Ellee Seymour

I feel sorry for Carla Bruni if she feels so insecure about her once radiant looks that she had to resort to Botox.

I hadn’t noticed her features becoming deep set with wrinkles. Does she hope that a taut expression will make her appear fresh faced, younger and more appealing for her reported new lover?

Or is she hoping it might stop her craggy faced husband from tempting to stray? Nicolas Sarkozy is no oil painting, but then he doesn’t have to worry about his lack of allure (or size); after all, power is the greatest aphrodisiac.

Carla was blessed with stunning looks. I don’t believe she really wanted to end up looking this way. If that’s what she has had, I would certainly want my money back.

I know it’s a cliche to say that beauty radiates from within, but it’s true. Does anyone look good on Botox? Pictures I have seen show very unreal, startled looking faces.

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It’s a great coup for a parliamentary candidate to get a shadow minister to visit them if they are not in a target seat, so very well done to Nick Hillman for persuading Caroline Spelman to support him while she was in Cambridge.

Caroline is Shadow Secretary for Communities and Local Government and she called in at an old NatWest bank which is now being used by beginspace, a scheme which supports business start-ups, social enterprises and community projects.

It has been run as a pilot project and it is hoped other branches will be launched around the country following its success. Its users are given opportunities to work collaboratively with others to develop their ideas, to form links with people who share similar goals. Caroline was very impressed – and this is certainly a great way of filling up the empty shops in our high streets.

Caroline and Nick met a couple of guys there, Robin Blandford and Arvind Shah, who are both designing very niche software and hope to become the latest Cambridge entrepreneurs as a result of this scheme, which provides free support and mentoring.

I would really like to see Nick win Cambridge. There is tremendous support for Conservatives in the city and Nick would be the perfect man to win us a Cambridge blue!

*Meanwhile, today’s Cambridge News reports that Tory canvasser Nick Bryars was squirted with tomato ketchup while canvassing in the city. He regards it as a badge of honour, saying:

"It was shocking but after I had calmed down I realised that every politician should suffer the occasional egg, bag of flour, but I think I can say that it is a first for ketchup. I have won my spurs."

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I met Anna Arrowsmith last Monday at the House of Lords. It was International Women’s Day and we both attended an event entitled “Achieving Equality in Parliament.”

During question time, Anna’s hand shot up. “I’m the first ever parliamentary candidate from the porn industry. I’ve just been selected for the Liberal Democrats.”

There was a stunned silence as everyone turned to look at her. She repeated it, and said she was involved with adult movies (her question was about the selection of candidates). Some of the audience smiled and nodded, while others still appeared confused about this unexpected declaration. Anna was so excited about being selected, she was thrilled about it, and she really seemed to enjoy the evening.

At the end of the meeting, I immediately dashed over to Anna to get her contact details and arranged to interview her about a project I am working on with women MPs and candidates; I am speaking to  her next week. At the time I felt I needed to stay mum about the very liberal Anna for my project, but I realised it was a very hot story and that it would arouse tremendous media interest. Sex and politics? It’s a dream combination for editors.

Of course, it’s now all over the national press, with headlines such as, “From porn to parliament,” and, “The woman who is sexing up Lib Dems.”  Anna is clearly revelling from her mass media coverage. Her picture is on the front of today’s Times and she has a full page coverage inside the paper too where she explains her political beliefs and work.

She is going to have to perform miracles as Lib Dems trail in the constituency she is contesting, but it will be interesting to see whether she can make a difference in the Tory-held Gravesham seat. In 2005 Adam Holloway secured 19,739 votes. Labour was a close second with 19,085 votes and Liberal Democrats languished third with a lacklustre 4,851.

What do you think? Would you vote for Anna?

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There are one of two places I would like to  be on election night – Harlow or Luton South.

It’s impossible not to be blown away by the impressive support and high regard which our Conservative candidate Robert Halfon has earned from the Essex community. I spent yesterday with him in Harlow and met a woman in her 60s who was voting for the first time ever – for Rob. I met a Labour voter switching over to Rob. So many people said they were voting Conservative because they want Rob to be their MP.

