Nadine Dorries MP: Raving Mythomaniac, Totally Unsuitable as Health Chair

Tom Watson MP has shared a letter he and I imagine other MPs have received from Nadine Dorries MP: Nadine Dorries asks for support.

Nadine you will remember joined Iain Dale and the mainstream media they both featured on and in and misinformed in repeatedly libeling Tom Watson MP. So Nadine has a nerve asking for Tom's support, even if she were otherwise remotely suitable for the post in question.

I'm going to give her begging letter a little light frisking:

June 7th, 2010

Dear Tom

I have decided to stand for the Chair of the Health Select Committee and would like to ask for your vote on Wednesday.

This is a quite extraordinary move from the Mum-P, even without what is about to follow

I have never held any front bench ambition and have been labeled a ‘rebel’; however, I prefer to regard myself as principled, which I think is an ideal quality for a Committee Chair.

Rebel? Don't think that's the label actually. Principled? Ha ha ha ha. Would have thought the ideal quality for a Committee Chair is having been a regular and hard-working member of any and all committees on which one sat. Nadine fails that criterion. And having experience and skill at chairing a committee. Analysing, synthesising, building consensus. Nadine fails on that too. Has she ever chaired any committees she'd like to tell us about?

With ten years nursing experience within the NHS, a former union member and a natural leaning to towards all health related issues; I feel I can bring a prior knowledge, passion and understanding to the Chair. As a single mother of three daughters and someone who in recent years has taken full responsibility for two terminally ill elderly relatives, I also bring practical first hand experience of what it is like to be on the receiving end, both as a patient and a carer.

Whoah! Whoah! and Wow!

"Ten years nursing experience within the NHS" - could Tom please ask Nadine to provide a list of the nursing posts held, representing ten years experience?
LOL understand that after training - she'll surely not be counting that? - Nadine jacked in nursing immediately after her first marriage and took a job on a Greek cruise line, separated, divorced, went South with a Doctor boyfriend, split up, went to Zambia, married (or not) and started having her family with Paul David Dorries.
There was then a further period of registration as a nurse, alongside various intriguing business ventures and property activity. Hard to see where ten years actual nursing experience within the NHS came into it.

"A former union member" - details please. Does Nadine simply mean being registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and its forebears? Or the RCN?

"As a single mother of three daughters" - eh? Splitting up, kind of splitting up, with the father of one's children when two are grown up and the third is almost grown up DOES NOT make Nadine Dorries a single mother in any normal sense of the term. Particularly when the dad continued to look after the youngest much of the time. Almost all of the time.

"Someone who in recent years has taken full responsibility for two terminally ill elderly relatives, I also bring practical first hand experience of what it is like to be on the receiving end, both as a patient and a carer" - this jumble of stuff begs a number of questions. What is meant by "in recent years"? And what is meant by "taken full responsibility"? I am absolutely astonished to see these matters featured in this CV in this way.

I have no outside interests and would commit myself fully to the role.

Mmmmm. Perhaps Nadine Dorries MP would like to explain her short lived involvement as a Director of The Sleepcurve Company Limited. This ended in January, having only begun mid-2009.
The Company marketed a range of mattresses and so on, targeting anxious parents. Why did Nadine join that Board? Why did Nadine leave that Board?

Questions also about husband's (unlicenced) investment advice might be put. Science and or health related? Including "complementary" therapies? His spread betting trading? His investment opportunities? But we'll leave those for now.

However, I understand you will have concerns with regard to my standing and this email is to alleviate what I believe may be your primary concern.
I want to provide you with my absolute, solemn word and undertaking, should I be successful, that in no way whatsoever will I use the position in order to further my campaign of the last Parliament, to reduce the upper limit at which abortion takes place.
This is because my own personal belief in this area is beyond persuasion and I would find it very difficult to remain objective. Any report produced by a Committee which I chaired regarding any area of abortion would be weakened by my Chairmanship and subject to claims of bias, regardless of the evidence.
My own health interests lie in the areas of maternal health, childhood obesity, mental health (particularly teenagers), depression, breast cancer and all aspects of care delivery.

LOL will leave this bewildering section for others to ponder and tackle. Clearly the woman is unsuitable for this role. Full stop. The only mystery to me is how Nadine Dorries MP first came to hold this "personal belief" of hers, having presented herself in 2001 as a Pro Choice candidate in Hazel Grove.

I also give you my word that I will attempt to ensure that all members of the committee leave party politics at the door. That the Committee works truly and wholly on behalf of the people. That we challenge thoroughly, deeply and analytically every major health policy decision brought forward by the coalition government.
The next few years are going to bring budget cuts. David Cameron promised real term spending increases for health. I intend to help him stick to that promise.

