Parlez~me~'n~Tory

Rightly Wry, Satirically RIGHT

I started this blog back in July 2009 some 14 months ago and have promised to sort out some of the structure ever since.

Today I undertook some serious spring cleaning which has involved moving the widgets (left hand side bar stuff) into a more agreeable order and removing the categories and placing them into a drop down menu. Part of the clean was to remove the R4 podcasts as they had very little outlinks.

One vital area of cleaning was the removal of the “RIGHT way to blog” blogroll. It has been replaced with Coalition, Opposition and Alternate and if you’re reading this and wish to be placed amongst the listed please let me know on @Parlez_me_nTory

One other area that changed today is that ALL new blog posts including this one are automatically pre-fixed with the Twitter hashtag of #BlogParlez – this will facilitate finding of all blog posts from within Twitter, this is something I believe that ALL bloggers should emulate for their readers benefit.

If you have any suggestions for further changes please get in touch as I would love to hear your views, thank you.

This morning on Twitter I asked the question “what does it mean to be a blogger”.

I received an amazing array of responses including “bringer of justice” – “open access” – “holder of integrity” – “freedom to intrude” – “to be corrosive”.

For myself, I was under the impression that to be a blogger it was about honesty and fairness, to rise above the gutter that the mainstream media inhabits so often.

I care not if you are reading this and thinking I am only writing this because William Hague is a Conservative, you’re wrong. This would have been written whoever the public figure was and my recent stance on Twitter would’ve remained the same that what Paul Staines has done has brought a bad stench on the world in which we bloggers inhabit.

I know not why Guido decided to go after Mr Hague and/or Mr Myers in such a fashion. I have shared my suspicion a number of times on Twitter and shall do so again in the next sentence.

I personally believe that Paul Staines was given a tip off from a past victim of his who is trying to ingratiate themselves with Guido. That tip off may have only been that the room was shared and an over eager imagination set to work.

I know not why I feel so strongly about this but perhaps it has something to do with the world that I feel so strongly about, the one with honesty and fairness has been badly sullied due to the actions of a once great activist.

I don’t have an issue with the premise of what Guido has done but I do have a major issue with the way in which he undertook his work, it is reminiscent of the gutter press at its very worst.

Perhaps he is obliged because he has column inches to fill, perhaps he is obliged because of the expectation that weighs on his shoulders, perhaps he’s stepped over the line of what it means to be a blogger?

Late last evening as I was pondering closing my eyes I noticed a little gem of a Tweet from our old friend @BevaniteEllie in response to the news that Tony Blair had felt that Labour “got it wrong” on Fox Hunting the tweet read

“So Blair didn’t really want to ban fox hunting… I think for the next few days I may have to refrain commenting on any of this-safer.”

Realising just how poetic this was given the strength of arrogance of Dear Ellie and how much she has personally invested in the past leaders of the Labour Party I opted to RT this in the following tweet

“This is pure comic genius RT @BevaniteEllie: Blair didn’t really want to ban fox hunting…have to refrain commenting on any of this-safer”

Now, bearing in mind we are limited to 140 characters I have kept the true meaning of the original and commented accordingly.

This morning I arose to the following tweet at which, in truth I feel quite offended

“@Parlez_me_nTory That is not an RT. Observe Twettiquette or be judged, fool. @BevaniteEllie did not say that.”

Of course, for sanity purposes I checked what I had tweeted and you can see it above so I responded with the following

“RT @tenseMoo: @Parlez_me_nTory That is not an RT. Observe Twettiquette or be judged, fool. ..You are wrong, she did say it”

and…

“@tenseMoo check her timeline, twettiquette is if words removed for size add "…" – you will note fully observed, now please retract "fool"”

I shall not be holding my breath for too long as I am not really expecting an apology though for the sake of their own inner calm one does think that they should check before shooting off at a tweep.

Congratulations to Samantha and David Cameron on the birth of their 4th child.

