Back with Feedback

Nadine Dorries: Feedback was down for about a week due to computer problems, that unit's eventual repair and then replacement, plus interference from 'supporters' of Nadine Dorries, some of whom then decided it would be a constructive to create an anonymous website containing just the kind of venomous, personal attacks that Nadine Dorries (eventually) claimed to be the victim of.

While the interim feedback facility was out of action, Nadine was quite chatty on her blog, and the following is a run-down of what has been missed:

Nov 10 - I need a wife!: Nadine blogs on the challenges of balancing wild parties and solemn ceremonies with shopping, laundry, the dishes, the floors and walking the dogs. She closes by saying "I need a wife....."

Nov 12 - Mid Beds Annual Dinner: Nadine posts a photo of herself, her daughters and other guests with John Major at a party. She informs us that her intern Stephanie responded to the toast "My Lords ladies and gentleman – the Queen" by saying; "Omigod, is she here, where?"

Nov 13 - Friday night pre dinner drinks and prep!: Nadine posts a photo of herself, her daughters and other guests from *before* that same party. Sitting on a bed and drinking champagne.

Nov 14 - Rocket Science?: Nadine announces that she is now a member of the Innovation University and Skills Select Committee. While never experiencing university herself, she feels confident that "(we need) fewer universities, not more and that half of the courses on offer should be scrapped." She presents as evidence an invitation for us to "walk around any halls of residence at the moment and spot the unhappy students."

Nov 15 - Posh Nosh: Nadine dashes from an audio interview to a posh lunch.

Nov 16 - Posh Nosh Part 2....: Nadine tells us of a potato-in-cleavage moment involving Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer and The Sunday Edition and a woman with "generous assets". She closes by promising some background to ITV's decision to axe the Sunday Edition. Ahhh, sweet discretion....

And that, minus one extraordinary outburst that demands its own mirror, brings us up to date and back online. Prepare to speak your brains.

Step away from the husband [Feedback version]

Step away from the husband was posted by Nadine Dorries on Wednesday, 7 November 2007 at 09:27

Readers of this website are invited to comment on this entry here, as they are not permitted to do so at Nadine Dorries' half-a-blog.

Step away from the husband

As I waited to pre-record an interview in Millbank, I listened to the Jeremy Vine show through the headset. The topic of discussion was loneliness and grief following the death of a loved one.

Tony Benn contributed in the understated and pragmatic way he always does, when speaking about a lifetime of devotion to his wife Caroline.

Many people phoned in and told their stories of how they felt after a partner had died after ten, twenty or fifty years, as though grief is measured in degrees of severity, the longer you were together before someone died, the greater the grief.

Every week I hold the hand of someone in my surgery who has lost a partner. Someone they loved. Not only through death, but through divorce or separation. Someone who finds themselves in a situation they never thought they would be in.

Many unable to cope with the daily practical problems which threaten to overwhelm them because they are consumed by grief and unable to focus on the day to day tedium of life.

All I can do is hold their hand, and in an attempt to stem the tears, find the right words of comfort and hope.

For me personaly, the most difficult part of being divorced is becoming single.

I manage by submerging myself in work from morning until night, but always in politics, the social side rears its head and I have to brace myself to attend yet another drinks party, alone.

It never ceases to amaze me how many women suddenly fall madly in love with their husbands as I am taken over to be introduced.

They may not have held their husbands hand for weeks, but will be seized by a sudden urge to hang on to his arm, hold his hand and brush back the imaginary stray hairs from his almost bald head as they talk to me.

Her body language yells through an imaginary loud hailer ‘step away from the husband, he’s mine’!

I want to say stop, don’t worry, he has a pot belly, bad breath and a face only his mother and apparently you could love. You really aren’t in any danger of me or any other single woman running off with your clinically obese husband, he really is all yours.

But of course… I don’t.

It’s enough to see the sudden involuntary arch of his eyebrows as he laps up attention from the wife who forgot who he was until five minutes ago.

I never spend too long talking to couples, it's never that comfortable - but as I walk away I always want to turn around and say, "you should fall asleep holding his hand every single night. You should hold his hand often, every single day, because you're very very lucky".

But of course….. I don’t. I walk away and over to the next couple....