This is quite simply risible. Nadine Dorries MP is vendetta woman. This beggars belief from the get go. And if she has any chairing experience whatsoever she has kept this secret. Which is strange when she is bidding to be a committee chair.

The structure of the new Committees will provide us with an opportunity to embrace democracy in a way which in the past has become damaged and eroded.

Embracing in a way which has become damaged and eroded seems unnecessary and foolish.

It would be my wish to ensure that every member of the committee found it an exciting, interesting and career enhancing experience and wanted to attend each sitting, rather than looking for a reason to be absent.

Which brings us back neatly to Nadine's own appalling attendance at the Committee's on which she was supposed to serve.

Quite staggering. This really is quite staggering.

Shooter Derrick Bird: Was a Victim of Serious Violent Crime in 2007

While there has been seven shades of speculation about poor Derrick Bird and his 12 murder and 11 assault victims there has been one part of the back story that has received little attention. There was a moment when Bird's criminal record - for theft from a previous employers some 20 years ago - was raised as a hook for assertions that his applications for permit (shotgun) and licence (rifle) ought to have been refused.

That of course was pretty silly. More significant surely should be the information on which this little Metro sidebar (Thursday 3 June) was based? "Cab attack made Bird anxious" runs the headline. Here's the full text:

AN ASSAULT on Derrick Bird by a fare-dodging taxi customer left him 'nervous and anxious', according to reports. Bird was knocked unconscious and had two teeth broken when set upon after challenging the 19-year-old in Whitehaven, Cumbria. In a statement at the subsequent court case in 2007, Bird said he was still distressed by the incident and no longer wanted to work at night.

May be a complete coincidence but one of Bird's fatalities is the right age to have been that assailant or indeed another arsey customer. And the year of the court case is the same as the year of the granting of the licence for the powerful .22 hunting rifle. Perhaps some of our finest NUJjers could get onto this and investigate? And perhaps any review of licensing practice - as well as creating a notification requirement on NHS professionals for those holding gun licences and permits, as there already is I think for driving licences - should make sure there's a question about being a victim of crime as well as a perpetrator?

UPDATE Mon 11:51: seems ACPO and the BMC have had the conversation about those notifications. Not sure anything's been done about it. Was only a year or so ago.

Leadership Election: Use Compass to Point Recalcitrant MPs in the Correct Direction

You may have noticed from my twitter feed that I am one of those comrades and colleagues in the Labour Party who believes that the front runners in the leadership contest already have plenty of nominations. Obviously the Parliamentary Party are in the chair on nominations. Them's the rules. But they'll be letting us down if they don't actually provide the wide choice that all the candidates say they want.

And the winning candidate isn't going to be picking on their Hon and Rt Hon friends who nominate generously; now are they?

Compass Online have provided a begging/bugging letters widget to send emails to the PLP members who are yet to nominate. There is a standard text. Or you can freestyle. Here's mine:

Dear PLP Member,

After three terms of government during which we have achieved great things for our people we have been defeated at the polls, albeit in an inconclusive way. We must now have an open and honest conversation amongst ourselves, and with our committed and potential supporters.

I don't think we can have that with three or four candidates who are ex-SpAds, ex-Oxbridge, ex-Cabinet, 40-ish, men in charcoal grey suits with pantone ties.

As one of the gatekeepers of our great party's leadership contest - a pretty rare and important event in our life - I believe you should approach your responsibility with the interests of the wider party and the country in mind.

In local government and parliamentary elections nomination forms are finite. Once one has the ten names that's done. Would be nominators who are not restricted from doing so can and sometimes do back other candidates to see a democratic contest.

The party is fortunate in having six candidates willing to take on the debate and if successful the leadership of the party in opposition. To take the fight to the condem coalition.

Please avoid giving excess nominations to candidates who will already be on the ballot paper. Please use your nomination to increase my choice and to increase the debate that members, supporters and voters at large will experience.

Trust us. We are the ones who carry the burden of your campaigns. Delivering leaflets, identifying supporters, providing intelligence and support.

Apart from anything else providing a wide choice will maintain the incentive of democratic socialists of all shades of opinion to join and rejoin our party, and vitally for Trade Union levy payers to convert to full membership.

Providing a real choice and a real debate and a real incentive to join and get active is the only way to ensure the party has a genuine opportunity to renew itself.

Best wishes

Chris Paul

Manchester

UPDATE 12:47: PLP Members continue to waste nominations on nominated Miliband Tendancy - party-within-a-party candidates, HERE. Stop it will you? Wise up!

NADINE EXCLUSIVE: Mid Beds Times/Courier Wanted to Print

But they chickened out and printed this:


Spotted, wasn't actually all that hard, by journo Dave Lee at CitizenBB's Twitpic page. Patrick Smith tweeted it early doors. At City Life it was not until our second issue in January 1984 that we made a significant typographical error, using "January 1983" on the masthead.

