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In 2006, when giving us his blogging wisdom on GMTV, the UK’s ‘leading’ blogger, Iain Dale said this:

Responsible bloggers will behave like responsible journalists [...] If you say something libellous on this programme, you’ve got GMTV to pay your libel bills. If I say something libellous on my blog, I’m responsible for paying my libel bills. And that means there is more of an onus on bloggers to get it right, to not post unsubstantiated rumours…

Thank goodness then that Iain Dale chose to publish his ‘entirely untrue’ allegations – unsubstantiated rumours, if you like – about government minister, Tom Watson, in the Daily Mail and not on his blog. The Daily Mail paid ’substantial damages’ to Watson on Dale’s behalf.

A letter in this week’s Private Eye in response to the last issue’s Hackwatch column about ‘Peace Through Media’ award winner* Paul ‘Guido Fawkes’ Staines…

Ace. Almost as ace as when Charlie Brooker called Staines ‘a bit of tit’, the turd in the right-wing blogosphere’s punchbowl and an ‘immense monster made out of shit‘.

* I know. I can barely type for laughing.

Update: Meet Joseph Edwards, a prince amongst men.

I first came to the conclusion that Guido Fawkes was no better than dogshit on my shoes after he and New Labour darling Alex Hilton tried to claim some credit in the outing of Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten.

It was a disgusting affair and set the tone for the sniggering schoolboy prurience and fixation with what people do with their genitals that became the meat and potatoes of the Guido Fawkes blog.

So, those of us who remembered all that allowed ourselves a short, hollow laugh when we heard Paul Staines, the ‘mastermind’ behind the Guido Fawkes blog condemning the smear emails coming of Downing Street.

Enjoy.

If you have a blog with the facility to track visitors or commenters (Wordpress blogs are very good for this), would you be so kind as to let me know via email if anyone with the IP address 86.153.121.65 has come calling recently?

They left a not-very-nice comment here this morning and I’d be very keen to know who this person is, if at all possible.

Thanks in advance.

Update: Thanks to everyone who helped. I’ve forwarded the comment to BT’s Internet abuse team.

Update 19:30 BT have been in touch. They ‘have carried out an investigation into this and have taken action against our user to stop this happening again.’

You want to leave vile crap and revolting smears in the comments on someone’s blog? Take it to the online dirty protests where it’s tolerated and condoned like on ‘leading’ ‘bloggers’ Iain Dale’s or Guido Fawkes’ craphouses. Go and daub the walls there. It’s zero tolerance here.

Political opponents say nasty things about each other non-shock!

Other than to note that this was always going to happen if you give revolting specimens like Damian McBride and Derek Draper even a sniff of power, there’s not much else to say.

It has to be said though, watching a peddler of smears about people’s mental health with an unhealthy schoolboy prurient fixation with homosexuality such as Guido Fawkes take his ‘outrage’ at these emails on to the airwaves made the Easter chocolate rise in the gorge of even this hardened cynic.

If you really want more…

Tim Ireland: ‘Smeargate’ and paedo-smears
Tim Ireland: I’m sorry, but Paul Staines *is* homophobic
Flying Rodent: UK Politics – “Has It Really Come To This?” Edition
Hopi Sen: The Hypoocrisy… it Burns…
Francis Sedgemore: Why we hate politics (part 99)
Iain Dale: Please let me be part of this story. Go on, please. PLEEEEEEEEASE! Parts 1 – 100

Update: Iain Dale again…

This whole episode was manufactured by bored journalists wh had nothing better to write and love a bit of faux outrage.

Just a shame he’s saying it in defence of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s right to make jokes about Gordon Brown mental health in public. Stolen private emails about the mental health of Osborne’s wife, though? That’s a scandal.

[...about this being an April Fool. Well done to everyone who twigged. Sorry to everyone who didn't.]

After Tim’s blogpost about me, him and me have exchanged emails and I’ve agreed to admit my fault and apologise. You can see it over at Tim’s here shortly.

