the BBC. "I just found it odd that in the whole interview you avoided the word entirely and yet in any other discussion re eugenics etc it's a word used often. I also didn't hear you mention Marie Stopes in your list of names, a contemporary of those you listed. Your avoidance of both led me to think that had more to do with your day job on the Guardian, as to omit both the word abortion + MS were glaring omissions." Nonsense, said Freedland. If I were worried about a Guardian backlash, I wouldn't have written the piece in the Guardian. And there was a whole paragraph about Marie Stopes. Didn't you see it? "I still haven't read all the column," admitted Dorries. "But u tweeted that it was excellent piece, linked to it + called it 'an abortion article'. Thought you'd read it," said Freedland. Oh dear, checkmate. Off sloped the member for Fact-Check West.

Nadine Dorries interview in Glamour magazine

Glamour magazine! It's not my thing, really. But no matter. Actually, that's why this little number is here. Glamour magazine isn't for everybody, but everybody who cares about anybody with a uterus will want to read this. Think of it as a neato time capsule of the best Dorries has to support a range of recent arguments.

Click to make bigger and read.

It is quite plain for most party/political/punditry people that Dorries is having us on. Her main campaign revolves a recycled ploy from a similarly cynical campaign by a deeply religious anti-abortionist movement in the United States. When Dorries went to the House with her version of this package, it had already been widely discredited. She was thrown a lifeline by Anne Milton, a minister from her own party trying very hard to help her, but still Dorries persisted, wasting the House's time with highly distorted accounts, entirely unsupported hearsay, plus - most alarming of all - deliberate and darkly cynical emotional devices both in support of her 'argument', and in defence of her many refusals to openly debate it, or even produce evidence to support it.

Nadine Dorries even pretended to be independent of her own damn campaign and activists, because it was the only way for her to avoid discussion of the deeply religious roots of her efforts and those of her supporters. This is something Dorries has repeatedly tried to hide, but she keeps revealing herself in her language and her aims, and her belief in Bible passages that are so strong, it makes her call the Church of England "cowards" when they do not interpret them as literally as she does. There really is no hiding this kind of thing, and yet Dorries persists. I do hope you'll excuse my amazement.

Dorries: 'I am doing this to empower women'

Below is the full text of the interview in the Times that has Nadine Dorries lashing out at Alice Thomson. We're releasing it into the public domain so Nadine's (textbook) response might be seen in its proper context:

'I am doing this to empower women'

Alice Thomson
Friday 2nd September 2011

Nadine Dorries spent her summer trying to change the rules on abortion counselling. Was it worth it, Alice Thomson asks her


The foetus was still alive in the bed pan, it was gasping for breath, I could see its little face and its sex," says Nadine Dorries. "As an 18-year-old trainee nurse, I was absolutely horrified. I had been told to get rid of it in the sluice machine but I ran to the matron to say it was breathing."

The matron was furious. "She wheeled around in her chair and stormed into the sluice room, looked at the bedpan and told me it was now dead. She almost pushed me against the wall, and said: 'You'd better toughen up, young lady.' But this felt more like a murder than a medical procedure."

Oh Nadine, do you have to be so graphic? The Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire has spent the past seven years in Parliament fighting about abortion. She has her views on MPs' expenses, all-women shortlists, schools, John Bercow and even high heels, but it's her stance on abortion that has caused her to become vilified. She's been called Britain's Sarah Palin, a fantasist, mendacious, grubby and dangerous by the pro-abortionists.

She has twice tried to reduce the time limit for abortion and next week MPs will vote on her amendment to provide independent counselling for women seeking an abortion that won't include the big service providers.

When I meet Dorries, now 54, she looks exhausted. She has just moved into her new home on the edge of a cul-de-sac in Harlington and everything is in turmoil. Her leg is swollen and bruised from a recent accident, her face is as crumpled as her shirt, she can't find her iron, the dog is chewing the furniture and she has been working all summer while her colleagues have been texting her from Barbados. But she is convinced that she is on the verge of a breakthrough.

I have always thought that Britain was rather civilised when it came to the issue of abortion, unlike America. It is one of those increasingly rare issues that is still considered private. We don't picket clinics, or try to maim those who carry out terminations. Few of us base our vote on the issue; we are more concerned about the economy, health and crime.