But we had of course made a catastrophic editorial error in the choice of the first cover story. We ran with "Kids Micros" when we had an exclusive Lennie Henry interview, a kick ass Local Jobs expose, Ice Hockey drama, and not to forget an atmospheric preview of the British Open Snooker at Warrington: "Beer-crate seats creaked ..". Having said that even the full might of the Guardian Media Group with 17 years of trying rarely if ever beat our paid for "workers' co-op (TU)" circulation.

Later, much later, we were to publish a double page spread of mostly white space as the Quality Street Gang and/or dark Freemasonry forces caused our printers to insist that the waxy body galleys were removed from the artwork, just before press time. Henceforth they ran a disclaimer and everything we asked them to run. And naturally the bare headlines and pictures of miscreants etc did their job quite nicely.

FOOTNOTE: Nadine/Carter Ruck .. this is satire. Although Nadine Dorries Mum-P is yet to provide evidence of any use of any dwelling as a "main home", at any point, other than "second home one" in Woburn. For which she re-charged the full of cheek rent and pouting costs to the taxpayer. She does not really abide in Mid Narnia, she has a seven-bedroomed Manor Farmhouse as befits the ex-Princess of the Blogs. But we feel sure it is only a matter of time before all will be revealed.

Meanwhile we have only our humour to fall back on.

Bristol Positive Action: Showboating Tory Idiot P Davies? Fuck Off

LOL missed the Telegraph "exposé" of Bristol City Council for completely legally running a "no-job" training scheme open only to BME candidates, two per annum. Legal because BME workers are thoroughly under-represented in the workforce, and because the law has quite rightly allowed this creation of Equal Opportunities for the best part of forty years.

Here's the hypey Telegraph nonsense which I've not bothered to read and recommend you ignore also. And here's a vulturous and uncritical scavenging gloss of the Telegraph story at Personnel Today - you'd have thought they'd have known better wouldn't you?

LOL did notice the usual suspects going after Kerry McCarthy MP on Twitter. In a very confused way as it goes. Bristol City Council are of course still sadly Lib Dem controlled - and not McCarthy or Labour or LOL directed - though we might add that on this matter LOL support them 100%. Which will make their hearts leap I've no doubt.

Kerry McCarthy MP took a look at all this in her blogpost Special People and we at LOL decided to up the ante with a comment including some legal stuff, and that, and so forth:

This is NOT Positive Discrimination surely? Illegal in this country. This is Positive Action. These two are often conflated.

PA on race been legal since the Race Relations Act of 1971 I believe. Training schemes/jobs/roles which do not include a contracted job at the end and where the target group are under-represented CAN recruit in this way and quite right too. Illegal though, last time I looked, if there is a definite job and none of the other exclusions apply.

These exclusions are things like “authenticity” for some roles e.g. waiters and chefs and performers, and also just about possible to make a case for cultural understanding on very limited number of posts. But that’s not usually even attempted.

Under Sex Discrimination Act 1968 there are also PA exclusions for roles where gender is relevant e.g. sauna attendant, women’s refuge, performing roles.

This stuff is FORTY (count ‘em) years old Kerry. Possibly flowing from EU way back when – my partner tells me – though it’s so long ago that I thought it was all our own work.

Not to be confused with the innovations in more recent legislation e.g. if it’s tied for a post (very rare) employers can but are not forced to choose the under-represented candidate.

They can still draw lots or flip a coin under that (misunderstood) innovation, but balancing the workforce just seems, like, doh! a reasonable management objective.

When I used to work in this field the most cynical managers and elected members were often finally won over – if not by “it’s the law, you will do this whatever you may think you bigoted feckwit” – by a stating the obvious argument.

That being that choosing only clones or from just white men or white middle class men or white middle class men of about 40 in suits with Oxbridge firsts (ahem) was in effect limiting the employer’s scope to 1% to 10% of the true talent pool.

That usually got ‘em. Even the real bigot b’stards. Enlightened self-interest.

Meanwhile the extraordinarily ignorant Conservative MP Philip Davies - was he the one trying to cancel the Human Rights Act in PMQs today? very likely - told the Telegraph that Bristol was "pushing the boundaries" of what the law was intended to do. "They should be offering all positions to the best person and that should be open to everyone equally," he said. "It is the kind of political correctness that builds up resentment that would not otherwise exist."

Utterly wrong. Utterly Conservative. Utterly stupid. Utterly dog whistle. Utterly why 64% voted un-Conservative on 6 May. Lib Dem voters especially so.

Well done you Bristol Lib Dems! If you cave on this LOL'll give you grief. Tell the nasty Tories to go swivel. Philip Davies MP: self publicising, bullocking, spoiling, ignorant, right wing, throw back, Tory bastard? FUCK OFF!