Dress down (a Tory) Friday

I am desperately trying to summon the intellect and patience to write something on the launch this week of the Hansard Society's 'Democracy and Political Parties' pamphlet but, until then, I shall resort to petty insults and points scoring. Its What I Do.

That's not much of a defence but this is levelled at a Tory (which surely makes it alright).

Apparently Nadine Dorries, Tory MP for Befordshire, is less than happy that Jack Straw has been quoting from her blog. The Leader of the House name-checked her blog last week and repeated the trick again this week. Of course she ought to be glad of the attention but apparently she isn't. Strange when she's the one that's been putting her musings into the public arena by putting it on her blog.

A cursory look at the blog of 'Mad Nad', as she's know locally, reveals though that that she, like this blog, likes to talk about the big issues.

A snippet from the entry of Feb 18:

Suddenly an angel walked in through the front door, carrying a bottle of Rioja,two wine glasses, and a big bag of crisps.

We couldn’t find the cork screw. We did find a screwdriver and dug out the top of the cork and then pushed the remainder in and held it in the bottle as we poured out
the wine! We sat on the two remaining un-wrapped comfy chairs and laughed, in my
case the semi hysterical laughter of exhaustion, and drank beautiful red winefull of cork droppings – it was bliss.

Cameron's Conservatives - Making The Tough Decisions On Wine Corkage.

But there is substance to this sparky girl from Liverpool. On communities and the need for social boundaries:

My mother couldn’t knit, but I spent many a happy hour in Aunty Olives house learning how to. My mother couldn’t bake, but Mrs Dever could, and she taught me how to make a Victoria Jam sponge!

Aunty Peggy taught me how to look after a dog properly and Mrs Townley taught me how to clean. Each and every one of them would have had no hesitation in giving me a slap on the leg if they had seen me misbehave in the street.

Camerons's Conservatives - Stopping Gun Crime With Aunty Peggy and Mrs Dever.

Of course, what Nad didn't say was that Aunty Peggy's husband was made redundant during the mass unemployment of the early 80s, that Mrs Townley lost her house in the wave of repossessions in the 90s, and that Aunty Olive's been forced to sell crack to kids because of Tory pensions mis-selling.