Politicians don’t lie, they merely, ‘Rely heavily on poetic licence.’

All you apparently need to do is redefine your terms. Nadine Dorries has recently been reported to claim that her blog is 70% fiction, 30% fact. This is after she is caught giving misleading information in her blog that contradicts the evidence she has submitted to the inquiry into MP expenses. Her blog, she now claims,

“Is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.

“I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.”

BBC Website

All very lovely, and no doubt this has given her constituents the perfect opportunity to know her better, but in fact she seemingly only did this to worm her way out of an expenses inquiry that suggested that she was claiming expenses for her constituency home improperly. If it looks like bullshit and smells like bullshit, it probably is.

I am quite new to blogging but I would have thought that as an MP she should take pains to ensure that her readers are clear about whether she is reporting fact, or in fact making things up. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Here is her latest blog post:

Good job…

“Go to page 9

http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_summary.pdf

“Departmental expenditure rises year on year.

“Some may call the ‘cuts’ efficiency savings.

“My worries are about growth, not cuts. This CSR would have been perfect had it cut taxes, done away with the licence fee and committed to stop sending vast sums of money to Europe. Thereby creating an environment for investment and growth in preparation to deal with rising unemployment.

“George did a great job, but that would have been perfect.”

I would love it if she could colour the fact in one colour, and the fiction in another. This would make it much more helpful for me to understand which was which.

One response to “Politicians don’t lie, they merely, ‘Rely heavily on poetic licence.’”

  1. Ben Gladstone says:

    Actually, politicians lie then call it poetic licence.