Ellee Seymour

Congratulations to Nadine Dorries for being nominated ConservativeHome’s Blog of the Week.

Nadine, MP for Mid-Beds, is a lively and engaging writer and really seems to enjoy blogging. I attended the final count in her constituency on the night she was selected to represent Mid-Beds and saw her presentation. She was outstanding, a breath of fresh air, so vibrant and energetic, so committed and passionate. She stood out head and shoulders above her male competitors.

Here is an extract from a recent post, you can see why she is so popular:

“I have spent today on the streets of Flitwick asking people to sign a petition to save our rural buses. The look on peoples faces as I bound up to them in my jeans, Ugg boots and a flying scarf, and then the smile which spreads across their face when they realise who I am, is a picture!”

Nadine also expresses delight at her ConservativeHome achievement, describing the site as “the unofficial voice of the party membership - and an extreme annoyance to the Conservative leadership most of the time!”

Nadine, I just wish I had been able to leave a comment congratulating you on your blog, I know it is something you are hoping to start soon, hopefully it won’t be too long.

Update: Oh dear, poor Nadine was “doorstepped” today by the Daily Mail wanting info about her divorce, which she also mentions on her blog. It takes a lot of courage to be so open about your personal life, especially something like this. But it’s better to be open and truthful than have misinformation spread by gossips.

Update: 22 January, hardly headline news, would the Mail have been interested if Nadine had not been so attractive?

David Cameron is backing the use of cannabis for medicinal use. He is taking a brave stand knowing his liberal views could alienate some of his own MPs, as well as his right wing members.

But he insists he is against decriminalising the drug for personal use as this would increase its availability and make it harder for parents who want to stop their children from taking drugs.

Today’s Sunday Mirror picked up on this story from David Cameron’s Webcameron when he responded to an “Ask David” question about his views on cannabis, with the plea: “Can we have a straight answer unlike other politicians.”

And he certainly gave a direct response. He said that if scientific evidence proved cannabis had real medicinal benefits, then politicians should be guided by that and licence its use solely for that purpose.

This must be music to the ears for a local epileptic man who was recently convicted by a court for supplying cannabis-laced chocolate bars for medicinal purposes, and says he was treated him like a common drug dealer.

Marcus Davies, of St Ives in Cambridgeshire, was convicted of conspiracy of supplying cannabis after helping supply the chocolate to MS sufferers, taking orders and passing them to friends who made the bars. However, the 37-year-old claims the enterprise was not for profit, and insists the courts should not be treating him like the “scumbag drug dealers” he despises.

Davies, who has not worked for 15 years because of his own ill health, said the cannabis they used would have been worth a fortune if sold on the street, but he and his co-defendants had not been motivated by greed.

“Each bar of chocolate, and remember we sent out 36,000 of them, had 3.5 grams of cannabis in it, which scumbag drug dealers would sell on the street for £15. That is about half a million pounds worth of cannabis we gave away, and if we were doing this for money we would be somewhere nice and tropical now, not freezing to death in England. We received £40,000 in donations over the three years from people who used the product, but that was ploughed back in.”

Has any medical or scientific research been carried out about the effects of taking cannabis for medicinal use? Has it led to these users going to to take harder drugs? Aren’t many of the medical drugs people take today equally harmful? Do they not also have side effects and carry the risk of addiction? Should we accept scientific evidence supporting the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes? Will this allow drug sellers to abuse the law? And should David Cameron be applauded for his brave stand on this, knowing in particular the relentless press coverage he had about his past use of illegal drugs? Do you support his views?