Britannia Radio

Like everyone else I am ashamed of what has been happening amongst 
some of our MPs and I have  one or two points I want to make here.

Firstly there are 646 MPs and the total number the Telegraph could 
dredge anything to write about so far has been 108.   That leaves a 
vast majority - 538 -  who, as far as we know, are blameless.  You 
would not think so from the media feeding-frenzy which has drummed up 
a deluge of self-serving and and nauseating hypocrisy (more of that 
later)

Secondly  the Telegraph cynically basking in its self-appointed role 
of  moral guardian of the nation,  has been rolling in the cash this 
campaign has brought to their coffers.  It  has made no attempt, as 
far as can be seen,  to weigh the trivial against the outrageous and 
even to ask the simple question - "well, what's wrong with that?" 
about a particular item.

Then I question the integrity of the Telegraph itself.  In the name 
of 'transparency' which it apparently believes in, how much did it 
pay for these revelations and to whom?  They cannot wriggle away from 
answering that question for what is sauce for the goose must be sauce 
for the gander too.

Then there is the strange coincidence that their new political 'star' 
- Dominic Brogan - arrives at the same time as the expenses 
documents.  Dominic Brogan (then at the Mail) was described by 
Private Eye (see my "Journalists! - Doncha love 'em ?" of  4/5/09) in 
their seminal column on the McBride man and his disgusting smears as 
"McBride's best pals in the lobby, apart from xxxxx, were Patrick 
Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph , Andrew Porter of the Daily 
Telegraph, xxxxx of yyyy and  Ben Brogan, until recently of the Daily 
Mail but now political commentator on the  Daily Telegraph.  
McBride's tactic was to appeal to Thatcherite newspaper readers 
dissatisfied by David Cameron's liberal tone."

The editor of the Telegraph, Will Lewis  is described as "Lewis is 
also a karaoke-singing chum of Damian McBride".    That's a nest of 
vipers, if ever you saw one - The Daily McBride.

What brought me to this particular story though is the further 
'coincidence' [?] that McBride produced a real smear against a Tory 
woman MP ,  Nadine Dorries, who fought back strongly and who said she 
would take legal action against McBride.  (I am not up-to-date on 
that )  When this expenses story appeared my nostrils quivered and I 
thought - "McBride's revenge.    My suspicions remain.

I have long said that the Telegraph's Business News is unrivalled and 
I remain of that opinion.  Its columnists are also of a high 
standard. But its news columns are dumbed-down and shoddy at best and 
I am deeply distrustful of the quality of their reporting in this 
Expenses scandal.  The headline stories are indeed shameful but many 
of the 'small fry' are caught up in a mess which is not of their 
doing.  But the public are not the most discerning or sceptical 
members of society and the Telegraph's mud will stick.

Now read what Nadine Dorries says on her blog today and think deeply 
about the furore the Telegraph has created.  Who does it benefit that 
it should be so undiscriminating and what are its motives?

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(An MP's Blog) Nadine Dorries MP     16.5.09

The Other Place
Posted Saturday, 16 May 2009 at 08:29

I had hoped that I could retain some of my private life and keep it 
just that, private. It appears that this is now impossible.

The Telegraph has every right to ask questions and to hold 
politicians to account for the way they spend public money. But their 
reaction when I told them I would publish my response to their 
allegations on my blog was revealing. It appears that the general 
public is only entitled to hear the Telegraph's version of the truth 
if they pay for a copy of the Telegraph. They also felt it necessary 
to phone CCHQ with veiled threats about what they could do to me in 
the future if I dared to post the letter they sent to me on my blog 
before they published their own article in today's newspaper. I am 
afraid that the Telegraph doesn't appear to get the 'new media'. If 
anyone is going to publish anything about me, I will do it myself, 
first.

Yes I do claim for my second home in Bedfordshire using my ACA. I 
rent it. I never felt comfortable buying using tax payers money.

  I felt it very necessary that I should commute from my constituency 
to London on work days with the rest of my constituents, in the 
cattle truck trains, in the jams and delays even though I leave early 
in the morning and don't arrive home most days until gone midnight, 
long after my fellow morning commuters are in bed.

But, yes, I do have another home. It was where I went to after I had 
finished my Parliamentary and constituency work and changed into a 
mother and looked after my girls. I lived in my main family Cotswold 
home until my marriage broke down in 2007. The family home was then 
sold. I then rented a home in the Cotswolds where my daughter went to 
school and where my ex husband looked after her from Monday to 
Thursday during school and Parliamentary term time. He then moved out 
before I arrived back and spent his time with a significant other and 
I stayed in the home, which I paid for from my own money. Sometimes, 
on the very late week nights I stay in London, at my own expense.