So why can't Dorries relax and shut up? Having spent an afternoon with her, I still think that this doll-like blonde's amendment is flawed, but I admire her tenacity. Her views veer from rational and practical to passionate and emotive; she is not always logical and her facts are sometimes wrong, her reasoning intuitive rather than intellectual. But nor is she out to destroy a woman's chance of terminating an unwanted pregnancy before 20 weeks. I believe her when she says that she just wants to ensure that women have a real choice in pregnancy.

The reason she keeps going, she says, is the letters she receives from women who have been traumatised by their abortions. "It's this whole wham, bam, in, out, you're aborted with no chance to draw breath. They can't talk about it in the playground but their devastating sense of loss makes me weep."

The former nurse used to prep women having terminations.

"I can remember terrified young girls, older women with children, bullying husbands, women on their third abortion, all of them seemed dazed and upset."

She has even watched a late abortion for her research a few years ago, and launches into another graphic account — too graphic, frankly, to reproduce here. Yet here is one of her inconsistencies. If women are offered independent counselling, it could mean more late abortions as they will have to delay the procedure to seek a therapist. At the moment the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) manages to perform 75 per cent of its abortions before ten weeks, up from 40 per cent in 2000 — that seems like progress. "Some people need a bit more time, space, a person to listen to, it could help them later," Dorries says.

So let's say I am an 18-year-old girl who has unexpectedly become pregnant just as I am about to go to college, what advice would the independent counsellor be expected to give? "They won't be able to advise or direct. They will just facilitate the woman to go through all the options and talk things through. If she decides to go ahead and abort, she will do so empowered, knowing that she explored every opportunity; that she wasn't influenced or in a panic, that she has reached a calm and informed decision.

The problem is that abortion in this country is now so fast, so effective, so rapid, that it is too efficient for its own good and has lost all empathy. In pilots where women are offered independent counselling, 50 per cent of those who ask for it don't then opt for an abortion."

But deciding to bring a baby into the world is a huge commitment — should we really be encouraging women to have a baby if they are unsure that they can yet face the responsibility? "Adoption is the big issue we never mention," she replies. "Only two babies were adopted last year. [The figure is actually 70.] It's the final taboo. You can take no comfort from abortion because it is terminal but you can take comfort from an adoption because you can turn a horrible mistake into something life-enhancing for other people."

Has Dorries any idea what it might be like to hand over a baby after birth? Surely that is more traumatising than an abortion? "I don't know how agonising it would be to give away your baby," she replies politely, "but I know many adopted children who have lived wonderful lives; they are often high achievers."

She doesn't believe that there is any such thing as a guilt-free abortion. "Many women are fine until they are in their fifties, when it hits them. I don't want to be over-emotional, but I think that most people who have had an abortion will think about it at some time — I don't think they necessarily remember due dates, but they usually think of who they could have had in their lives. A lot of the pro-abortionists who have had abortions can't stop talking about it, maybe it's cathartic. It's like a healing process."

But what about cost? Tasteless as it sounds, this counselling is going to cost the Treasury cash. "If the number of abortions falls, that should save money so it shouldn't cost more."

The biggest sticking point, however, has been who should provide the counselling. "There are 80,000 counsellors in this country. This is not about religious zealots. I was brought up in the Church of England but I rarely go to church. God has no place in a counselling room with a woman in a crisis pregnancy, but neither does anyone paid to carry out an abortion. The counselling room should be a zone free from anyone who has an agenda."

Yet Marie Stopes and the BPAS, the two biggest agencies, are charities: they don't make any money out of convincing women to have an abortion.

Just opening up the issue risks taking us down the US route. But in Dorries's world, it is the Left stirring things up. "If the Left carry on campaigning in the way they are, they will turn us into another America," she warns. "If they carry on trying to defend the indefensible, they will cause huge unhappiness. This amendment only offers women counselling; it isn't compulsory, it is just for those with doubts, so why are they opposing it? Because they worry it will mean fewer abortions and that would horrify them."

Dorries, on the other hand, thinks that almost 200,000 abortions a year in Britain is too many. "The political climate has encouraged it. We have a law saying you can't have an abortion for social reasons, yet 98 per cent of abortions happen because of that. So the law has been an ass in this area. There has also been a lack of moral framework. Years ago, teachers, parents, the Church had a role. When I grew up in Liverpool there was an invisible moral framework that as teenagers you bounced off.

