And another thing…

I’m indebted to Ministry of Truth for recommending my site, particularly my recent posts on Nadine Dorries. I’m particularly grateful to him for widening my own vocabulary. I had no idea what “astroturfing” was; some form of sexual deviance, perhaps?

But no. According to Wikipedia, astroturfing “is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.

“The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.”

Hmm. I may have preferred the sexual deviance thing. Wonder what a “neologism” is?

I was going to follow my own advice and move beyond the ridiculous partisan arguments invented by Nadine Dorries MP to excuse the defeat of her amendment to reduce the upper legal limit for abortion to 20 weeks. She insists that Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend the Chamber during the vote, in the expectation that, once there, they would vote for the status quo. I know she’s only been an MP for three years, but that’s long enough to know that there is no such thing as a whip to attend the Chamber.

Following my posting on this very subject yesterday, I’ve had a laughable comment posted from some Tory activist claiming to be “an anonymous Labour backbencher”. Curiously, he/she uses exactly the same terminology as Nadine in his/her insistence that a whipping operation was used to get MPs into the Chamber.

If Nadine’s supporters are going to stoop to this level of duplicity to win the argument, it makes those of us who are sympathetic to her case weep with despair.

One more thing: in a post she wrote today, Nadine insists that it’s not she who is trying to make abortion a political issue. She then carries a link entitled: “Archbishop Cranmer – Why Christians Should Think Thrice Before Voting Labour”.

Irony, anyone?

Nadine Dorries just won’t let it go, will she? Ever since her move to amend the upper legal limit for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks, she’s been blaming the Labour whips for her failure.

Now she prays in aid of her argument an article in the Daily Mail, which claims that Harriet Harman led a whipping operation. Harriet is a long-standing supporter of the right of women to choose to have an abortion; she feels strongly that the limit should not be lowered, and she and other (mostly, but not all, female) colleagues lobbied for her position. Why on earth wouldn’t they? Is Nadine claiming that she didn’t try to persuade other colleagues to support her amendment? I hope she won’t claim that, because she approached me!

So if Nadine encourages support for her amendment, that’s democracy. But if a Labour MP tries to organise against her, that’s anti-democratic. At least she’s dropped her silly claim that there was any kind of official whipping operation by the government whips.

For the record, having announced in my blog and in the media that I was sympathetic to a reduction in the time limit, I was lobbied by two MPs – Anne Snelgrove, who asked me to support the status quo, and Nadine. There was no arm-twisting, no threats. As it should be.

As someone who did actually support a reduction to 20 weeks (unlike Nadine who, in supporting other amendments in favour of limits as low as 12 weeks exposed her opposition even to her own amendment!), I find Nadine’s attempts to make abortion a party political issue extremely distasteful. At the first ever Labour Party branch meeting I ever attended, in 1985, I spoke against a motion calling on Labour policy as agreed at conference (abortion on demand) to be enforced by the whips in the Commons. This has never happened, it will never happen and it didn’t happen last Tuesday, despite Nadine’s fantasies.

Let it go, Nadine, there’ll be other opportunities. But if you keep banging this partisan drum on an issue as sensitive as abortion, you may get all the PR you’ve ever dreamed of, but you’ll alienate any Labour MPs who might otherwise have considered supporting you.

I feel some real disappointment tonight. The votes on 20 and 22 weeks weren’t even close. I didn’t hear Nadine Dorries‘ speech but I’m told it was extremely powerful and moving. As were other contributions on both sides of the debate.

But that’s it. The House has spoken fairly emphatically and it’s clear there’s no mood for change at any time this parliament.

Breathlessly I logged on to Nadine Dorries MP’s blog last night. What was the “big news” that on Saturday she had promised to reveal two days later?

It turns out it was something about David Cameron nicking other people’s shoes, or something like that. Is that it?! Come on, Nad, you owe us more than that, surely?