Nadine Dorries has written a rather charming blogpost about a private dinner she had with several MP colleagues and David Cameron earlier this week. It's a fairly indiscreet blogpost but gives a sense of how she has been won over by David Cameron having been a bit of a sceptic. She also compares him with Gordon Brown in a number of ways, none of which are very flattering to the Prime Minister.
But perhasps the most intriguing part of her post is where she describes how people from her roots used to view Cameron, and how she thinks they do now.
I can't link directly as I am writing this on the Blackberry, but scroll down my links on the right of this page and click through that way.
"It isn't that I have ever disliked him; however, when you are a product of a Liverpool council estate the last person you trust is someone who you perceive to be privileged.
ReplyDeleteIt comes from hundreds of years of suppression of the working classes, by those born to rule and all that stuff, which is in your DNA and totally impossible to remove. That, and the fact that in Liverpool, most babies can say, 'up the workers' before mama. I was no different."
Nad's meant to be a... Conservative, right? Any real Conservative wouldn't have fallen for this "suppression of the workers" stuff.
I never realised that Nadine had such a chip on her shoulder. That could explain her abrasive manner.
ReplyDeleteCharming, maybe - but you're right to say her blog is indiscreet. I don't think she'll ever be a major player.
Sea Shanty Irish here:
ReplyDeleteND MP has a major talent . . . for self promotion.
She comes across as a world-class egomaniac. For example, in her previous blogposting, she says her daughter is leaving for Australia, supposedly because the lass simply cannot endure the unkind things said about her mum.
BUT perhaps there is another reason why the young lady wants to put as much earthly distance as possible between herself and dear old Blighty?
Iain, ND MP is just another faux ami for you and your party. With friends like her, you really don't need too many foes.
I would love to be privy to "the Fondlebum blog's we must undermine" list. Yours is one but there are quite a few others. The tone is always sort of reasonable but a hint of snake venom is the giveaway. Most are anonymice with the odd "canvas" thrown in. Not pleasant but then socialists never were.
ReplyDeleteI share a similar background to Nadine. That we choose to follow Conservative values is an excellent way to go.
Who cares what MPs in the Westminster Village think of Cameron? It matters even less when the opinion is written on a public blog.
ReplyDeleteThe public at large viewed Cameron originally as an out of touch Toff, and they still do. The Tory Party, much like in New Labour in 97, are going to win the next General Election as a protest vote against the governing party and Prime Minister. Nothing more, nothing less.
Cameron will be out of his depth as Prime Minister and bullied by a large contingent of his backbenchers, once the honeymoon period is over.
Surely someone who chose Conservative principles is every bit as much, if not more, a Tory than someone who was brought up that way?
ReplyDeleteHer post was a good summation of how a lot of people feel (I agreed with her thoughts about David Cameron as a middle class lifelong Conservative) and really, what is wrong with MPs having some feelings?
I rather like Nadine - her sweet naiveity is rather endearing, I think.
ReplyDeleteI don't think she'll ever receive a nomination to join the higher echelons of Mensa, but hey, the Tories need more MPs like her - window-dressing, and all that.
canvas said...
ReplyDelete'I never realised that Nadine had such a chip on her shoulder.'
liverpudlians are well balanced , they have a chip on both shoulders
wv sadali an anagram (almost ?)
Hmm.
ReplyDeleteSorry Iain, it didn't read like Nadine - it read like a yummy profile piece written by someone else.
Hope to be proved wrong.
"It comes from hundreds of years of suppression of the working classes, by those born to rule and all that stuff, which is in your DNA and totally impossible to remove."
ReplyDeleteI stopped reading after this point. I'm sorry to see Dorries, whom I respect for her attempts to restrict abortion, writing such rubbish.
No wonder she doesn't allow comments. Did she really write this?
I don't mean to appear condascending, but have we really sunk so low as to let inarticulate dross like Nadine represent the Conservative party?
ReplyDeleteI'd expect such rampant classism and chippyness from a Labour MP, even a sandal-wearer, but I'd rather hoped we attracted a better class (sorry, quality...) of MP.
What comparison was this, exactly? That Brown is a socially inadequate, psychologically flawed nutcase whereas Cameron isn't? Tell us something we don't know, Nadine.
ReplyDeleteOn another notice, I notice that Canvas is back. Hello. ;-)
reaper, you are so damn cute. :)
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the stunning (in every sense) Nadine -
ReplyDeleteSuffering from an advanced state of blondeness. There's no known antidote.
Best that can be done is major palliative care - Scotch, ideally or, in extremis, Meths.
No, not for her, for everyone else...
Nadine Dorries...the john Prescott of the consevative party
ReplyDeleteCouldn't be bothered to read the link. As soon as Dorries' name was mentioned, I didn't see the point.
