Ramblings about politics, secularism and stuff
I’m off to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester and will try to update this blog via my funky little iPhone application for WordPress.
I’ve noticed rather a flurry of activity around the blog over the last few days so I’ll try to do my utmost to keep it updated.
Should you be in Manchester and would like to get in touch or hook up feel free to contact me.
Just out of curiosity, you understand, I hopped over to TheyWorkForYou.com to check out the numbers on Lady Sylvia Hermon – the UUP’s only MP. Lady Hermon, you’ll be aware, is keeping everyone guessing as to whether she will jump the brush with her fellow UUPers into the arms of the Conservatives.
Now let’s assume she does join in the love-in. Will the Conservatives get good value for money from their new-found reluctant Tory? (Assuming she is re-selected and re-elected).
The Lady, it appears, doesn’t say much when she turns up at Westminster. She has only voted in 28% of divisions in this parliamentary term so far (that means she doesn’t bother to show for most votes). She hasn’t spoken in a debate in the last year. Perhaps this explains why she’s so tight-lipped.
The voting record is even more interesting. In her previous term she was much more prolific on the voting front – perhaps because she had a few more buddies and, presumably, there was some type of UUP parliamentary whip. From 2001 to 2005 she voted in nearly 70% of divisions. But now that she whips herself, so to speak, she rarely votes. As her own whip, she doesn’t rebel. But in the last parliamentary term she voted against her own whips 57 times.
So there we have it. An MP who rarely shows, rarely speaks, and always agrees with herself – but often rebels against her own Party colleagues. Worth having as the Conservative & Unionist MP for North Down?
Blogs are strange things. People who write ‘em – odd. They think the world owes them some kind of favour, to read what they have to say. Bloggers assume some intellectual high-ground – not on the basis of the thoughts they convey; but based on the fact that they convey them and assume people are interested.
There is something restless about bloggers too. They are strangely dissatisfied in their skins. They yearn for more. They want to be seen and heard. They want people to take notice.
Now I’m going to come to my own defence here. I have reluctantly started this process. Political blogging is the stuff of fools. It draws us in. We get angry and thump our little screens. We argue with people we have never met – and often we don’t even know their names.
Well, at least you know mine. I’m not going to hide. This blog will be the pixel equivalent of nailing my colours to the mast. I’ll say stuff about stuff. That’s the way I am. I shout at the TV after all. Think of this as a kind of self-obsessed rant. In keeping with other political bloggers this is my way of catharting (is there a root to the word catharsis? Can it be verbised?).
I’ll need your support, of course. I know that some of you out there don’t really like me. I gathered that during my three years editing the Conservatives in Northern Ireland web site. Some of you (especially the crazy, Duppy, fundamentalist ones) were quite nasty. There, I’ve said it. Try not to be. But, then again, this is a blog. I know that you may choose to ignore my advice.
But, then again, you may get as good as you give. Cheers for now.
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