Remember Mystic Nadine?
You know, Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, who had me in stitches with her hilariously bad grasp of statistics only a touch over a week or so.
Well, Nadine’s back and this time its amnesia…
Simon Mayo: Did you vote for the control orders Nadine?
Nadine: I…don’t remember.
Simon: You don’t remember?
Kitty Ussher: You don’t remember!
Nadine: I don’t think I did actually…I don’t remember the specific, it was part of a bill I don’t know, I probably did vote, I would imagine that I did vote for it, yeah.
Kitty: So you voted for it but you’ve just on air, on live air, tried to…
Nadine: Yeah probably and you’ll probably find out in a second when you’ve looked it up that I didn’t, I really don’t know, but I do know that if you put any any…
Kitty: So it’s Conservative policy taking this very seriously.
There is a slight problem here with Simon’s original question. Control orders were introduced in Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which received royal assent on 1th MARCH 2005…
…and neither Kitty or Nadine became MPs until the General Election that took place on 5th MAY 2005, so the answer that Nadine was grasping for, and missing completely, was…
‘No. I wasn’t an MP at the time’…
(via Ridiculous Politics – who hasn’t quite cottoned on to the full measure of ridiculousness in this story)
FOOTNOTE:
Is anyone just a tad relieved that Simon doesn’t appear to have asked Kitty the same question? Just a thought – think nothing of it…
I suspect it’s a consequence of whipped votes with no debate- the lobby fodder just turn up and vote how they’re told to. That and stupidity.
Just checked back and neither have ever had the opportunity to vote on control orders – the extension on the sunset clause, which is the only thing that she could have voted on, was passed without a vote being taken.
Nice point-scoring, Kitty. You ‘win’ this round.