It’s brilliant. With her views on abortion, sex education and approach to factual content on blogs, nobody could possibly expect Nadine Dorries of being a sleeper agent for the LibDems. But apparently she is, judging by her performance today at Prime Ministers’ questions. The video is below, but here’s the transcript:

Nadine Dorries: “Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Democrats make up seven percent of this Parliament, yet they seem to be influencing our free school policy, health, many issues, immigration and abortion. Does the Prime Minister…” (Much background noise from MPs)

Speaker: “Order! Order, order!… Order! The question from the honourable lady… will be heard.

Nadine Dorries: “Does the Prime Minister think it is about time he told the Deputy Prime Minister who is the boss?

David Cameron: “The um… look…. this, um… uh.” (Sits back down – appears he may be laughing or smirking. Much more background noise from MPs)

Speaker: “I wanted to hear the question, but I want to hear the Prime Ministers answer!

David Cameron: “I know the honourable lady is extremely frustrated about, um… maybe I should start all over again.” (Pauses) “I don’t think… I’m going to give up on this one!” (Sits down)

Other than totally unnecessary use of the victims previous name, this story from the BBC about a bloke being prosecuted for a “breach of the peace” when he assaulted a trans woman seems, for once, reasonably written as it concentrates on the assault and perpetrator rather than the victim. I do wonder how the papers managed to find the previous name of the victim and I hope this wasn’t something that was mentioned in open court, but that’s likely a very misplaced hope.

Sadly, from past experience, I fear that tomorrow may result in more torment for the victim via the tabloid press and it’s even less responsible attitude to reporting.

The fine seems a little light, but I’m not familiar with Scottish law. (Why are all these cases Scottish? The Brooks case was too!) Given he was only convicted of a “breach of the peace”, it may be that assault could not be proven as I would have expected a community order of some description in such cases.

Interestingly, this version of the report from STV indicates that the increased fine was because of the trans bias and allowed “under a law passed in March 2010”. I can find no particular law, Scottish or UK-wide, and this isn’t covered under the Equality Act. Presumably it’s the same law that the BBC allude to in their first paragraph – “…the first person in Scotland to be convicted of transgender prejudice.”

Sadly, it remains the case that homophobically motivated crime in England and Wales can, under the Criminal Justice Act 2003, attract an increased sentence, but not transphobically motivated crime.

(I’d note that as a soldier he’ll be getting a further, likely more severe, slap on the wrists. You can’t be tried twice for the same crime, but you can get into trouble for bringing the army into disrepute. That would not have affected the judges sentencing however.)

I’ve mentioned the results of my FoI-request digging in various places, but not in one spot and not on my blog. For those not familiar with the back story, there has been a bit of a fuss kicked up about the new security arrangements for the Liberal Democrat conference this year, which requires police vetting of all attendees.

Based on an admittedly small sample size of 1 year, conference refusal rates are very different between Labour and the Tories. For the Tories, it’s 0.04% (Conservative Party Conference 2010, 6 refusals of 13,767 individuals vetted) and for Labour, 0.2% (Labour Party Conference 2010, 24 rejections of 11,988) This presumably includes non-party members, such as exhibitors.

My understanding is that usual attendance for the Liberal Democrat conference is around the 6,000 mark, which means we could expect between 2 and 12 people to be flagged up by the police. So far, I’m aware of four people that have been refused outright, including Gareth Epps, plus one more who was advised she’d fail vetting anyway, so it looks like we’re “worse” than the Tories but perhaps not as bad as Labour?

(Update: The figures suggesting that four people have been refused turned out to be premature – as of 10th September, only one person has been refused outright so far, although a significant number of other applications are still pending due to problems.)

I assume there will be more rejections, I’m just aware of those who are “connected” to the mainstream online LibDem community. Not everyone has had their approval through yet, with some not due until a week before conference starts.

We had previously been reassured that the Federal Conference Committee (FCC) had the final say on who was allowed in. However, Gareth’s failure was down to a problem with his photograph which he’s attempted to resolve with a new photograph, rather than due to any security concerns. As a result, it seems that although the power may still technically rest with the FCC, in reality they are unable or unwilling to ignore police “advice”.

Also interestingly, no equalities impact assessment was completed by the police prior to putting these new procedures in place. They have recognised the need for one and were due to complete it in July, and I have, naturally, asked for a copy. This may well prove more important for those with disabilities rather than other marginalised groups, as there were reports of security-related problems at last year’s conference.