Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Shouldn't eye-candy at work be a human right?

I was rather amused this morning on the train when reading the Times article about MPs "shirking their responsibilites by not attending Select Committees. It is not avilable online but they ahd a list of the "worst offending" MPs, and Nadine Dorries was at the top of it with 2% attendance (online here). It carried a quote from Nadine on why she did not attend which said,
"This committee is chaired by someone not fit."
Well I thought, that's very honest of you Nadine! Everyone is after all entitled to eye-candy when at work, although I bet if a man said that about a female chairman they'd be screams from the comfortable shoe wearing brigade.

Sadly though, it was not to be. I contacted Nadine to find out if it was really true that she would only sit on a Committee with a George Clooney lookalike as the Chairman, and it appears that the Times chose not to publish the full extent of what she said to them.

It would appears that she gave a principled reason for not attending which included a strong form of words about the integrity of the Chairman of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, Phil Willis, which the Times was presumably nervous about printing.

Personally, if I was an MP though, I would support the misquote. After all, shouldn't eye-candy at work be a human right?

UPDATE: Nadine has been in contacted with me saying the following about the PDF Times link.

I've never seen that piccy of me before! Thanks for the pdf link to the list of MPs attendance, it is, however, incorrect. The list has me down as having attended 1 meeting - I have, to my knoweldge, no attended any."
Touchee!

Update II: Sam Coates on RedBox has posted noting that the quote of Nadine's got truncated for reasons of space and has published it in full.

11 comments:

TheBoilingFrog said...

...Nadine Dorries was at the top of it with 2% attendance (not available online)

Is this the one you mean Dizzy?

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/empty_seats.pdf

dizzy said...

Edited and corrected. Ta.

Oldrightie said...

Yes to the question. OT, see the pic I found on nazi brutality, scary. Plus Brown wants tazer gun top up points everywhere!

RantinRab said...

Well, if you're looking for eye candy at my workplace, the nearest you'll find is a bunch of overweight sweaty blokes who have a faint smell of kebab about them. Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

Comfortable shoe brigade! Nice.

Devil's Kitchen said...

Well, might I humbly suggest that -- if Nadine is not going to participate on "a point of principle" -- may I humbly suggest that she fucking resigns and let someone who is going to at least attempt to do the job get on the Committee instead?

That woman's such an idiot.

DK

P.S. Is there any renumeration for being on a Select Committee?

dizzy said...

Don't even know if you can do that once appointed. It happens at the beginning of the session I think. I could be wrong of course. Who knows.

Conand said...

+++ Breaking News +++

Devil's Kitchen wants unprincipled politicians shock!

In a surprise move today, Blogger Codename:DK attacked somebody he doesn't like. His comments came after the wonderful Nadine Dorries MP said she thought a Labour MP was a complete shit, and therefore didn't want to spend hours in a room with him, wasting taxpayer's money on patsy whitewashing bullshit.

++++++

Anonymous said...

She is wonderful isnt she. He's a Liberal Democrat though which is worse. He's a double shit.

Conand said...

@Anon @ 15:07

Oh bugger. You're right, he's Labour-Lite, sorry :)
Whateva though, he's one of those ones that wants to massively increase the size of the state and subject me to remote tyranny.
He's cute too isn't he? A liebore rose by any other name..

Anonymous said...

She can ask her Whips to have her replaced on the committee.

Since she has demonstrated herself incapable of understanding that evidence submitted to a select committee in advance of an evidence session is normally made freely available to press and public at that session, she might do well to withdraw as gracefully as she can.