“That’s where you get down to quotas, which I don’t think you should ever rule out. If you can’t get there in other ways, then maybe you have to have quotas.”

Time to practice what you preach Mr C? 

http://www.number10.gov.uk/the-coalition/the-cabinet/  Currently in the 29 strong Coalition Cabinet we have just 5 female’s. Now, I’m not great at maths but even I can work out that a ratio of 29/5 is a tad short of the desired 30%…

Downing Street later said the government had no plans to introduce quotas and wanted the impetus to come from business….

In other news, David Cameron has shown his full support for his latest scapegoat  Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.  Here is David showing the rest of us “his full support” ; )

Following today’s bullying over-rule of The Lords’ amendments to the much feared Welfare Reform Bill, it seems that David Cameron has indeed got his new cap…

2011 saw the continuation of our beloved Coalition government, Margaret Thatcher adorning every bus in the South East and record youth unemployment, one would think there was a link.. 

My predictions for 2012 include a new Hollywood blockbuster “Mama Mia, the Ironing Lady” in which Meryl Streep plays an 80′s singing char-woman tasked with house-keeping at No.10. Adele will top the charts with an up-beat jive number, Katy Price & Kerry Katona will join together in a civil ceremony, Nick Clegg will find his conscience and split the Coalition and Delia Smith, along with the Pogues frontman Shane Macgowan reveal the secret to their shiny white teeth is brushing thrice daily with gerbil urine. Ok, that was perhaps a bit silly, Nick Clegg doesnt have a conscience #mybad

Enough rambling from me, here’s to a more thoughtful, less spontaneous but hopefully bloody fantastic 2012 ! 

Today the BMA have called for smoking in cars to be outlawed due to the effect 2nd hand smoke can have on passengers, particularly children.  I absolutely applaud this, even though it will cause massive outrage to smokers who already have chips on their shoulders as large as the tar on their lungs, over the public spaces ban. 

Ms Cushion would love to see smoking made illegal whilst driving in particular, also ban other distractions like putting on lipstick, eating, kids, changing radio channels after some selfish git someone else drove your car, drinking hot drinks and using mobiles.  What, mobile use already banned, who knew? 

I used to smoke.  I used to open new cigarette packets, light them, drop them, frantically search for lit ones on the floor of my car and nearly crash as a result.  How many of us have thrown a lit ciggie out of the drivers window, only for it to come back in the passenger’s window behind?  Whilst smoking in cars is dangerous to passengers health, it is also dangerous to the driver and other road users.. which is why I support the ban.

RIP Deborah Lawson

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/838249-dropped-cigarette-caused-kent-car-death

I first heard of Nadine Dorries when I moved into her Mid Beds constituency during August 2009.  I opened my first twitter account in December 2009 and made my first tweet about Nadine just before the May 2010 election.  During May 2010 I wrote 9 blog posts in total,  5 of which were about  Nadine Dorries following the now infamous “Flitwick Hustings” and general election.

http://mshumphreycushion.blogspot.com/2010/05/twitterarmy-triumphs-dorries-fails-to.html    23rd May 2010

http://mshumphreycushion.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-05-23T12%3A24%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=7  18th May 2010  (this is the letter Nadine sent to all  new MPs, trying to garner support for unseating John Bercow as Speaker, in which she includes her mobile phone number*)

http://mshumphreycushion.blogspot.com/2010/05/labour-of-love-nadine-bargery-dorries.html  Link to more video footage of the Flitwick Hustings. 9th May 2010

http://mshumphreycushion.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-fliiiitttick.html  6th May 2010  Fliiiitwick Hustings.

http://mshumphreycushion.blogspot.com/p/letters-to-beds-on-sunday-they-did-not.html  May 2010. Letters about Flitwick Hustings, unprinted by Beds On Sunday.  

Of my 5 posts in June, none include Dorries. Of my 8 posts in July, not one is about Nadine Dorries. I wrote 7 posts during August,  none about Dorries.  In September I wrote one in support of Tim Ireland which brought the wrath of Nadine upon my head. During the whole of September I wrote 9 blog posts, 3 (inc the T.Ireland one) were about Nadine Dorries.  Wow I was busy in October, writing 19 posts..  7 were on Dorries.  In November, out of 11 posts, one was about Nadine.  December 10 blogs, none about Nadine.  January 2011 14 posts, one in regard to Nadine  (This post is more about Mrs Butler and her treatment by the press, Mrs Butler being the woman who’s husband left her for Nadine and who has subsequently left Nadine… ) . 

11 posts in February, 0 on Dorries. 3 in March (started new job so too busy to blog!) 1 in April, 2011.  Since then I havent had the time  nor computer access to blog sadly and I miss it!

