Nadine Dorries was cleared of any expenses wrong-doing MP Nadine Dorries has said that the blog she writes on her constituency website is “70% fiction, 30% fact”.
She was criticised by the MPs’ standards watchdog for giving the impression on the site that she spent more time at her Mid-Beds constituency home than she actually did.
She said she wanted to reassure people about her commitment to the area.
Ms Dorries, a Conservative MP since 2005, was cleared of the main charge of misusing her allowances.
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, rejected a series of complaints made by a BNP spokesman that she lied about where her second home was and made inappropriate claims.
After a 15 month inquiry, he said: “Ms Dorries was not in breach of the rules of the House in claiming against Parliamentary allowances for her constituency home.”
“I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another”
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But she was criticised for comments on her blog which “suggested that she spent the majority of her weekends in the constituency, whilst she had told the Commissioner that nearly all weekends were spent in her main home”.
Explaining the discrepancy, she told the watchdog: “My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact.
“It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.
“I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.
“In the light of the bullying onslaught of the Daily Telegraph (which reported the claims about her expenses) I used my blog to its best effect in reassuring my constituents of my commitment to Mid Beds. My commitment is absolute and is always my first consideration regardless of where I sleep at night.
“However, I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect. Hence the reason for my blog and my need to reassure my constituents.”
She also told Mr Lyons that she had wanted to maintain “some degree of a private life” and that, although she was often in the constituency at weekends, as she had said on her blog, that did not mean she slept there.
The Commons standards and privileges committee said Mr Lyons accepted her explanation of the blog entries but “notes that they ‘provided a misleading impression of her arrangements’, as did as did her comments about her use of the constituency home reported in the newspaper article which was referred to in the original complaint”.
Ms Dorries’ blog is one of the most widely-read and popular blogs at Westminster. Former foreign secretary Jack Straw is among those who have said they are a fan.
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