Student Activist Diary

© The Guardian

One of my favourite pastimes is finding reasons to dislike Nadine Dorries. Luckily for me, the woman never fails to give me ammunition: so you can imagine my glee this morning at finding out she has been slagging Cameron and Osborne off to the Beeb. Now, don’t get me wrong, I find both of them to be despicable, slimy creatures and almost agree with what Dorries said (SHOCK! HORROR!) but let’s be real, Nadine, should you really be taking jabs at your party leader like that in such a public way?

Let’s take a step back and look at the situation and what it really means. Forget that we are talking about the Conservatives, forget that the topic of this interview was Cameron and Osborne; hell, forget that the interviewee is an insane, right-wing, anti-feminist, anti-abortionist who would like to see women’s rights controlled by the state. For the sake of objectivity, let’s call the governing party the Nutters, and refer to Cameron, Osborne, and Dorries as X, Y, and Z, respectively.

For any large party which is in and out of power, to look (and actually be) united is vital. You cannot expect the electorate to want to vote for you if you can’t keep your party, your MPs and your supporters together. For a leader to make it to Number 10, he or she needs support, first and foremost, from his or her party. For an MP to criticise the leader of their party whilst out of government is bad. For an MP to do so while said leader is also the leader of the country, the representative of the UK on an international platform, the face of this country during tough economic or political climes, is disastrous. Yet Z has criticised the leader of the Nutters as well as its economic mastermind (remember, I am not referring to Osborne here, obviously; just any potential Chancellor of the Exchequer). However, this isn’t what made me laugh/cringe the most.

So what exactly did Dorries say about Cameron and Osborne? When prompted by the interviewer (who asked if she thought Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Idiot were just two posh boys who didn’t know the price of milk) she declared:

“Not only are they two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk, they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others.”

Nadine, you have absolutely no arguments from me on this one. David and George have indeed shown themselves to be selfish, arrogant and uncaring. I do not believe they understand how a family of six living in a two-bed council flat scrapes by week to week, how a severely disabled man who lost the movement from his neck down in a motorcycle crash and is facing having his benefits slashed feels or how civil servants so scared of losing their jobs and working full-time hours on part-time pay feel. Nor do I believe they can really care unless they’ve experienced any of this for themselves.

HOWEVER, while she was speaking, I found myself screaming “POT! KETTLE! BLACK!!!”  This is the ARROGANT woman who wrote an article saying that Cameron had texted her to apologise for “humiliating” her in the House of Common; the politician who showed NO REMORSE in declaring that girls (and only girls) should receive abstinence lessons; the idiot who has NO PASSION TO UNDERSTAND THE LIVES OF OTHERS, who felt it was fine to strip abortion centres of their rights to provide counselling to women.

In September of last year, I wrote an article entitled “Should Dorries Be Disciplined?”.  The answer to that question, in my opinion, is still a definite and resounding “YES, PLEASE GOD, JUST GET RID OF THE WOMAN!”
I almost feel sorry for Cameron. To quote the great Malcolm Tucker, the woman is an absolute clusterfuck.