ReplyDeleteIf she was praising Cameron, then that's no good thing for him. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps.
She made a fool out of herself during the expenses scandal and would serve her party best to lay low. Scratch that, better still to leave it altogether.
Not a fan, unlike Iain himself and many here, I would guess.
Nadine Dorries, like many others in her party and across the house, is an untrustworthy, self serving thief
ReplyDeleteAt anonymous (8:36)
ReplyDeleteIain isnt a fan, he's a close personal friend, thats why Nadine escaped his faux-anger at Tories caught with their hands in the till
Canvas said "Reaper, you are so damn cute. :)"
ReplyDeleteThank you. I would not dare to make a series of jokes at this point about touching my scythe...
On another note, what is it about Tories and Liverpool? The two never seem to get on. Ask Boris Johnson.
Don't you think it's a little "gag me with a spoon?"... is it because I'm a woman that I find it a bit "girlie, looking for approval, creeping"....? Perhaps I'm just cynical :)
ReplyDeleteYour tiff with White has just been shown on Have I Got News For You.
ReplyDeleteFame at last.
Ha...your Michael White Spat has just made it onto Have I got news for you!!
ReplyDeleteA new Edwina without a doubt!
ReplyDeleteMany of us have drawn our own (favourable) impressions of D.C. but this sits uncomfortaboy with me. Firstly, why publish details of a private evening etc. Secondly why tell us what we already know. Ms Dorries is many things - discreet is not one of them!
ReplyDeleteNadine has become involved with Treadstone. Matt Damon wants to question her about her expenses in this blockbuster movie.
ReplyDeleteThe Barclay Ultimatum
Not so much a Damascene conversion as a very tardy realisation. What thinking adult doesn't realise that it isn't where you come from that counts, you don't have a choice as to where you are born, it's who you are and where you're going that matters. I hesitate to be less than complimentary about a friend of Iain's but really, she can't be very bright.
ReplyDeleteBeing a "sour little Englander" who "needs educating about the Scots", he hasn't won me over.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the serviceman's friend (tee hee) pays someone to write the comments.
ReplyDeleteUpon mature reflection, believe I was a wee bit harsh toward NP MP. She can be a bit annoying, but then that's a bond between us . . . not that it's a very exclusive club.
ReplyDeleteShe does have a genius for self promotion. But that is in part because she always sells herself before she tries to sell others. Ms Dorries would make a splendid Mormon missionary or Amway distributor.
Anyway, she comes by her Liverpudlian proletarianism by geniune channels. And her conservatism with both small c & big C is genuine, at least as much as say Lord Beaconsfield or Winston Churchill.
As for her disclosures re: David Cameron, if anyone comes off loking bad, it's her not him.
previous comment by Sea Shanty Irish
ReplyDeleteNadine illustrates the fundamental difference between a true 'man of the people' politician and one who is not - 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' - an EU Federalist dressed up as a supporter of democracy.
ReplyDeleteThat which is true, always rings true.
canvas,
ReplyDeleteNadine is simply being honest, as is her right.
Big Mouth,
ReplyDeleteRecent poll results refute your views.
Big Mouth writes: "Cameron will be out of his depth as Prime Minister and bullied by a large contingent of his backbenchers, once the honeymoon period is over."
ReplyDeleteThat is absolutely the case and is yet one more, of many, reasons he would be a dangerous PM. Fortunately, it's not going to happen.
Ah, yes, Nadine, after being dismissed as "over emotional" for making "irrational" comments about the expenses scandal by the leader's office now, surprise!!!, finds the leader charming and wonderful.
ReplyDeleteWhat a totally uninteresting story about a sad piece of rather synthetic and silly self-promotion.
ND comes from the wing of the conservative party that I find least attractive and most... frightening.
ReplyDeleteNobody likes braying sozzled chinless hoorays, but I personally object to the braying sozzled and chinless attributes rather than the fact that they attended this school or that. 'Call me Dave' has demonstrated himself to be competent regardless of his background. William Hague was never successfully ridiculed until he tried the ridiculous Baseball Cap/Common man skit.
By contrast, ND is the sub-intellectual soft and cuddly face of the moral authoritarian wing of the Tory party that had so much to do with what went wrong with the perception of the Major government and had so many minorities making common cause with each other to vote the Tories out at any cost.
The Tory party today may be less racist, less homophobic and less inclined to want to lock people up for being naked under their clothes, but a lot of these minority strands of opinion are still rather over-represented under the surface in the Tory party and are wont to burst out at inopportune moments and frighten the electorate.
Including me.
What we need is some kind of 'Christian Democrat' party into which all these nutters can decant themselves and then vanish without electoral trace.