The new arrival is a girl weighing in at 6lb 1oz born whilst the PM was on holiday in Cornwall.

Following the tragic past with the death of Ivan back in February 2009 the family’s spirits can once again be raised.

I, for one will certainly be toasting the safe arrival with a glass of Shiraz this evening.

Today Simon Hughes stated that the Lib Dems would fight the Conservatives in seats at the next General Election #GE15.

This seemingly simple statement makes utter sense and is in fact what every constituent and party member from ALL sides wants.

Imagine a situation where Lib Dems and Conservatives join forces on the strength of 5 good years in government, quite simply Labour would not get a look in on anything more than a token vote (in all but the strongest of the core constituencies), so it goes without saying that ALL Labour voters would secretly welcome today’s statement from Mr Hughes. Okay, all Labour voters with the exception of John Prescott.

Neither would the Conservatives welcome a pact with the Lib Dems at #GE15, much as we needed and still need a good strength from the Lib Dems to form and subsequently run the coalition (don’t forget we could have gone for a minority Government but bitter MP’s would have scuppered that at every opportunity).

I reside and vote in the constituency of Somerton and Frome something like the 5th largest in the country. I am a member of the Frome Conservative committee and a member of the constituency’s Executive committee and I can assure you that every single member is hell bent on removing David Heath at the earliest opportunity.

This constituency has been Lib Dem since 1997 and it always a 2 horse race; we shall give no quarter.

My wife took my 20 month old child to the local medical practice this morning (they hold a walk-in session) prior to official opening hours to get her eye seen too and to have a large bump on her head checked out.

What followed was something that can only be described as ludicrous. My wife could not get an appointment to see a Dr unless she booked one with 14 days notice. My child could not be seen by a Dr on the premises because there was an A&E within 15 miles of the practice.

The receptionist then set about trying to suggest she knew what the prognosis was without any further explanation. We had already consulted 2 pharmacists who although coming to the same conclusion cannot prescribe without authority yet a nurse who might see us as 2pm today can prescribe. That alone is a ridiculous situation to find ourselves in.

Why is it so difficult to get an appointment to see a Dr in your own medical practice? What is the point of belonging to a medical practice when you cannot ever see a Dr and will only ever get directed to A&E?

When Labour allowed GP’s to rewrite their own contract did they oversee the right to remove themselves from frontline patient services?

One of my favourite works of art…artist unknown

The state of our country

Well, that was rather incredible to be honest, watching the machinations of ALL sides during those 5 days.

After tonight’s programme my respect, albeit not a high level of respect for Lord Adonis has all but evaporated, he struck me as desperate on every level. Though having met Sir Gus O’Donnell in the past I was, as always rather impressed by his cool headed attitude.

I was in absolute awe of the candid access Nick Robinson had during the 5 days, from the screenshot of David Cameron’s laptop as he telephoned Nick Clegg whilst trying to form the coalition to the admissions of some of the ministers (not always to their benefit).

What came through from the LibDem side was to me that it is clear who doesn’t sit comfortably with the coalition but the vast majority do, at least currently they do, and there are some Labour representatives that don’t even think they did a thing wrong. It is obvious that something had to give and both parties did what was right to get the deal done, to put Britain back on the road to recovery, to stop the rot.

What else came through is that Ed Balls didn’t come across very well at all, that is not just from a Tory point of view, it makes it look very clear as though it was all the fault of Ed. Quite simply it won’t do his leadership bid any good whatsoever.

I am saddened that Gordon did not speak, was not interviewed, you could almost see the tears in Peter Mandelson’s eyes in that photo just before leaving. I do not know why he did not appear but can only assume it was his own choice.

One thing is very certain, politics in Britain has changed forever as a result of these 5 days as has access to the details that we will from now on demand of our media representatives.

Kudos to Nick Robinson for he has done something very special here and for the record Paul Waugh from the Evening Standard, this program was #worththelicencefeealone. We have all been a part of history.