This would be funny, but she’s my MP. She’s all the representation I’m ever going to get in this ridiculous pseudo democracy we live in. It’s obscene that someone like this is in parliament.

Perhaps the government would like to stop lecturing countries like Syria and start sorting out the way we are governed?

Chris, the Government tried to sort out the way we are governed by holding a referendum on the voting system – it was “sorted out” that people like it the way it is. They’re also looking to sort out the House of Lords. Do you have any practical suggestions?

[1] “Perhaps the government would like to stop lecturing countries like Syria and start sorting out the way we are governed?” – well said, Chris – yes, it’s dreadfully embarrassing to think about the quality of some of our MPs.

I might be wrong but I suspect that there would be an above average % who would satisfy criteria for some sort of personality disorders?

Jon Ronson’s ‘psychopath test’ is both instructive and entertaining
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6aCir5bu-c

Just another tory bully who can dish it out but can’t take it.

Whining is the only real talent tories are good at.

After repeated attempts to portray her critics on Twitter especially as a danger to herself and others, Nadine Dorries seeks to poke them with a stick and still expects us to take her tired old line on the potential of police action seriously.

A new chapter to follow this one, out soon:
http://j.mp/t2fMWZ

The summary is that Bedfordshire Police have made it clear to this MP that libel is not a criminal offence, and not a matter for police. So she has no excuse for behaving in this way, and this disgrace of an MP clearly seeks to politicise police by using a baseless threat of their involvement in order to intimidate critics into silence.

@5 To be fair to her, intimidation is the primary function of the police.

Someone please tell Ms Dorries that libel isn’t a criminal offence?

Someone had better tell Halsbury’s as well. Criminal libel still exists as an offence, although I doubt this would fall under it.

The summary is that Bedfordshire Police have made it clear to this MP that libel is not a criminal offence, and not a matter for police.

Police in “limited knowledge of the law” shocker.

TimJ: Police were speaking in terms of libel in the context of civil concerns; if criminal libel were the issue here, the distinction would need to be made, and would have been made by Bedfordshire Police. There is no doubt that Dorries and the police refer to criticisms that fall under the definition of libel that are only covered by civil law.

BTW, Bedfordshire Police are equally clear that when Nadine Dorries says ‘stalker’ she means ‘critic with a web site/presence’.

What a lovely woman. I wish I had the emotional maturity to threaten people with police action when they criticise me. Perhaps I can learn from the example of this paragon of our times.

It’s worth pointing out, incidentally, that seditious, obscene and defamatory libel are no longer criminal offences, but that libel can still be a criminal act (albeit vanishingly rarely).

That’s the fifth person Dorries has reported to the police now. She’s even tried to use the police against Linda Jacks, who stood against her for the Lib Dems in the last election:

http://barthsnotes.com/2012/02/08/nadine-dorries-mp-reports-twitter-user-to-police-for-libel/

She is so childish it is unbelievable. HOW did she become an MP? The mind boggles.

@TimJ:

Read s73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. You’re 2 years out of date…

@TimJ #8:

“X” in “limited knowledge of the law” shocker.

Just shows that in the shires you can put a giant pile of shit up for election as long as it has a blue rosette stuck on top, it will get in. In fact, in this case a giant pile of shit would be an improvement.

Perhaps, though, Ms Dorries is open to prosecution under Section 5 (2) of the Criminal Law Act 1967:

“Where a person causes any wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making to any person a false report tending to show that an offence has been committed, or to give rise to apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or tending to show that he has information material to any police inquiry, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for not more than six months or to a fine of not more than two hundred pounds or to both.”

Now that would be funny.

What a dreadful woman…how do these ghastly people get elected?

@ 17 Paul

I was wondering about that. I don’t know the full details of these events (including whether Dorries always actually reports people to the cops when she claims to), but if the police have explained to her that a specific action isn’t a crime, and she keeps reporting it to them regardless, that sounds like it might qualify as wasting police time.

Why do we give her this sort of publicity? This attention seeking is only fed by all the articles and blogs written about her.

Lets just leave it all until the election and then release it all at once. That’s when it might do some good. (Always assuming that she will get selected as I understand her seat is being abolished).

“Why do we give her this sort of publicity” – my guess is because there is always a place for a pantomime villain, especially since few politicians seem able to fire the public imagination (a problem Ed is experiencing at the moment)

As an aside the number of votes received by certain politicos is an indirect indication of how many stupid, stupid people there are out there?

Right-wing Trolls are the worst!

Streisand Effect…!

I despair…. She’s actually thicker than Baronness Warsi and she couldn’t even walk in a straight line and chew gum at the same time well enough to get elected in a safe seat.

Does she not realise that libel actions are civil suits? The police don’t investigate libel allegations for you, it’s up to you or your lawyer to do all the hard work, not Plod. Does she think because she’s a sitting MP on the winning team in government she gets to order them to silence people like her own private Gestapo?

She’s not the Queen. Or even Rebekah Brooks’s for that matter.

I just had a Bernard Woolley moment! : D

“Oh, now that’s another one of those irregular verbs, it’s it? ‘I Troll’, ‘You Lie’, ‘He Has Been Reported to the Police and Detained for Questioning Under Section 27a of the Seditious Libel Act’!”

Read s73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. You’re 2 years out of date…

Conceivably, but in that case so is Halsbury’s online on LNB, which seems unlikely. Their analysis is that libel can still be a criminal offence if the courts consider it likely to cause a breach of the peace. And they explicitly note that defamatory, seditious and blasphemous libels are no longer offences following the Coroners and Justice Act, as I said @11.

I also saw the reports in the Guardian saying that criminal libel had been abolished tout court, but you know, in a dispute over the law between the Guardian and Halsburys, I know where my money goes.

Mad as a hatter at the queen of hearts tea party -

@TimJ #25:

Conceivably, but in that case so is Halsbury’s online on LNB, which seems unlikely. Their analysis is that libel can still be a criminal offence if the courts consider it likely to cause a breach of the peace. And they explicitly note that defamatory, seditious and blasphemous libels are no longer offences following the Coroners and Justice Act, as I said @11.

Read Halsbury again. There’s an update after the notes; it refers specifically to s73. Use LexisNexis’s “Is it in force” facility on the section, and you’ll find s73 came into force 2 years ago.

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxn36jZpif1qz4cuyo1_400.jpg