Scamalot: dead ducks or dotty Dorries?

It needed a huge effort to top Douglas Hogg's dirty moat, but Peter Viggers' ducks finally did it this week, when it transpired that they had been claiming for a second home in the MP's duck pond, when in fact, it was their main home (or something like that).

The scandal has been so successful that it has cracked the US, getting its own slot on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and being dubbed "Scamalot" (see below for full clip).

I have blogged about this topic about as extensively as I have any other on this blog (great political story - easy to have a quick opinion) and in the main I am appalled, outraged etc, about the claims being made on the public purse by our MPs. However, there are two respects where I am starting to diverge from popular opinion: first, there seems to be disbelief that any MP (or at least one who lives within a couple of hours of London) could possibly require a second home to do their job properly - and that this should be somehow paid for by the taxpayer and secondly, that the natural reaction to this is to say "a plague on all your houses" and either refuse to vote, or vote for a supposedly clean fringe or extremist party.

So I was interested to hear Nadine Dorries on the radio this morning as she is one of the few MPs who has coherently (and from a position of innocence) attempted to put into context some of the claiming that has occurred (also blogged by her here). More interestingly, she has called out the entire media (but clearly the Daily Telegraph) for playing the shocked innocent card themselves, making out that the existence of MPs allowances is newsworthy in itself, or that a £24,000 tax free allowance was no more than a thinly veiled £40,000 pay increase.

I am also pleased to see that Iain Dale has picked up on the story of the council by-election in Hazel Blears' constituency, which was a Labour HOLD but saw the BNP move into third place, 17 votes behind the Libdems (whose vote slumped by 22%), and combined the minor parties (BNP, Greens and UKIP) took 33% of the vote. Even though council by-elections can be a very poor indicator of national trends (total turn out = 1612), these figures are pretty shocking, suggesting that there are plenty of feeble minded people out there who think that the criminals who run the BNP are better equipped to run the country than [the fraudsters running] the exisiting main parties. But how does the BBC report this: on the front page of its politics page we have: "Labour holds poll in Blears ward" - complete with a smiling photo of the idiot-savant herself, Hazel, declaring that she is "delighted". Dear God...

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Scamalot
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Fame, at last

In a highly unscientific, unverified survey of the "Top 25 UK Political Blog Twitterers" (as in by number of followers on Twitter, rather than by quality or anything else), conducted recently by Iain Dale, I have come in at a highly dubious number 16.  In fact, if you simply rank the Tory aligned/right of centre bloggers/tweeters, I come in at number 6 (if Guido Fawkes is to be included in that list, and he doesn't really tweet anyway, he just has a feed from his site). 

The problem with this list and my ranking is that my Twittering and blogging have very little to do with one another. On Twitter, I am mainly connected to people working in the tech sector which has a relevance to my day job and am also followed by a number of other lawyers (mainly US based), a result, I suspect of being on various "lawyers who tweet" lists. 

In fact, my blogging has dramatically as my twittering has increased.  The reason is simple: engagement. I post a tweet, and it might be read by over 400 people  - or many more if it is re-tweeted - the greatest number of hits I have had on a single story on this blog is probably about 250. In reality, each tweet is probably only read by a handful of people, but they are also people I know, like and encounter in real life and so the the effect of their reading a tweet is much more significant than a random stranger stumbling over this blog. 

That said, just being recognised as a blogger by Dale (however tenuously, and having not appeared in the first draft I had to submit myself via the comments), it has reminded me that it is a "good thing" to be doing, which I enjoy and should do more of. 

Watch this space... 

Blog Wars - when will the madness end?

How many more casualties of this pointless conflict will there be before the parties finally come to their senses?

As a gesture of goodwill, and to prevent further harm being wreaked on the Great British Blogosphere, the Great Blue Heron (courtesy of Birdwatchersdigest.com) is making its first, and possibly last, appearance on this blog.

It is not a moment for soundbites, but y'know, at moments like this you really feel the hand of history on your shoulder. Or possibly the thong of history.

PS Unconfirmed reports are coming in of an impostor making offensive posts on other websites under my name. Action will be taken and perpetrators brought to justice (i.e. a stern talking to from the headmaster - Iain Dale) - updates will be provided in due course, but rest assured I am not giving up my name for nobody.

Matthew Taylor MP to spend more time with the family

I appear to have touched a few nerves over on Iain Dale's Diary (LibDem MP to Stand Down), where I suggested that if Matthew Taylor wanted to spend more time with his new family, he could have moved them to London rather than stepping down as an MP. I can't actually believe that anyone still uses that old chestnut and expects to be taken seriously.

Norfolk Blogger, in particular, said "Danvers, what a terribe [sic] attitude that you expect a constituency MP to move from his constituency." And an anonymous commentator told me to "get a life".

Honestly, I do not understand the objection to the idea that an MP should move his family to live in London so that they can all be together during the working week. If I am being so objectionable, what was the point of the reforms in the late nineties which made the Commons sitting hours more "family friendly"? I can see there is little point in Mrs MP (or Mr, for that matter) and the kiddies being in London if hubby (or wifey) is doing three all-night sittings each week, but if they are knocking off early every night, there is no reason they can't be home in time for bath and a story.

The location of one's home in relation to one's workplace is something that lots of people have to grapple with the whole time. Sure, some people do change jobs so that they can live somewhere pleasant, but probably not so often when they are a the top of their game or about to reach their long standing career goals.

Still, NB's use of the phrase "constituency MP" is the sort of meaningless tosh you might expect from a Libdem blogger (however entertaining and interesting he might be in other respects)... all Westminster MPs are, by definition, "constituency" MPs - since, thankfully we do not have some daft PR system which breaks that all important link. However, their job is to represent the constituency in Westminster and not vice versa. Having cut my political teeth in the West Country I feel an affinity to, and I still think the principals elucidated in 1774 by Edmund Burke in his speech to the electors of Bristol are correct.

Maybe I am bitter. Given I am still stuck in the Virgin Islands, having been waiting here all week to go on in front of the Court of Appeal, I think I would be able to spend more time with my family if I stood down from the legal profession and became an MP.

Five things

I have been tagged by Prague Tory (who was originally tagged by Iain Dale) to list five things you probably don't know about me and probably didn't want to know. Given that this is my first tagging, I am delighted to play along...

1. I have double jointed thumbs.

2. I am named after an ancestor who was a regicide.

3. I was, for a brief time, a motorcycle courier.

4. I broke my leg skiing on 31 December 1982.

5. I have never met anyone else called Danvers, although I know there are some out there.

I am now allowed to tag some others, which I will do later. Any volunteers?

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Update: My tag victims are - Donal Blaney (for being new), Tony Sharp (you didn't realise that commenting is volunteering), and Jeffrey Archer ('cause you just never know...)