Sunday 5 December 2010

they even took away her name

This is a total disgrace.

Following the court decision on Phil Woolas, dismissing his appeal (which Phil appears to have taken with grace) Diane Abbott MP has been on the meejah defending that decision.  This is what a correspondent writes.

"Diane has just been on Radio 4, defending the Woolas decision and the right of judges to apply electoral law. Well - ok.
 
However, when the Tory MP for Harlow said that breaking electoral law and the consequent loss of a seat had not occured for over 100 years, Diane said 'Well, yes, it has, actually. There was a female MP in the 1997 parliament who lost her seat because she had broken electoral law'.
 
This is so sad. Fiona [Jones, MP for Newark 1997-2001] has now been stripped of a name - and it is not even remembered that she was vindicated and was reinstated with not a stain to her name.
The fact is, the Labour Party had decided that Fiona was guilty anyway - even before the original judge had reached a verdict and guilty she has remained. 
  
The nasty shits."

Quite so.

Fiona Jones died several years after leaving Parliament, leaving a husband and two sons.  The Labour Party may have decided to un-person her ten years ago, and most may have forgotten her now, but some of us remember.  I for one dedicated my little story of my life in politics to Fiona's memory.  Pity a serving Labour MP, who recently had ambitions to lead the party,  not only could not remember that Fiona Jones was found innocent by the courts, but could not even remember her name.
 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My God, Diane .
I had thought better of you.
You sounded very corporate on the radio.

Shilling like Dawn?

Remember Fiona.
Her life in politics deserves your attention.
Did you speak to ehr after her reinstatement? If you did , then join a small band of less than ten.

SHAME.

Anonymous said...

I heard that interview between Abbott and the Tory, and I don't recall it the way you have transcribed it. OK, I wasn't paying close attention, and I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the case of Fiona Jones wasn't hinted at or referred to.

Anonymous said...

Yes - it bloody was. Diane said 'There was a woman MP in the 1997 intake who was stripped of her seat'. If it wasn't Fiona, mate, then who the hell was it?!!!

Anonymous said...

Ive never liked Abbot.Not least for the immature pleasyre she seems to take in drawing attention to the fact that she was a bit of a lout at school..she calls it being 'lippy'..I call insolent.Scarcely a role model..

Anonymous said...

Yes,some of us remember her from the 70s/80s at some of those Islington socials..er,how many people CAN u fit in a broom cupboard at once Di?

Anonymous said...

Oh. Indeed.

A revelation.

Interesting how some things just never seem to stick to people, true or untrue. And how all types of graded dog poos of every type of constistency stick to to others.

Fiona Jones was comprehensively trashed - even accused of having affairs with left right and centre when I don't think I have ever met a woman more uninterested in that sort of thing. She was just too focused on career for the has beens and never weres and that is what they couldn't stand.

Anonymous said...

After Fiona's trgaic death, there was much media interest. They trawled her address book to root out the names of any and everybody who had known her and and those who had been proud to call themselves her friends during her time at the House.

Several tv companies were keen to do a drama about her life. But when her true friends were unable to 'confirm' that she had indulged in a shed-load of affairs - or even ONE!!!! - the tv companies lost interest and refused to make the film. The truth - how a bright woman Labour MP was trashed by her Constituency Party and then abandoned by the powers that be in her Parliamentary Party - was not regarded as 'good tv'. Not a story that they wanted to tell. I hope that somebody does, some day. It is far more shocking than bonking.