"Teenagers are now in freefall, it's quite scary for them, there are few boundaries, no reason not to have sex. The welfare state encourages them to make mistakes — if they get pregnant, they often don't realise that they could lose their place in education, the workplace, their partners will leave them, they could enter old age in poverty and alone."

Then shouldn't they have an abortion? "It's better to teach them not to have unprotected sex. That's why I wanted them to learn about abstinence in schools, to help these girls to have a future."

If one of her three daughters had become pregnant in her teens, Dorries says that she would have looked after the baby for her. "Mums used to do that — they offered to help to bring up a child. Now family breakdown, social breakdown, societal breakdown, the broken society, lack of moral framework, our selfishness, stops us all helping each other out."

She says that she would never judge a woman for getting pregnant by mistake. "It could happen so easily to most of us. I just want to know that a woman isn't having an abortion because her friends want her to, or her partner, or mum, dad or teacher suggests it. I can understand why anyone goes for an abortion but I want them to have a choice and not to think that it is the only solution and it is easy. I am like this one-woman band."

What about men: where do they fit into her campaign? She split up with her husband five years ago, and says that she always thought pregnancy was a woman's issue. "Men shouldn't be allowed in the counselling room, the final choice must always be the woman's."

She describes herself as a feminist, "although not like some. I am the mother of three girls and I am very aware of the inequality for women in life, I admire Harriet Harman for what she has achieved for women. I am also doing this for women, to empower them."

A lot of people disagree in the most violent terms. "The abuse has been dreadful, really horrific, too disgusting to print. People want to strangle me until my eyes pop out and burn me. They throw eggs through our windows. My daughter works in our office and she reads the letters first. She is leaving now, the toll has been so huge on her. My other daughter had to put up with snide comments from teachers."

The Labour MP Frank Field has seconded her amendment. "He doesn't get death threats. He gets nothing because he is from the Left and a man."

At the beginning of this week, she thought she might have pulled off the greatest abortion shake-up since 1967 when David Cameron appeared to be behind her. "The Prime Minister had coffee with me. He wanted the word 'strongly' independent included; he had the same worries as me that the amendment would be taken over by religious groups or pro-abortion groups, that it had to be neutral," she says. "David is supportive. He is the one driving it at No 10, it will happen."

Yesterday, though, the Prime Minister made it clear that he will not support her amendment. His spokesman explained: "We have real sympathy for Nadine's proposals but you can't exclude the big providers from the counselling process or you will throw the whole system into disarray, which will be much more damaging for women in the end."

It's hard to believe the effort has been worth it. "I can't let myself think like that," Dorries says. "I can't stop now. I will keep fighting for this and lowering the abortion limit to 20 weeks. I have to keep going because no one else does. People feel embarrassed, horrified, that it's too emotive or distasteful, but we have to have a grown-up conversation about the issue. Many ordinary people agree with me, my constituents have been incredibly supportive. People have listened and heard: it's like a race and I am determined to power through to the end."

Sadly for her, most ordinary women simply don't agree.

Newsnight: Nadine Dorries on science and abortion

Nadine Dorries has appeared on Newsnight (currently available on iPlayer here, about 40 minutes into the show) and claimed that her stance on abortion was based not on faith, but on The Science. I have transcribed a brief section of the interview for your reading pleasure (I missed out all the umming and ahhing, but the rest of her comments have, I hope, been faithfully reproduced).

Well, none of the issues that I champion particularly, although they would be deemed to be faith issues, if I were to approach any of them from a faith perspective I would lose before I’ve even begun. And I’ll give you an example: I moved to have the upper limit at which abortion takes place from 20 weeks to 20, but that wasn’t on any faith basis, that was on the basis of the science and the morality of that it just seems to be wrong to aborting babies who could live if born at that particular gestation.

So... Dorries seems to be claiming that the science backed her position that the limit should have been changed from 24 weeks to 20. Did it?

Well, Ben Goldacre didn't seem to think so. Dr Goldacre referred to a study called Epicure, which found no significant improvement in survival rates for babies born at 22 or 23 weeks. Dorries seems to have based her position not on a large study, but on the claims of John Wyatt, a member of the Christian Medical Fellowship who gave evidence to a Commons committee on science and technology in 2007. It's not altogether clear what Prof Wyatt did to come up with his figures for improved survival rates.