The short of it is when Tim Ireland exposed terror expert Glen Jenvey the other week, Jenvey went out of his way to smear Tim as a paedophile on a few blogs. As Tory MP Patrick Mercer was involved, Iain Dale offered to pass on a message. There’s some dispute aboiut whether this message was passed on.

Tonight TIm’s showed me and email from Iain Dale explaining Iain’s side of things, and he really should’nt have. Really, really shouldn’t have. As much as I hate to say this, I agree with Iain’s reasoning and why this should all be kept private. We’re talking about very serious stuff here. It’s just all gone on too far. It’s time for Tim to hold his hand up and admit it.

Hello and welcome to tonight’s debate.

Tim Ireland over at Bloggerheads says one must be ultra-cautious when blogging or twittering if one has been drinking…

…why in heaven’s name would you risk getting into a war of words with anyone when in that state, when you put yourself at risk in much the same way that you would in a drunken fistfight?

I say, fair enough when it’s something important, but I’ve had plenty of erudite alcohol-fuelled debates on and off line and come to no harm whatsoever. It’s a world away from jumping in the car and weaving home.

So we’re going to put it to the vote. I reckon I can out-debate Tim after a skinful. He’s going to try to prove me wrong. Tonight, Chicken Yoghurt is going to be fuelled by that fine cerveza Corona Extra. Bloggerheads is going to be fuelled by nothing stronger than Pepsi Max.

The motion we’ll be debating? Who do we judge to be the better Prime Minister, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown? We’ve both got plenty of material to go at it. Feel free to join us.

As I’m hosting this debate/experiment and I decided the topic for discussion, Tim gets to choose which statesman he’d like to bat for and also gets to set out his stall first. Over to Tim…

Just ignore him, you’re saying. Don’t read his stuff. Leave him, he’s not worth it. And I’d like to take your kind advice, I really would, but as a follower of mainstream UK politics I simply can’t get away from the blighter.

He’s on Channel 4 News with his doughy soundbites. He’s reviewing the papers on News 24 or Sky News. John Pienaar’s podcast. He’s on the Today programme. More4 News. He’s on Five Live ruining a perfectly serviceable Sunday morning. For a million lazy journalists with seemingly just two blogs on their lists, he’s the go-to guy and they quote him endlessly. There is no escape, on radio, on telly, online.

Everywhere you turn there he is doling out another gob of cliche with all the care of a prison kitchen cook slapping down a ladleful of mashed potato on a lag’s tray. I was in the pub with a non-blogging mate the other week and he said that he was sick to the back teeth with the sight and sound of Dale.

(more…)

Dear Non-blogger

It’s possible you saw this exchange between ‘top’ ‘bloggers’ Guido Fawkes and Derek Draper on the telly at lunchtime.

I ask you, I beg you, I beseech you, not to consider these two squealing, mewling propagandists representative of the rich and vibrant and funny and thought-provoking world of blogs, bloggers and blogging. Most bloggers wash and don’t look like we slept in our clothes either.

Me? Needless to say, I’m just jealous of these shrill, greasy thugs’ readership and reach, aren’t I? Here, courtesy of Tim Ireland, is why…

What with Iain Dale being shortlisted for the George ‘What I have most wanted to do… is to make political writing into an art’ Orwell Prize for blogging as well, it’s been a been a very bad day for blogging. But please, please don’t think too badly of all of us just because the so-called leading lights of the blogging medium are such awful and disappointing examples.

Your friend

Justin

Update: Beau does it best…

Are you watching Fleet Street? A blogger, Tim Ireland, does some proper investigative journalism just like you used to do. He uncovers a huge story about The War Against Terror that involves a member or parliament, a British diplomat, Sir Alan Sugar and the tabloid press.

Go and read every last word and ask yourself why the British press aren’t chasing this.

Every so often I wish out loud that there was a nice way of formatting blog posts so you could print them out as a little magazine. You could then read them on the bus or the bog and leave them behind for someone else to find.

It looks like with its Tabbloid service, Hewlett Packard might have cracked it. You give it a blog’s RSS feed (or several), your email address and a delivery time and it sends you a daily and nicely formatted PDF of that blog’s posts. A little jiggery-pokery at this end to trim out the stuff that doesn’t translate to paper – like Twitter feeds – and it could be a very nice little toy.

