Dear Sir George
One of the easiest ways for a backbench Member of Parliament to get noticed and to acquire a platform is to jump onto passing populist bandwagons. Over the years we have seen it many times but Nadine Dorries MP has just joined a very select club; those whose chasing of popularity and notoriety has become something more than a means to an end.
Nobody can possibly think that the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha was anything other than an absolute tragedy. Nobody apart, it seems, from Nadine Dorries. Not content with expressing normal human emotions and offering her sincere condolences to Ms Saldanha’s family and friends the MP for Mid Bedfordshire has done her best to try to blame members of the media in the United Kingdom for the tragedy. Writing on Twitter the former “I’m a Celebrity” contestant suggested that “paps” had driven the nurse to take her own life. This would seem like an attempt to attach the death to one of her own hobby-horses and put some pressure onto her Parliamentary colleagues to force greater restrictions on the press during the Leveson process.
Whether or not the Conservative Whip is returned to Mrs Dorries on a permanent basis, her actions on Twitter go way beyond Parliamentary Privilege and cross the line into ignorant defamation dressed up as human reaction.
The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association would ask you to take Nadine Dorries MP’s activities on Twitter into account when you review her status as a Conservative MP and to remind her that her tweets could have consequences every bit as damaging as those of the two Australian disc jockeys whose unthinking actions led to Ms Saldanha’s death.
Yours Sincerely
The Board of The British Press Photographers’ Association