Wyatt's original reference for his claims regarding improved survival rates was not a peer-reviewed, published study. It was an abstract for a conference presentation. A presentation that did not contain the figures he was quoting.

Wyatt then said that he had produced a spreadsheet especially for the committee he was giving evidence to. Unlike the large study I referred to earlier, Wyatt was working with small numbers, from just University College London hospitals. Goldacre described the data as:

...non-peer reviewed, non-published, utterly chaotic, personal communication of data, from 1996 to 2000, with no clear source, and with no information about how it was collected or analysed.

This is apparently what Dorries was referring to as "the science" - data that was clearly less reliable than the large study. If, rather than simply accepting that the best available evidence has findings that are inconvenient to your cause, you decide to quote less reliable evidence then you cannot claim that your move to change the limit on abortion from 24 weeks to 20 is based on the science. It simply isn't true.

Why did Dorries claim that her stance was "based on the science"? Well, this was her example of an issue that she could not approach from a faith perspective. She claims that if she did so she would lose on such issues before she'd begun. Perhaps that is the reason?

Or perhaps she really did believe that The Science supported her point of view? I suppose that is plausible. I mean, if you are scientifically illiterate enough to be taken in by the hand of hope hoax, and so lacking in insight that you believe your version of events is more likely to be correct than that of the doctor conducting the operation, then I suppose it's quite possible that you might be sufficiently scientifically illiterate to believe that citing the back-of-a-fag-packet calculations of one man (when a large, well-conducted study has different results) means that the scientific evidence supports your position.

Nadine Dorries: a liar for God

Hi folks. If you've turned up here wondering what Nadine Dorries and her latest "pro women" (i.e. anti-abortion) campaign is all about, here are two recent articles by yours truly that reveal the lie - and the liar - behind it:

Bloggerheads - Nadine Dorries: the missing punchline

Bloggerheads - Nadine Dorries and the mission from God

To summarise as I did here;

Nadine Dorries is completely ignorant of relevant medical procedures, and uses unsubstantiated anecdotes, distorted/falsified statistics, and outright lies to support the campaigns she supports that are unquestionably engineered by religious groups and conceived quite deliberately to restrict a woman's right to govern her own body.

Doctors Know Best

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have spoken. And this is what they have said:

There is no new evidence to show foetuses feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks, and so no reason to challenge the abortion limit, UK doctors say.

That's got to sting a bit if you're campaigning for a reduction of the abortion limit.

Mind you, they still haven't commented on the abilities of foetuses to tear their way out of the womb. We'll need to wait longer for that report.

Nadine Dorries is unfit to Chair the Health Select Committee

Nadine Dorries wants to be Chair of the Health Select Committee. She is entirely unfit for the position. End of.

Hopefully sanity will prevail in today's vote, but some serious questions need to be put to the MPs who nominated Dorries for this position. An incomplete list appears below.

Members nominated for election as Select Committee Chairs (PDF)

Candidate: Nadine Dorries

Nominated by (own party): Andrew Rosindell, Heather Wheeler, Andrea Leadsom, Mr Robert Buckland, Sarah Newton, Mr James Clappison, Richard Harrington, Mr David Davis, Esther McVey, Mr Brian Binley, Mrs Anne Main, Robert Halfon, Mr Peter Lilley, Penny Mordaunt, Pauline Latham

Nominated by (other parties): Vernon Coaker, Rosie Cooper, Ian Swales, Graham Stringer

Relevant interests declared: None

Note: Only the first fifteen names of a candidate’s own party validly submitted in support of a candidature are printed, except in the case of committees with chairs allocated to the Liberal Democrats, when only the first six such names are printed.

Graham Stringer is worthy of special attention. He more than anyone visible on this list should be aware of Dorries' attendance record on the Science and Technology Committee. They were both members during the most recent session and he attended many of the meetings when she attended none. Surely he must have noticed her repeated absence, even if he didn't get around to reading the final minutes.

Letter to a constituent in Mid Bedfordshire

The graphic below shows the conversation I had yesterday with Rachel Lewis [fireflylive], a voter in Mid Bedfordshire (the constituency Nadine Dorries is campaigning to retain for the Conservatives). Below that is my wider reply, which I've posted as an open letter here for two reasons:

a) Rachel is not the only person I wish to reach with this message

b) If she or anyone else wants to continue the conversation, comments are open, and they offer a little more elbow room than Twitter allows.