During Parliamentary recesses, when I am not in the constituency or 
the Cotswolds, I take my girls abroad. The rest of the time during 
weekends I finished work and spent my time in the Cotswolds preparing 
the week's meals for my daughter, washing and ironing school 
uniforms, changing sheets, checking homework, and leaving to drive 
back to Bedfordshire when she was in bed late on a Sunday night when 
I had finished packing her school and PE  bag and hanging the week's 
uniforms on her wardrobe door, just before my ex husband came back to 
take over.

I never wanted my constituents to think that I had another prime 
responsibility other than Bedfordshire and Parliament; maybe I should 
have been more open.

My daughter was due to start boarding school in September but instead 
she started at a school in Bedford. At the weekends we go back to the 
Cotswolds together, or, if I have to work such as this weekend, we 
stay in Bedfordshire.
During the Parliamentary term time, it is unusual for me not to have 
a constituency engagement.

I spend more nights away from my constituency home than I spend in it 
and I use it for the purpose of my work. I do, however, retain the 
right to have my daughter, or daughter's with me depending on who is 
with me at the time.  It may only be a second home, however, it is a 
home.

So, to my constituents and no one else, I am sorry. My crime is that 
I haven't owned up to you that I don't always live here - that I have 
a private life, which has not always run smoothly. I couldn't work 
harder for Bedfordshire than I already do - I have given it almost 
every day of my life since you elected me. In politics, my 
constituency always comes first, but in my private life my family 
does. I can't apologise for that. What sort of person would I be if I 
did?

By trying to protect my girls and keeping the circumstances of my 
marriage break up private and the arrangements for looking after my 
youngest daughter in the family, I realise that I am in fact arousing 
suspicion.

I don't have much more to say other than the posting of this blog 
will humiliate my daughters, but what else can I do? I have to make 
sure people understand that not everyone has a life which runs to 
plan. It really isn't always a wonderful life and as a mother you 
just have to do what you have to do.

http://blog.dorries.org/Blogs/2009/May/16#16


The Daily Telegraph
Posted Friday, 15 May 2009 at 16:02

Here is my letter from the Telegraph and my reply.

There is one thing I know about me better than anyone else. I never 
do anything I know to be wrong and I have common sense by the bucketful.


PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Nadine Dorries,
The Daily Telegraph is investigating the expense claims made by MPs 
under the Parliamentary additional costs allowance system since the 
2004/05 financial year.
We are considering publishing an article in tomorrow's newspaper 
(16th May 2009) which will contain details of your expense claims.
We are aware of the provisions of the statutory instrument passed by 
Parliament last July and will therefore not be publishing members' 
addresses or any other details which could compromise security.
However, as a matter of legitimate public interest and concern, we 
intend to publish the following details about your expense claims 
under the Additional Costs Allowance. We would invite you to respond 
to the following points.
1. In 2006 you claimed for the cost of a hotel stay on New Year's Eve 
and another just a few days before Christmas, when the House was not 
sitting. Please can you explain why you felt this was an appropriate 
use of public funds.

I have never spent a New Years Eve away from my daughters and I have 
never spent it in a hotel, ever. In fact, New Years Eve 2006 is when 
I held a party and cooked a 12 bird roast and I blogged the entire 
evening. Anyone reading this can check it out.

The Telegraph has an invoice charged to MR N Dorries, which was 
submitted, but never paid. I don't actually submit the invoices,  my 
PA does, and that one may have been submitted in error, In error - 
because I never stayed at any hotel on New Years Eve ever if it had 
ever been paid it would have been refunded IMMEDIATLEY. What may have 
happened is that someone who is not a member of the Carlton Club may 
have booked a room in my name, friends do, however; my other point is 
that I am not even sure the Carlton Club is open over Xmas and New Year?

The fact is though that an invoice was submitted from my office, for 
a room I didn't stay in, which is obviously an error and no money was 
paid to me for that invoice.

2. You also put in several hotel bills that included minibar drinks. 
Please can you explain why you felt this was an appropriate use of 
public funds.

Oh that the Carlton Club had mini bars in the rooms, it does not. If 
I ever bought a drink in the Carlton I paid cash. For some reason 
they are still listed on the invoice, however, they were not paid. I 
have not, to my knowledge ever received public funds to buy alcohol 
for either myself or visiting guests and constituents and do not 
think it would be an appropriate use of public funds. If that is the 
case and I am very happy to be proved wrong then I will not hesitate 
to refund. To think that that you could accuse me of behaving like a 
journalist shocks me.
3. When you moved out of your flat in Westminster, the fees office 
demanded repeatedly that you repay the £2,190 deposit but you did not 
and eventually they docked your rent claims in order to recoup the 
money. Please explain why you did not repay the deposit when asked.