This is his third attempt at fighting the Harlow seat; in 2005 it was the last count to be declared in the country and there were three recounts. Rob lost by 97 votes. It was devastating, and I remember thinking, “Please have one more recount, please let it show that Rob  has won.”

Naturally, the sitting MP Bill Rammell is desperate to hang on to his seat, to such an extent that Labour has opened its regional headquarters in Harlow. Come on Conservative Central Office, we don’t even have a regional press officer, let alone a regional HQ.

Rob has spent 10 years giving his heart and soul to Harlow, it’s in his blood. The  people of Harlow trust Rob and know he would be a terrific, hard working MP.

I’m interested in Luton South too because our candidate there Nigel Huddleston, like Rob, has built up respect in the community by his integrity and trustworthiness.

It is the seat which Esther Rantzen is contesting too, but doesn’t stand a chance of winning, according to this article in The Times this week. It’s going to be another nail biting result.

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What’s he like to live with? What are his annoying habits? Does he wear Y-fronts or  boxers? Can he really be trusted to run the country? What makes him cry?

These are some questions which the wives of our political leaders might have to answer soon. With both David Cameron and Gordon Brown both desperately needing to convince  undecided voters that their party should run the country, it’s time for their wives to come out and describe what their man is really like in a bid to woo the waverers – particularly the Mumsnet women whose support is vital.

Both Samantha Cameron and Sarah Brown are very intelligent, confident, personable women who will show us the country’s two top party leaders in a different light; as human  beings and not just as a politician, but as their husband, the father of their children and their soul mate.

Will Sam Cam’s first television appearance with Sir Trevor McDonald this Sunday make a difference to the public when she talks about her 14-year marriage, stating: “I can honestly say I don’t think in all that time he has ever let me down.”

Sarah Brown has a phenomenal 1,118,255 followers on Twitter and, it has to be said, comes across as a decent person; she is undoubtedly Gordon Brown’s best asset.

With so much interest focused on the influence of the internet for the general election, could it be that it is these two wives who hold the key to helping secure victory?

Both these women love their men. Can they persuade you to X them too?

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I will be honouring International Women’s Day today by attending an event in the House of Lords entitled, “Achieving Equality in Parliament.”

It is organised by WAFE – Women worldwide Advancing Freedom and Equality and I  shall be interested to hear their speakers; this is one of my pet subjects at the moment as Westminster is represented by only 19.8% women.

I had particularly been looking forward to a Swedish speaker, who is now unable to make it. Agneta Stark is co-founder of Stödstrumporna, a Swedish feminist Network which made a big impact on the 1994 election with the threat of a ‘Women´s Party’. And Sweden has the second highest of women in parliament across the world (47%) with the highest being Rawanda (56.3%).

Her spot has been taken by Monique Auguste, an authority on gender equality in Canadian Politics, and she will explain how this works over there. Other speakers are Peter Facey, director of Unlock Democracy; Kate Growcutt, former chair of the Young Fabians; and Julie Smith, (pic) deputy director of the Centre of International Studies, Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University, who will ask the question so many of us would like an answer to:

“Why are there so many middle-class white men in parliament?”

*Read Lesley Abdela’s blog, she blames “cowardly and insufficient ongoing committment from men in political power to make it a priority to radically update and reform British politics whether on women’s equality, electoral reform or MPs’ expenses.”

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Have you heard of the hospitalist?

It’s an American concept, and one I would like a new Conservative government to consider introducing here to improve patient care while in hospital following yesterday’s devastating report in The Sunday’s Times which highlighted their neglect to meet targets.

A pity if it is too late to add to our health policy for the general election as it could make a significant difference to improving patient care.

A hospitalist is a medic who cares for all the patient’s needs from the moment he enters hospital, until the moment he leaves. He is also a point of contact when the patient returns home and wants to call and check on medication or has any immediate concerns. Patients and their families often find it hard to take in important medical information and its full implication while in hospital, and it is reassuring for them to know there is one person who is aware of the full facts and, most importantly, is accessible.