Dear Rachel,

It is not my intention to tell you who to vote for. I don't intervene on behalf of any party or candidate. Rather, like many people, I'm so alarmed at the depth of Nadine's dishonesty that, given the chance, I would seek to inform any voter in her constituency of her stunning deceits and shameless duplicity.

Also, I doubt very much that I can recommend any candidate who matches your description. All politicians lie. It comes with the job, and starts with the half-truths one is compelled to rely on when representing tens of thousands of people with competing/conflicting interests on matters that are often confidential. It's a fine line to walk that eventually leads to lies, often because there is little choice and/or because as human beings we are fallible (and I would hope the latter point also addresses any expectations you may have about a candidate who won't ever put a foot wrong).

But there's a world of difference between this natural hazard of politics and deliberately using falsehoods to win a debate, or (worse) telling malicious lies about your opponents in order to silence critics and gain political advantage. Nadine Dorries does the latter especially... repeatedly.

If you do your research, you'll encounter many people who speak in defence of Dorries with assurances that she is a wonderful person and claims/implications that the people criticising her (they will say 'attacking' her) are doing so for personal or party-political reasons. What none of these people will do is address the substance of those criticisms ('attacks') but, sadly, showmanship wins over substance all too often.

You will also encounter some who have so lost patience with Dorries that their tone becomes angry, and sometimes even abusive. I'll admit to losing my temper in this way myself, but I try to avoid the error when I can, as it draws attention away from the substance. In fact, defenders of Dorries (and Dorries herself) will often seek to blur lines to such an extraordinary extent that with they portray all criticism of Dorries as abuse without substance.

As you may have guessed, I'm kind of keen on the substance myself, so let's get to it now that the preliminaries are taken care of. I have many examples I can offer you of Dorries' duplicity, but I've chosen the following three examples from the campaign she headed to lower the abortion time limit for reasons of simplicity and (hopefully) clarity;

-

1. During the main debate before the House voted, Nadine Dorries claimed that three quarters of women specified a preference to lower the time limit to her preferred target; 20 weeks. But "three quarters of women" did not specify 20 weeks. Nadine Dorries either completely misunderstood the data or (more likely in my experience) deliberately misrepresented it in order to give the false impression that she enjoyed a popular mandate. As the raw poll data showed, it wasn't 75% of women specifying 20 weeks, but 15%, and then only because it was fed to them as an option.

I've included this example because it is the kind of lie that most people expect from politicians, in a setting where we expect them to do most of their lying (when not on the campaign trail). But differences begin with what happens after... or, rather, what does not.

After literally inviting scrutiny of her assertions in the House, Dorries has never returned to this point, despite her being challenged publicly and repeatedly on it. If this 'attack' is baseless, then why can't/won't Dorries defend the claim she was happy to make on the record in the House?

This is where uncertainty about a possible misunderstanding dissipates and it becomes clearer that what we are looking at is a calculated lie, even if it only became one after the fact.


2. Before the debate, there was a committee, but Dorries split off from that committee when it wasn't going the way she wanted and she produced her own 'minority report'. When doing so, she accused Dr Ben Goldacre, a journalist, of behaving improperly with regards to evidence passed to the committee.

Not only was this accusation false, but it showed a complete ignorance of Parliamentary procedure (the evidence was not shared improperly as she alleged; it was in the public domain).

I'd like to think that, put in a similar position, you or I would admit to the error and apologise for the false accusation. As a fellow blogger, you've probably experienced some error in the past that's been pointed out to you in comments that you have had to address in comments and/or by updating your post.

Nadine Dorries a has a 'blog', too... but she actually chose to close comments rather than face any discussion about her false accusation, and they stayed closed for months afterwards*.

(*They eventually re-opened, but closed again after her 'suicide' outburst regarding expenses.)

What is notable about this lie is that it completely avoided the substance of Dr Ben Goldacre's criticisms about evidence Dorries was relying on, and instead called into question the honesty and integrity of a man whose only allegiance is to honesty in science and medicine.

Over two years later, she had not apologised for any of it, and probably never will.

