My default position would normally be to sympathise with anyone who comes under attack from the BNP but there are some clear and, you would have thought, blindingly obvious conclusions to be drawn from the unfortunate case of blogging MP Nadine Dorries. Dorries has justbeen cleared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards of lying about her second home and making inappropriate claims.
Setting aside the detail of a complicated case, and acknowledging that even MPs have a right to privacy and personal space, Dorries might have thought more carefully about her use of social media.
"She was criticised for comments on her blog which "suggested that she spent the majority of her weekends in the constituency, whilst she had told the Commissioner that nearly all weekends were spent in her main home".
Explaining the discrepancy, she told the watchdog: "My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact. "It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.
"I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.
"In the light of the bullying onslaught of the Daily Telegraph (which reported the claims about her expenses) I used my blog to its best effect in reassuring my constituents of my commitment to Mid Beds."
The problem is that from now on her readers are always going to be wondering whether or not what they see is true and in 70pc of cases they could reasonably conclude that it wasn't.
In fact, they will probably play safe and not trust a word of it.... Not the best outcome from a venture designed to allow people to get to you know you better.
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