Sorry if all that was a tad dull, best to lay down the facts methinks (something Nadine Dorries could take on board tbh).  Right, so on with the story;

21st October 2010 after a *lot*of flack regarding her 70/30/100% fiction blog relevations (after John Lyon found her guilty of lying on her blog but insufficient evidence (he should read this) to find her guilty of fraud) she said on local TV that she had reported FOUR stalkers to the police… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUj9suBKYaA#t=3m22s 

That is FOUR stalkers now, not the three in her July letter to Gillian Parker. In November 2010, 3 months after declaring she had already done so, (and following many calls to provide proof of doing so) she finally officially reported her “four stalkers” to the police as Tim Ireland will reveal in full detail shortly. (Interesting to see how long it took the police to investigate, they must have taken her allegations *so* seriously)

Right, where were we?  Oh yes, Bedfordshire Police..  I have always had tremendous respect for the police and indeed wanted to join the force when I left school.  My height was a bit of an issue though and my Dad threatened to disinherit me if I did, so I entered the retail sector instead.  I lost my respect for the police on the night of my foot operation.

In bed, in tremendous pain that night, having been through what I can only describe as a horrific ordeal, two police officers stormed into my bedroom.  They had ordered my frightened children to let them in and asked where I was.  They then attempted to force me to accompany them for a recorded ”voluntary interview under caution”. I refused. They threatened to arrest me if I didnt go.  Again I refused, showed them my surgeon’s letter stating that I was to remain in bed for a minimum of 3 days and they left, informing me they would be in touch.  Shaking and crying I phoned my friend David (@Gaijinsan21 – no linking to his account as he has sadly left twitter) who is a criminal lawyer. 

Over the next two days I learned from David that there was absolutely no justification for calling me for an interview under caution.  No justification for recording it and no justification for treating me in such a fashion. With David’s help I sent a series of emails to the police officer in charge, challenging him on this and eventually he admitted that I was merely a witness to an alleged offence.  He settled for a written (emailed) statement from me detailing how, when, where and why I was in contact with Tim Ireland and how it came about that Tim was in Fliiitttwick for the hustings.

He was there at my invitation.  Mine and several other constituents (whom I shall not name here) who were fed up to the back teeth of Nadine’s lies and unaccountability and had been emailing and tweeting each other with ideas of how to record her in action so to speak.  Several days before the hustings I watched a live stream of another hustings event at Goldaming, put online by Tim.  Although the quality was awful it made me think maybe we should do the same with the Flitwick event and so I put the wheels in motion, asking the Chair for her permission etc and twisted Tim’s arm into making the journey.

Tim arrived in Flitwick, not “loaded down with sophisticated camera and recording equipment”  but holding merely a briefcase, I was shocked at how small his equipment was tbh *disappointed face* 

To sum up:  Yes I blogged about Nadine Dorries. Yes I tweeted about Nadine Dorries. No, I didnt break the law. No, I didnt lie about her.  Can she say the same about me?

BTW, this made me laugh today.. (Nadine Dorries the Bully, on Bullying)

Anyway, I’m working 24/7 in a fabulous garden nursery with a crappy internet connection and people with actual faces rather than cartoons.. which is most bizarre.  My feet are still really painful but I think the operation worked as I can weight bear again, I nearly broke into a run today!  

A year ago I hurt my neck, have waited ever since for physiotherapy on it – it’s finally been booked for mid May.. in the meantime, lugging 75litre compost bags about seems to have strengthened it a bit so all being well I can stop walking around with my hand tucked under my chin soon! 

I also seem to have lost my “mojo” for politics. It all got a bit too big for me to handle, the destruction to our services currently being made in the name of austerity has distressed me so much that I have very little fight left.  I truly hope to get back to being the kick-ass girl of last year, perhaps the AV vote will help.  I’ve decided to vote No to AV for one important reason.. Nick Clegg. The man who sold his party out for AV should never be able to justify doing so. In losing the vote, his party will finally wake up to his misguided leadership. In the news today I learnt that “lesser Universities” will not be penalised for charging £9000 for courses as there will be no regulation, despite all the Lib Dem assurances.  So I say NO to AV and NO to the continuation of the Coalition. I also seem to have recovered a little of my fighting spirit.. well I never.. ; )

So that’s me… what have you all been up to?

“For the past 150 years British chancellors have been carrying their budget papers in the briefcase first used by William Gladstone.  However, that box was retired last year and George Osborne is the first chancellor to try out a new one.  In time-honoured tradition he held it aloft outside Number 11 Downing street for the media this morning.”

But, erm..

“In 1997 Gordon Brown ordered a new briefcase.  Four trainees from the Rosyth dockyard in Scotland made the case and appeared on the steps of Number 11 on Budget day for a photo-opportunity with the new Chancellor.