3. During the debate, Dorries presented as a key part of her evidence an image titled 'Hand of Hope'

The photographer who took this image claims the foetus reached out and grabbed the surgeon's finger.

The surgeon maintains that it was him manipulating the arm (IIRC, in order to gain access to a part of a foetus that was behind it)

What is most notable about the photographer's story is that he describes it as a miracle and speaks of it being the work of God. Regardless of where you stand on Christianity specifically or religion generally, an honest person should not present his testimony (based, as it is, on faith) as part a scientific argument, but that's exactly what Nadine Dorries did.

Further, when confronted with the conflicting account by the surgeon, she implied that he had changed his story out of fear of violence**.

(**In doing so, she further implied that the pro-choice lobby is inherently violent, when it is their opponents in this debate who have a track record of targeting doctors and other staff members attached to abortion clinics. While trying to further defend the claim, Dorries also showed a startling level of ignorance about foetal development and human biology that calls into question her claims to have worked as a fully qualified nurse.)

To claim that the surgeon would falsify his account of a life-or-death surgical procedure for any reason is a smear that calls into question their honesty and integrity, and I would hope that by now you can detect an emerging pattern.

-

If you wish, I can show you many different examples of Nadine Dorries doing this to many different people. She has a long track record not only of attempting to deceive the electorate, but of spreading malicious lies and falsehoods about those who dare to confront or oppose her.

To bring this letter to a close, I'd like to touch on the matter of the incinerator (and invite you to furnish me with any relevant specifics);

I don't wish to belittle your concerns, but the thing about projects like incinerators is that they always end up becoming political footballs, as they're easy to object to while seeming a bit green, and we generate so much garbage that there's nearly always a landfill/recycling/incinerator proposal on the table come election time (much like there are always potholes to be filled, and mobile phone masts to object to). Even Nick Herbert, the shadow cabinet Environment Secretary, is objecting to a recycling centre in his own constituency.

Also, even if Nadine Dorries presents herself as the only candidate who opposes this incinerator, or the only candidate capable of stopping it, I doubt very much if she is as sincere about it as she appears, especially in light of this tweet from a fellow constituent of yours that appeared during our conversation:

"re: a claim dorries made about opposing an incinerator; when public meeting was held on this she arrived 15 mins after the end" - Sandra Robinson

If you're interested, I would very much like to continue this chat, and I look forward to any reply, especially if you would do me the honour of trusting me to host our conversation (i.e. if you choose to respond here, under 'comments').

Cheers

Tim Ireland

Over to you, Rachel. No rush. We have a couple of weeks.

-

UPDATE (23 April) - Rachel would like us to know that engaging with her on this point (and I suspect any other) is a waste of time. She says so quite explicitly...

Lie back and think of Ireland...
Sadly for you I am not one for a fight. I do not specialise in being very political and I am not going to take your blog apart piece by piece and argue the toss about what you have said. When it comes to politics I'm sure you know what you're talking about. Well, I hope you know what you're talking about or else you really need to get out more, dear. That's quite an obsession you have with Mrs Dorries. Other blonde ladies are available; not me sadly, although you're welcome to get in the queue... I want to say thank you for all the work you have put in to your blog post. As a seasoned blogger myself, although not doing even a gnats chuff of the research you do (I haven't the time, I work, I'm a Mum, I have a life); I think it's a truly special and wonderful thing you do, to sit in your mansion / house / flat / bedsit / parent's back room, in Guildford, Slurrey and work so hard and care so much about us poor people here in Middle Narnia; cruelly afflicted by having Satan's Handmaiden... [etc. etc. etc.]

... and to be honest I suspected as much when I saw this tweet that immediately followed our earlier conversation:



Speaking in defence of Dorries, she's reduced to making it personal and (it must be noted) creepily sexual in places. For the record, I've got nothing against her* personally but it's always disappointing when people go to this much effort to waste your time (and theirs) while simultaneously lecturing you for wasting your time.

Obviously, Rachel is not going to appreciate that Dorries is different because of the personal attacks she engages in (she spends the whole time ignoring Dorries' attacks, while portraying criticism of her as a personal attack, and engaging in one herself while she's about it ) so I think we're done here.

[*Or the people of Mid Bedfordshire, for that matter, but I can't say that I speak for all of us here in Slurrey.]