(Via Warren Ellis)

Any other bloggers out there getting emails from a John Miles on the Labour Party ‘New Media Task Force’? I am even though I didn’t asked for them and I’m unable to unsubscribe from them. Five emails since January 13th. I’m being spammed by New Labour.

Tim Ireland has the full story including why and how New Labour are breaking the law on spamming.

Like Tim, I’d assumed I was getting them because I’m signed up to New Labour’s general news email list. Not a bit of it, in fact. The emails are specifically begging for links from blogs. It’s a link-whoring exercise. New Labour have had someone harvest the email addresses of blogging ‘Labour people’ (don’t laugh) in order to spam them.

We’re trying to get the maximum number of Labour people involved and if you could blog about the discussion forum – even a short post with a link – we can ma ke sure as many people know about it as possible.

…and…

With David Cameron launching his Energy policy today, we thought you might like to have a copy of Ed Miliband’s response to it.

…and…

…you can embed the widget onto your blog using the code here…

…and…

I wanted to let you all know about the site we’re launching today…

I’ve been unwillingly conscripted into New Labour’s online propaganda offensive it would seem. The spam is addressed to ‘Justin’ so some New Labour drone has taken the time to read this blog’s ‘About Me’ page (but not this which is very prominently linked to at the top of the page) but didn’t take the (very, very short) time required to read a few posts and discover that I’d drive rusty nails into my generative organs before I’d help New Labour hawk their tawdry wares.

Someone at New Labour’s ‘New Media Task Force’ is clearly a dickhead. On top of Derek Draper’s woeful LabourList it’s all too apparent that it’s amateur hour in New Labour’s online propaganda division right now.

‘We made a list of bloggers we thought might be interested,’ Sue Macmillan, ‘New Media Campaigns Taskforce Leader’, told Tim Ireland. Well, we’re interested now, Sue.

The next question is: how do I get off New Labour’s spam list?

Excellent news. Just what right-wing blogging needs right now. A thoroughly decent, engaging and – vitally – likeable presence. The lovely Blimpish is back. Get him on your blogrolls and rss readers, kids. He’s the right-wing blogger it’s ok to like.

(All we need now is Andrew of Non-trivial Solutions fame to come out of retirement.)

It’s 2009 and Oliver Kamm’s latest two posts on his blog are about some bloke called George Galloway. Topical or what?

I have to say that this New Labour online propaganda offensive is a curious animal. It’s obvious that project leader Derek Draper (yes, that Derek Draper) hasn’t the first idea about blogs and online writing hence his breakfast meeting this morning with the ‘great’ and the ‘good’ of New Labour blogging.

And what a guest list it was. Alex ‘Gays=Paedos‘ Hilton. Charlie Whelan (Gordon Brown’s former news massager and now facing accusations of bullying in his new job with Unite). Luke (lobbyist for arms dealers) Akehurst. Tim Allan (Alastair Campbell’s deputy when Campbell was paid to lie to the country). And others who, frankly, should really know better if they want to keep their well-earned reputations for being decent and trustworthy people.

The thing is, what Draper doesn’t seem to realise is that many blogs – left, right and centre – have sprung up in almost direct response to the spin, lies and downright bollocks churned out by the New Labour machine in the last five or six years. An enormous number of bullshit detectors were installed quite a while back and have had an awful lot of testing. How he thinks any online effort set up by someone of his democracy-circumventing pedigree is going to garner even a veneer of trustworthiness beyond a hard core of credulous acolytes is for him to explain.

Maybe he’s going to rely on lazy on-deadline journalists with their fingers on the copy and paste keys to foster his new venture. It’s about the only example he could take from the big boys of right-wing blogging who’ve built their so-called reputations on the indolence and penny-pinching of the Fourth Estate looking for cheap copy. Online, however, Draper should expect heavy incoming fire.