Taken from    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/84715.stm

Come on BBC, we know you ‘ve had your own budget problems but get your act together!

Ha! Tricked you… if you thought this was going to be a cheeky post about my pigtails I am sorry.. well, not *that* sorry. Now you are here, you may as well read on, right?

My bathroom sink is blocked.  The water stays in it for ages now. This morning I looked down at it and it appeared to be yellow.  It wasnt, the yellow was from the amazing sunshine we had today, bursting in through the window and lighting up the whole room.

Yellow water took me instantly back to rural Spain where I lived for 5 years.  We lived in a tiny hamlet that had electricity but no mains water.  My Spanish neighbours, who grew fruit and vegetables had Riega water (agricultural water sent to order via big concrete pipes).  We had ours via a truck.  That sounds mad. It was mad.

I would phone Pepe in my broken Spanish, Pepe would promise to bring water. Pepe wouldn’t turn up. I would phone him again the next day, he would ignore the call or promise but again fail to deliver.  After several days of this my neighbour would go to the village to find him in the bar, he would turn up three hours later with our water. 

I didn’t have a pit for the water so he would put it into our pool… we would then clean the water (which was always yellow with a green tinge and contained various bugs and small frogs) and pump it up to our house as and when we needed it.. Every time we used the water, the pool water dipped. Once it had dipped by about a metre, it was no longer possible to keep it clean properly as the level fell below the filter height.  The water would return to yellow, tinged with green and mosquitos would make it their home.

That is how we lived for 2 years.  Clean water for a week then dirty, smelly water for three until we started to run out and had to try to track down Pepe again. One day Pepe bought a lovely new truck. It was too big to get around the corner before my house so he simply couldn’t deliver.  Without water we could no longer live in our little Spanish hamlet, work dried up at the same rate as our remaining swimming pool water so we reluctantly packed up and returned to live in the UK.

I feel so blessed to live in a country where our tap water is clean and drinkable.  Every time I have a shower I say thank you for being able to wash my hair and for it to smell of apples afterwards instead of pond.

I was in a great deal of pain today, mostly due to my neck flaring up and so the receptionist let me sit down and she came out of her office to “book me in”.  After a 15 minute wait, I was asked to walk down a long corridor to meet Dr D.K.Mallick.   Dr Mallick was lovely, which really surprised me as the last “Dr” I saw there was extremely cold and defensive with me. 

He began by asking me about my recent foot operation, moving on to cover my last employment, medication, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Home life, neck problems and Mental Health.   This took over 3/4s of an hour. It should have taken half of that time.. The reason?  The computer system for Luton and several other towns (names escape me but they were local), has had “issues” since December.  Where they used to handle 10 claimants per day, now they are lucky to see 6.  At one point he was so frustrated and embarrassed he threatened to walk out in protest.  I am pretty sure it is a “sharing” issue as the form he fills in is online.  Possibly the broadband speed needs increasing. Anyway, I’m not a computer expert but it’s pretty much fucked up borked.

Dr Mallick skipped through a few points (including the physical exam) as he was so stressed and could see I was in a lot of pain. He did have a look at both of my feet though and told me that I would probably be called back in 6 – 12 months.  Luckily for me, I won’t have to go back as I have been offered a job working from home.  My Fabulous New Bossman (FNB) knows all about my health issues and is happy for me to do what I can, when I can.  I have, for once fallen *on*  my feet instead of falling because of them! 

Something struck me though during the process, he kept referring to CFS in a “mental” disorder, rather than a neurological condition. I called him out on this at the end of the session and he explained that the computer test is set that way.. However, this link from @latentexistence   clearly shows that CFS is regarded as a physical condition for DLA claimants. I hope that when the current ATOS test is reformed, this is corrected.

Although my examination went well today and the good Dr told me that I should have passed with no problems, the ATOS test is badly managed.  Claimants who should be exempt are still being called in, the current test is a “tick box” one which is simply not working. 

Please sign the petition below if you care about this important issue.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/sack-atos-healthcare/sign.html

Want to make an FOI request about ATOS? Click this link: http://foiwiki.com/foiwiki/index.php/Main_Page

****UPDATE***

Whilst I gained enough points to qualify for ESA, I was added to the “Help back to work” group and an interview was arranged for me at the Job Centre.  I never made it to the interview however as I was lucky enough to be offered a job by my neighbour.  I have been working for him ever since and am SO grateful to him I can’t tell you, nobody else would have given me such a chance with my recent sickness record (and another operation pending).   I now have my dignity, a decent standard of living (despite what some say, life on benefits is REALLY hard) and I met a lovely man who fell in love despite my very attractive boot ; )   I know I am one of the lucky ones but I promise to keep fighting for the rest of you who are being so very badly treated by this government. Much love, HC x