I have returned home from holiday to a diary as full as a state grammar school.

Hmm? Should I have said that? Problem is we MPs can’t say anything these days without being torn apart by the media and criticised for being anything other than a cardboard representative of the people.

Poor Dan Hannan has had a summer of attack, I had a little of it myself, however, as the Times asks this morning, if an MP can’t say what he or she thinks, what’s the point of us?

http;//conservativehome.blogs.com has links to the Times and an article written by Dan himself which asks some serious questions. (links not working!)

I have written before on my blog and Dan makes the point this morning, opinion in the Conservative party is valued – it’s a by product of freedom, our core value.

People like Dan and I know that we may sometimes give David a headache, but he certainly bears no grudge, he loves strong opinions.

Any reports to the contrary are fabricated by the media in search of a story, always quoting anonymous sources which don’t exist. By reporting derisory ‘comments off’ the press are attempting to paint Cameron with the same brush as Brown and create a picture  of a messianic man with a bad temper,  who has no regard for his MPs and isn’t fit to lead.

That man is Brown, not Cameron. As Dan writes this morning,

‘It is a measure of David Cameron's confidence that he is prepared to tolerate dissenting voices. No one could say the same about Gordon Brown’.