The Woes of Nadine Dorries

You've got to love Dorries' response to the revelation that 70% of her blog is made up. It is a classic of its kind - both detached from reality and simultaneously trying to smear opponents. Let's take a look:

After a fifteen month ordeal, I was a delighted, for my family, to have been cleared by the standards commissioner today.

Well, cleared of some things; it has to be said though that having to admit that you lie 70% of the time on one of the main ways in which you communicate with your constituents is perhaps a little bit of a pyrrhic victory.

Everyone is getting very excited about my comments regarding my blog. Not that it had anything to do with the complaint lodged by the BNP.

Well, yes it did - the exposed lies came out in the course of examining the complaint. So the two things are absolutely linked.

Let's indulge in a slightly hyperbolic comparison here. The Watergate scandal started as an investigation into a burglary into a Democrat political operation at the Watergate hotel. On balance, it appears that Nixon didn't know about that break-in. But as the situation was investigated, things emerged about the Nixon White House that were even more concerning than the original break-in. So he ended up resigning.

The point here is that in being cleared of any wrong-doing over expenses, Dorries has been shown to be someone who deceives her constituents and the wider world through her blog. As the next line shows:

My blog conceals IDs, times, dates, and is often out of synch.

Which would be just about ok had you admitted to this before you were forced to in order to save your skin over another matter. You presented your blog as fact - 70% of the time, you were lying about its relation to reality.

This is because I have had more than my fair share of inappropriate attention to deal with

By "inappropriate" do we mean "unwanted because it isn't convenient for me" by any chance, Nadine? Because the two things are very different.

For example - when I do blog exactly where I am going to be - we find ourselves having to deal with some very strange and un invited people.

Brilliant! A classic bit of Dorries bullshit. She paints those anyone who might want to challenge her as "very strange". She paints a picture of them as somehow a bit weird, a bit sinister, and a bit threatening. Whereas it seems to me that she simply does not want to engage with those who do not agree with her - hence the lack of comments on her "blog". She wants to be unchallenged and free to live in her own little world.

Which would be fine if she wasn't an elected representative. However, Dorriesland will always be invaded by people she does not like while she remains an MP because she is, as an elected official, accountable. That means that people she does not like and does not agree with will challenge her and will try to see her at public events. That's part of being in the public eye as an elected politician. Don't like it? Fuck off and do something else then.

I suppose if any of my blog were truly fiction, I could call myself a journalist.

Oh hahahahahaha. Yeah, brilliant, good one. Appear populist by dissing journalists. Boo! Hiss! No-one likes journos! They're almost as unpopular as... well, politicians.

Now I don't like a lot of what passes for journalism in the modern age - far too much of the news has become caught up with opinion and bias. But I don't doubt that for one second that if a journalist made up 70% of what they wrote and was found out, they would be sacked and their media outlet humiliated. So sorry, Nadine, journalists are better than you.

The fiction, in terms of locations etc, is done to protect my family and staff.

And here we have it again - the idea that there are those out there who want to terrorise Dorries. Yet I still suspect that Dorries is actually just trying to protect herself from those with whom she does not agree. Take Tim Ireland - a man who has consistently called Dorries (and others) on inconsistencies and falsehoods. I can imagine he is fucking irritating to have on your trail given he is tenacious and has a rigorous attention to detail. But as an elected politician, you should not only expect such scrutiny, but you have to realise that you actively invite it through your position. So if you have misled people - intentionally or otherwise - then admit to it. Like a proper adult would. Rather than shrieking "oh no, scary stalker man" before running away. Which is, frankly, pathetic.

It will be interesting to see how Dorries tries to dig herself out of this one. She could turn down the heat with a simple apology but for Dorries, sorry really does appear to be the hardest word. If her blog post is anything to go by, she's going to try to spin and smear her way out of the shit. But I suspect, given the amount of coverage she is getting on Twitter and elsewhere, she's not going to get away with it or, at the very least, it isn't going to be easy for her.