Because the landlord was seriously dodgy and refused to pay back any 
of the deposit. The flat was left in an immaculate and pristine 
condition. Despite my threats of legal action which would have cost 
even more, I eventually gave up. I lost the £2,190 as a result of 
renting a flat in order to carry out my job. a months salary. The 
fees office should not have taken the money from me they should have 
chased the landlord for it. In fact, I want that money back! I will 
also ask my PA to post first thing on Monday morning the 
correspondence between myself and said dodgy landlord who doesn't 
return deposits at the end of tenure.

4. Your file shows that you twice demanded that the fees office make 
"urgent" payments of several thousand pounds to your bank account and 
when one did not arrive immediately, a member of your staff rang and 
told them to "sort it out". Please explain why you felt this was 
appropriate.
5. Your file also complains of a "lack of co-operation" in completing 
the ACA forms correctly and complying with their requests for 
information about your addresses. Please explain why you did not co-
operate with the fees office.

Answer to both above questions I am afraid result as a total lack of 
frustration towards a department which is frequently overworked and 
understaffed. The fees office continuously loses invoices, leases and 
payments. Sometimes I am thousands of pounds out whilst waiting to be 
paid. When I am told I can't be paid because they have yet again, 
lost the invoice, I sometimes lose my rag. I'm sorry. I know I 
shouldn't, it's just that I have other more important things to do 
and few hours to do them in.

I emailed the fees office with my change of house details at the same 
time as I told them to my whip in 2008.
6. Land Registry records show that your former family home in 
*************was sold in 2007. You have announced publicly that you 
have separated from your husband. Since then the only address on any 
of your files is your rented house in Bedford, on which you are 
claiming ACA. On this basis, we have reason to believe that you only 
live in one home and are therefore ineligible to claim an allowance 
for running a second home. While you have our assurance that we will 
not print your address, please state exactly where you consider your 
main home to be and in what way you are eligible to claim the second 
home allowance.

I have no intention of exposing every detail of my private existence, 
what little I have, on this blog. However, needs must. I rent a house/
office/ surgery in my constituency. This house is used in connection 
with my duties as an MP. For example - this weekend I have had 
meetings all day Friday. I am presenting to a patients group in 
Barton-Le-Clay surgery on changes in the NHS tonight. I am canvassing 
Saturday and attending a church service on Sunday and then after the 
church service writing a speech for the Police and Crime Bill to be 
delivered next week.
On the weekends I have free, and during the recess, I go somewhere 
else. I am not publishing the address. I gave it to my whip and 
emailed it to the fees office in 2008. I spend most of the holidays 
abroad, all of which can be confirmed. My children stay with me when 
I am in the constituency, where I go my girls go, however, one also 
lives in London and one is at Uni. This has not always been the case. 
I now spend my late nights in London. At my own expense.
I keep the dogs at the constituency address as I am often there on my 
own and it confuses them being moved around. When I am not in the 
constituency, especially during the long summer break, we have a 
house sitter, at my expense. Again, this can be confirmed.
During term time I spend the majority of weekends in the constituency 
as my job tends to be seven days a week, as detailed above. My 
youngest daughter has attended a school in Bedford since last 
September. Up until September she attended a school 'somewhere else'. 
My eldest daughter had a term time job during the last year in the 
constituency before commencing work in London in a PR firm.
My doctor, dentist and recent hospital treatment have all recently 
been undertaken 'somewhere else'.

We do not presently see the justification for all of these claims 
under the rules or spirit of the rules set out in the Parliamentary 
Green Book. These stipulate that enhancing property is not allowed 
and that purchases which are "extravagant or luxurious" should be 
avoided.
What on earth are you talking about? Enhancing property?? Extravagant 
luxurious expenditure???

Please could we receive your comments by 5pm today so that they can 
be given due weight in our inquiries and properly reflected in any 
article we decide to publish. Please could you also inform us if you 
do not wish to comment.

You have my comments now. I will refute any accusations you wish to 
make against me, myself. Given that we all know the so called 
'chandelier; was in fact a paper lamp shade with glass beads hanging 
from the bottom you will excuse my not trusting you to give me a fair 
shout.

Many thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you 
shortly. I can be contacted on ******or ***********@telegraph.co.uk
Yours sincerely,

You are very welcome, anytime.