The accusation, from Tim Ireland (first paragraph quoting the The Times):
[Nadine] Dorries claimed £9,987.50 for Marketing Management in June 2007 for the design, layout and production of an annual report and for consultancy. She says she spent the money, and posted a copy of the report on her website. However, it does not appear to be professionally produced.
…There is no record of any payment made for distribution of this ‘annual report’, it does not appear to have been published on/through Dorries’ site at any stage (despite her claims to the contrary)
…I seriously doubt that any opening argument about the strained budget of a local hospital can justify spending close to £10,000 of taxpayer’s money on what appears to be two-page ‘report’ promoting Dorries’ campaign to reduce the availability of abortion.
The response, from Nadine Dorries:
For anyone who cares to know, blogger, Tim Ireland, who chooses to write blogs which are malicious, un-founded and for the most part totally untrue, has been warned by Police not to enter Bedfordshire.
However, this doesn’t stop him from wasting tax payers money via freedom of information requests and then letters of complaint to the information commissioner when they don’t work. Stopping that comes next! My poor staff :(
It should be recalled that when Tim raised the issue of Marketing Management back in February, its director, a personal friend of Dorries named Lynne Elson, complained both (a) that Tim had failed to contact her for information and (b) that his perusal of publicly available documents about payments amounted to “intrusion”.
Tim’s new post also carries a statement from the police stating that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that there is “insufficient evidence” over the matter to prosecute Dorries for claiming expenses dishonestly.
As I’ve observed before, Dorries’ sense of entitlement is legendary – for instance, her response to the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority guide to expenses was a mocking post on her blog with a photo showing how her copy of the document had supposedly been blown out of her office by a gust of wind onto a nearby roof. It is possible she sincerely believes that a persistent critic of her political activities ought to be restrained and suppressed by the police.
UPDATE: It should also be remembered that Dorries’ own blog is “malicious, un-founded and for the most part totally untrue”. She’s used it as a platform for a spiteful and intrusive personal attack on her lover’s estranged wife, as well as to smear as a benefits cheat someone who criticised her on Twitter.
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