If you’re not a fan of hot blogger-on-blogger action then you’re probably best advised to move on. There’s some jokes I wrote for The Friday Thing further down the page. Some of them I was quite pleased with. This is probably my last word on this subject, so let’s get on with it.

Not long after the piece I wrote for Martin Bright’s blog was published on Wednesday, I received an email from Iain Dale refuting what I had said about him in the piece. I took the time to write what i thought was a considered and polite reply outlining the facts as I saw them and making some observations about Iain’s behaviour over the last week or so. Since then, I’ve heard nothing. No acknowledgement, no ’sorry’, not even a ‘get stuffed’.

Iain asked that I keep his email confidential. He didn’t, however, ask that I keep my reply confidential. So I’m reproducing it here - I’ve kept to the letter of Iain’s request if not the spirit. One show of bad faith deserves another.

Dear Iain

I’m afraid I heard you refer to Tim as a nihilist on 18DS with my own ears. You said it during a discussion about Tim’s original post on Guido with James Oates from Cicero’s Song on Jan 15. He referred to Guido as a nihilist and you applied the label to Tim in return without giving your reasons. I could probably dig out the link to the show if you like.

(Yes, here it is: http://tinyurl.com/3y96sp:

James (on Guido): ‘He’s a nihilist, effectively. I think really that’s what Tim ireland is pointing out in his piece.’

Iain: ‘Well, isn’t Tim Ireland one as well?’)

Please don’t make the mistake that the piece for the New Statesman was written at the behest or briefing of Tim. Martin Bright approached me to write for his blog and I had a piece on a completely different subject (super-marginal consituencies, actually) prepared when he asked me to write about the Guido/Ireland thing after reading my opinions on the subject on Chicken Yoghurt. My thoughts and opinions on this subject are my own and based on my own observations. I would find offensive any implication that Tim Ireland or anyone else might be pulling my strings on this.

I won’t defend Tim here as he’s more than capable of doing that for himself. I do however,as a friend, find him being referred to as having an ‘obsession’ off colour. A trawl through his blog archives would show that he has a very strong sense of fair play and he has brought his considerable technical skills, passion and humour to bear on a number of targets regardless of their political stripe.

I’m sincerely very sorry that it has come to this, Iain. I was very flattered to appear in the Little Book of Sleaze and your lists of political bloggers. I also enjoyed myself immensely during my appearance on 18DS. I have always thought well of you, despite our different politics, but I don’t think you have covered yourself with glory at all on this one. A straight declaration of interests would have saved you a lot of hassle. I personally find all this stuff about thinktanks deadly dull but the tactics used to shut down the debate are indicative of something wider.

I’m sorry to say that, unwittingly or not, you came across as slippery and dismissive. It is not surprising that some people (Not me, I have to say, I’m not interested in running battles, but not just Tim Ireland either) would take that as a reason to start digging.

This reply to you is not confidential. I go out of my way to avoid personal confrontation but I stand by what I’ve said and I’m willing to stick my neck out on this occasion.

Regards

Justin

‘So what?’, you might say. I’m clearly just another mooing centrist jealous of Iain’s visitor count and advertising revenue. (While simultaneously and incongruously having a ‘blogging fascist’ with an ‘obsession’ for a friend.) The thing is, this isn’t about riding the coat-tails of a more popular blogger. It’s about redress. Iain said something wrong - that the facts of my article were incorrect - and I’d like an apology.

You see, for the last year or so, Iain has actually courted me. It began in January last year with an email asking for a link to his blog on Chicken Yoghurt. He asked me to contribute to ‘The Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze‘ after I had critiqued the premise of the book on Comment is Free. In August Chicken Yoghurt was Iain’s blog of the week on his More4 news podcast. Then I was asked by Iain if I’d like to go and see the 18 Doughty Street studio and take away with me a digital video camera with which to submit short videos for broadcast.

In September, in his ‘Guide to Political Blogging in the UK‘, he ranked Chicken Yoghurt Number 8 in his Top 100 Non-Aligned Blogs chart (two places below Tim Ireland) and 19 in his overall Top 100 Political Blogs chart (five places below Tim Ireland). He asked me if I’d consider a second piece of his for inclusion in The Blog Digest after I’d asked his permission for a first. He then invited me on to 18 Doughty Street to plug the book - I didn’t ask to go on. He asked me to go on again before Christmas and again in February.

But. I not unreasonably called him on something he said (he referred to Tim Ireland as a ‘nihilist’ - a term potentially damaging to Tim’s reputation as an online activist - and later denied it) and it seems I’m off the Christmas card list.

Obviously the anti-Blair coalition of Left and Right was a temporary and a fragile one. When Blair goes, the reason for our association will disintegrate. Until, at least, Gordon Brown displays his true colours. I suppose we’re seeing a little bit of that disintegration here. (Not that I wouldn’t be pissed off if it was a leftie doing this.)

It’s understandable why Iain, a Tory, would like Chicken Yoghurt - I say nasty things about the Prime Minister and I say them with a turn of phrase which some people seem to like. But Blair’s on his way out and Tory fortunes are rising. It seems that for the last year, as far as Iain was concerned, nothing but sunshine came out of Chicken Yoghurt’s backside. Now, however, because I (and others like me) am growing bored of Blair and looking hungrily at an ascendant Tory party, in his view I’m guessing, that backside is producing something altogether less pleasant.