Some sympathy for Nadine D. from a surprising quarter

Politics
1

I can’t stand Nadine but I do respect Marina Hyde. Bit of a dilemma then.

"On the very day the Covid inquiry begins, meanwhile, there is something grotesque at the spectacle of former health minister Nadine Dorries [wailing about being “heartbroken” not to get a peerage for her loyalty to Johnson. Having said that, my unpopular opinion is that Dorries’ tale is more complex than many of her detractors allow. She was born into terrible poverty, and truly horrendous things happened to her as a child. Yet she served as a nurse, and built her own business. She became a bestselling author. I have read one of her books, and the compassion for her characters shines through. But I was struck by the fact that this compassion was not discernibly part of her political persona, which had become quite the opposite – aggressive and confrontational, and increasingly so in the sole cause of defending Boris Johnson.

Had she been able to marry it with her political career, I have often thought Dorries could have made light work of huge numbers of privileged professional politicians, who she might have dismissed with a blithe: “I’ve dealt with 10,000 bedpans – what have you done?” But she wasn’t. By the end she was known simply as Johnson’s attack dog, now denied even her bone as a reward."

2

If they gave her a peerage they’d be obliged to give all the other bedpan emtptiers one too, as she did fuck all useful in parliament

3

The corrupting power of the Westminster greasy pole is hard to resist for some no matter what their background, Dorries is just another victim permanently tainted by it’s effects.

4

A victim ,thats a joke in itself, she knew exactly what she was doing but hung on to the wrong coat tails.

5

I agree with all of you, but it’s an characteristic soft view by Marina, isn’t it?

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6

It might have been John Crace who lamented that she believes she’s the only woman to whom Johnson hasn’t lied.

7

If she really believes that she’s half-witted.

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8

“Marina, writre us a piece about Nadine Dorries that takes people by surprise.”

It’s a long time since the Guardian was a proper newspaper. They chose to go down the “Well, we provide ‘balance’ to the Right-wing press” road rather than to try to be honest and impartial.

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9

Well, it’s the best we have to work with IMO :thinking:

10

You’re probably right :frowning:

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11

*My constituency MP…arrrrrrgh! :face_vomiting:

But not for much longer :grinning:

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She is mine also - just disappointed I can’t vote her out.

13

Not really mate? Poor and clever woman makes good (fair enough) then sells her soul to the devil and ITV (understandable) and is seduced (that opinion maybe less politically correct but hey…)

I’m for the understanding side over the hang 'em side, how about ‘poor woman corrupted by New Tory greed’? As opposed to Mandelsons filthy rich…

Or was she rich before she joined up - evidently she’s written books, has any forumite read / bought one? ( I mean was she poor before she signed up to the devil, not already corrupted).

Maybe she would have been labour instead of tory if timing had worked out?

So, no conflict, poor woman then corrupted, was not then able to achieve her potential. BTW Is this moral dilemma similar to the Katie Price situation?

Of course none of this is true :slight_smile:

Guess onus is on Porridge to name a proper newspaper (sorry Porridge, I think you liked me when I said should I get political :slight_smile: )

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In the UK, the closest to my ideal (unbiased, providing analysis and presenting both sides of the story) would probably be i (not the Independent).

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Hi Porridge, Thanks for your response - I felt I should in return have a bit of a look at the I!

First I note wikipedia - The i is a British national morning paper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at “readers and lapsed readers” of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent.

A quick view of the top page on the site shows a similar coverage to the Gruaniad, a worthwhile story on the banks interest rate profits, maybe a puff piece for Johnston’s new daily hate column.

My attention was caught by an opinion piece - and perhaps that is where the papers may differ, one chooses the paper most in alignment with one’s own opinions? - “The devastating truth is that the NHS did get £350m extra a week – it just barely made a difference.”

That looked interesting given everyone says the 350m bus claim was one of the most egregious lies of the Brexit shit, here’s someone saying it’s true.

So I had a further look. Firstly turns out the author wrote the conservative manifesto in 2019 and is a mate of Dom’s: - and got into trouble with chumocracy…

Public First was paid £564,393 to research the public’s understanding of the coronavirus and the government’s messaging around the pandemic, and one of its partners was seconded to work in Downing Street.

The company is run by James Frayne and Rachel Wolf, who are both former colleagues of Cummings and the Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove. In 2019 Wolf co-wrote the Conservative party’s general election manifesto.
When the Guardian and openDemocracy first revealed in July last year that Public First had been awarded a contract without tender, the Cabinet Office said in a statement it was “nonsense” to suggest the owners’ long associations with Cummings and Gove were a factor in the decision to award it a contract.
However, in a witness statement submitted to the high court on Monday as part of a judicial review of the award, Cummings described himself as the “driving decision-maker” behind the government’s decision to conduct more focus groups and hire Public First, and said his faith in the company was based on his extensive experience working with its staff.

Cummings described Frayne and Wolf as his “friends”, but added: “Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing.”

Obviously Dom…

But is the I article true? So I searched for some NHS figures, I landed on the Kings Fund -

Here’s the increase for DHSC 2019 to 2022, ignoring 2020 ands 2021 Covid years as the article suggested -

180 - 156 = 24 Billion

and for NHS England -

152.6 − 137.4 = 15.2 Billion.

Given the 350 mill / week is 18.2 Billion / year and it was stated it was for the NHS - and not social care, it may be pushing the boat here in truth. Especially as the article said ‘in real terms’ i.e. allowing for inflation - presumably we should increase the 350m / week by inflation from 2016?

A quick search of the 350 million claim brought up several sites, both which made the point that the 350m was claimed as ‘extra’ dosh for the NHS rather than ‘instead of us having to pay for it’ (go figure who ‘us’ are - Sunak non-dom types?)

£2,057 Current per capita spending

+£318 Extra per person, per year with Brexit promise

From -

and the other site really set it out clearly and seems interesting to follow…

Excerpt - The Boris Johnson Brexit bus lie of £350 a week for the NHS is misleading and false for two reasons.
Firstly, the figure does not include the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher. Which was taken off the UK’s membership fee before it was paid to the EU.

Secondly, it does not allow for any funding that flows back from the EU (e.g. income for farmers as part of the Common Agriculture Policy and regional investments for deprived areas). The Leave campaign promised that farmers would not be worse off as a result of Brexit. There was no way all the money sent to the EU could ever be directed to the NHS instead.

We could also add that because Conservative government had been underfunding the NHS since 2010, the government should have been increasing investment in the NHS to make up for the historically low levels of funding.

For Wales, the Boris Johnson Brexit bus lie was even more misleading. Wales received £245 million more from the EU than it contributed.

So in conclusion could I say this I article was

In this case perhaps not, however as I said it is opinion - it still feeds into AI ‘truths’ though.

Regards, larkswood

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I wasn’t recommending the newspaper to you but answering a question.

To be honest, I’m surprised you spent so much effort in analysing an article clearly headed OPINION, apparently concluding it wasn’t “unbiased, providing analysis and presenting both sides of the story”. You wouldn’t need a GCSE in Media Studies to be able to make that judgment!

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17

I suppose if you have one then you might as well use it.