As I understand it, the hospitalist is basically a case manager who will liaise with patients and hospital staff to ensure their needs and will follow through all the needs regarding his treatment. They will ensure there is no confusion or misunderstanding surrounding complications, such as when a patient has more than one medical problem and is seeing more than one consultant.

I heard about this when working as press officer for the Infection 2009 conference, it was highlighted at one of the talks by Fiona Godlee, Editor of the British Medical Journal; the view was that it was only a matter of time before we had hospitalists in the UK.

Crucially, what I hope the hospitalist will succeed at is arranging to meet families to update them on the care of their loved ones – and be there as planned – instead of leaving them hanging around for hours which is often the case now. For families, that is one of their biggest frustrations.

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If reports that Jon Venables – one of the killers of Jamie Bulger – is correct and he is to be charged with offences of a sexual nature, then we face an unprecedented legal quagmire.

The law seems to be bending over backwards to nurture and protect Venables following his release from prison; clearly rehabilitation hasn’t worked.

Besides Mary Bell and Maxine Carr, I believe Venables and his co-killer Robert Thomspon are the only criminals to be given new identities on their release from prison, and Venables is the only one who faces alleged serious offences.

If charged,  there is a possibility that Venables will be tried under a false name in order to give him a fair trial. I  believe the British public can be trusted to give Venables a fair hearing, that they can judge the case on the facts alone. The legal system should not tie itself up in knots trying to pull the wool over our eyes; it is in the public interest to tell us the truth because these circumstances are exceptional and we need to have trust in the actions of our Ministry of Justice and the decisions they make about Venables.

And yes, I also believe Jamie’s mother deserves to be fully informed of the events surrounding Venables’ latest alleged crime, said to be child pornography, she shouldn’t have to swing through hoops to be told the facts.

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Good one Janice. If candidates can’t afford their own battle bus, then this is the next best thing.

I have spent a weekend with Janice Small in  Batley and Spen and I know how hard she is working. Deserving to win is not enough, and Janice knows she has to work harder to convince voters who are undecided to vote Tory, especially after a bad week of Ashcroft news.

Janice and I have an uncanny knack of buying the same clothes; I own the same grey suit jacket she is wearing in the pic on the bus and a similar style red coat. We also owned identical black suits while both working as Conservative regional press officers during the 2005 general election. Fortunately, we’ve never both worn our identical clothes at the same time and same place!

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I’ve been reading Winston Churchill’s obit in The Times today and it describes how  his mother, the glamorous Pamela Harriman, left him $6 million in her will – on condition that he shared it equally with his first wife who he had divorced; he went on to happily remarry.

As his mother was notorious for her affairs and married three times, she was hardly in a position to judge his personal choice of partner. Controlling from the grave in this way is wicked and vengeful. Why didn’t she leave the money herself to her daughter-in-law instead of deliberately creating horridness and disapproval of his second wife?

*I was also sad to read another obit in The Times about Kristian Digby’s untimely death aged only 32, and sooo good looking. It’s all the more tragic if his death happened, as reported, from a sex game which went horribly wrong. It’s such a waste of a life and so awful that a talented man in his prime should die alone this way.

*Another obit which caught my eye was about a circus acrobat called Ali Hassani who was stolen from his family in Morocco aged seven by an acrobat troupe. He performed across the Sahara as  top-mounter in a pyramid building acrobatic act and arrived in Britain in the early 1950s and toured with Billy Smart’s circus. He later formed Circus Hassani (the first animal-free circus), and even had a role in the James Bond film Octopussy. He died aged 82.

Coincidentally, a circus animal trainer, Fritz Schulz, also has his obit in The Times today; his act was once commended by Adolf Hitler who saw him perform at Berlin’s Wintergarten Theatre.

I wonder who had the happier childhood – Winston Churchill, “neglected” as a boy who rarely saw his parents together and they divorced when he was five, or the circus boy, stolen from his parents and never to see them again…

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