I occasionally leave comments on other people’s blogs. Not very often mind – it’s best this cobblers is largely contained to one venue, let’s be honest. The thing is, I’m not very good at remembering where I’ve commented. I fire and forget. I must look like a drive-by shooter but that’s not the case – I just forget to go back to the scene of my rhetorical crimes.

So, can you blogging kiddies please set up little doohickies on your blogs to give me a nudge whenever a new comment is made on a post I’ve dropped in on? Something that makes the sound of a can of lager being opened might work best. You know, Pavlovian.

Paul ‘Guido Fawkes‘ Staines gets a little write-up in the new Private Eye. It describes a highly intellectual exchange where Staines refers to the Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Pierce as ‘a thieving cunt’.

(And Guido really should be the last person to be chucking aesthetic aspersions at others.)

Now, far be it from me to get between two jumped-up cut-and-pasters, but I’d like to point out once more that this post of Guido Fawkes contains a photograph of mine that he took, altered and used without credit, attribution, kiss my arse, or anything. In other words, he stole it.

It clearly takes one thieving cunt to know one.

Bit late with this but the estimable Dave Osler is being sued for libel. Having been threatened with libel lawyers myself once upon a time I have an idea how Dave must be feeling. Let’s hope for the right outcome.

With bloggers and journalists failing to get anything near a straight answer out of The Evening Standard’s bang-to-rights sock-puppeteer Andrew Gilligan about his online activies, Tim Ireland took the matter to the doorstep of the Standard’s owner, Associated Newspapers.

He headed into London to launch a free newspaper of his own, The Ailing Standards.

Head over to Tim’s place for the full story, sizzling video action and your chance to download your own copy of the super soaraway Ailing Standards.

Tim invites you to feel the burn.

…make sure it’s this jewel by Alix Mortimer. Really, do read it. It’s fantastic.

(Via the mighty Jennie)

Appropriately enough, the anti-Barack Obama decided upon today of all days to stick her head above the parapet and talk about something she clearly has absolutely no knowledge of whatsoever. I’m talking of course about the walking, talking, Labour-vote destroying robot which is Hazel Blears. Hazel Blears deciding to talk about political disengagement is a little like getting David Irving to talk about the problem of Holocaust denial…

Read the rest…

As our fighter-bomber dipped into another howling attack run over Baghdad, delivering another payload of white hot death to the city’s children, I turned to my co-pilot and said, ‘you know, I worry corrosive cynicism, fuelled by politically nihilistic blogs and a retreat from dispassionate reporting, is endangering British political discourse.’

‘Sod that,’ screamed Tim Ireland over the rising note of the engines as he tried to pull us out the steep dive, ‘I’ve got a million pounds from Bernie Ecclestone in the bank and a dinner date with Rupert Murdoch tonight. Jesus, I wish I hadn’t written that dodgy dossier. I DON’T WANNA DIE!’.

Back at base we agreed to give up blogging for the good of the country. It had led us to the edge of disaster and ruin. It was the only way to save the nation.

…

Hazel Blears really does talk the most unbelievably dishonest and self-serving bollocks, doesn’t she?

Until political blogging ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.

Ahem. Allow me.

Until politics ‘adds value’ to our political culture, by allowing new voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the politicians report politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.

Hmmmm. The communities secretary continues…

She will say that if voting trends were to continue as at present: “We will see a politics which increasingly speaks with a middle-class, middle England accent, and the people with the most to gain from democratic politics – the poorest and most vulnerable – being the ones least likely to be involved in it.”

Damn bloggers for their disenfranchisement of the poor and their relentless courting of the middle classes for political gain. Damn them all to hell.

When you see what passes for civilised debate in the comments on Iain Dale’s blog, this isn’t entirely surprising:

I can confirm that the current position is that Total Politics does not formally subscribe to the system of regulation overseen by the PCC.

Over 98% of titles do subscribe to the PCC and the Code. We also handle complaints informally against titles that do not subscribe.

Got a complaint about something said about you in Iain Dale’s magazine? If he doesn’t agree, you’re stuffed. Just like on his blog. I wonder if he’ll be calling any of his magazine readers a ‘prick‘ or a ‘bitch‘?