Anne Milton - Guildford MP (and Dipstick)

There will soon come a day when the Conservative Party will want to be able to deny any knowledge of Anne Milton's antics. But I'm not going to let them get away with it.

Below is just a recent sample of the traffic from Conservative Head Office to this specific area of my website:

The good people who work for the Conservative Party have also been directly informed of a number of developments, and have even been provided with the relevant evidence. Each and every time they have fobbed me off.

Finally, I know for a fact that David Cameron was made aware of these disgraceful personal attacks by Anne Milton's activists, just a few weeks before he maintained a 'dignified silence' while his activists screamed "Personal attack!" on his behalf. That makes him a very special kind of hypocrite.

Conservative Party Peeps, I have two messages for you:

1. Here's something really special for you to look at; one of Anne Milton's cheerleaders has been making deeply personal and libellous claims about me in Wikipedia (while making empty accusations of libel in the process... and accusing anyone who seeks to correct their vandalism of being me acting as some kind of magical sock-puppet):

Take a look at this, this, and *especially* this. Go on, take a good look. Here's a hint for you if you're confused; the bits highlighted in green are the parts that Milton supporters have added; thereby compromising your party and placing Wikipedia at risk of legal action. Oh, and take a few moments to browse through this website before you claim that this could be the work of a well-meaning member of the public; it was established long ago that the bulk of Anne Milton's endorsements came from Conservative councillors, activists and/or family members.

[Oi! I was arrested for hacking in 2005? Funny, I don't remember that. I don't even remember being questioned by the police. Surely something like that would stick in my mind for a long time to come. No? Oh well. Maybe the experience was so traumatic that I blanked it from my memory. Oh, and speaking of memories, I seem to recall that the *only* person who has *ever* accused me of hacking (mainly because he doesn't know the difference between hacking and tracking) is Dennis Paul, who currently claims to be 'a member of the Executive Committee of Guildford Conservatives and an active Branch Member in Worplesdon'.]

When I saw early abuse of the Wikipedia system that was focused primarily on Anne Milton's entry and tracked it back to a Parliamentary IP address, I sent a complaint to Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin. Surprise, surprise, he fobbed me off... not only with a vague suggestion that perhaps an over-zealous staff member was to blame, but also with the assertion that it was quite an acceptable and valid use of an MP's time to make 'corrections' to their Wikipedia entry. I found this reply to be particularly galling as the bulk of my letter read as follows:

Circumstances would suggest that these edits originated from Anne Milton’s office, but if you require a greater level of certainty before taking action, all you need do is request the HTTP/access logs from the relevant IT department for the times/periods specified above.

Now, I can understand the need for an MP to spend a small amount of time ensuring that their Wikipedia entry does not contain any inappropriate content or factual errors (this strays into a grey area, as part of an MPs duty is to ensure that their constituents are well-informed), but I do not think your average taxpayer would approve of this type of vanity-editing and/or censorship using time and facilities that they pay for.

McLoughlin didn't even acknowledge this section of the letter, and failed to follow the matter up with a simple technical exercise which could easily have confirmed or ruled out Anne Milton's involvement.

The HTTP/access logs I mentioned all those months ago are sure to have been deleted by now in the natural course of server maintenance. So now there's no way of clearing Anne Milton outright.

And since that exchange, the abuse of Wikipedia centring on Anne Milton's entry has escalated. All that these people have learned is (a) how to better cover their tracks and (b) that nobody in authority is going to do a damn thing to stop them.

How often do you find yourself wondering why they call you 'The Nasty Party'?

2. Much shorter this one... but I'm not sure that you'll thank me for it:

You chose her. You backed her. Hell, since all of this happened you even *promoted* her.

Do yourselves a favour... next time you pop by to check what Anne Milton has done recently that compromises you, take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and think about how you have compromised yourselves.

Labels: david cameron, dennis paul, inaction, mike chambers, smear-blogs, wikipedia

Hi folks. Sorry I've been away, but I hope to make it up to you all very soon.

To be honest, I've been quite glad of the break on one specific front; the Save The Royal Surrey campaign.

Given the importance of the campaign, the rare cross-party unity that heralded its launch, and the Miltonites' absolute certainty that I'm part of some grand Liberal Democrat conspiracy against them, it seemed to me that the most constructive thing I could do was stay the hell out of it.

Sadly, the calls for unity from the Conservative side have been rendered meaningless by the most-vocal supporters of Milton and the campaign to save the Royal Surrey can only be undermined as a result. I'll go into detail on this and a number of other outstanding matters one day soon, but first - here's the reason I'm back one day early...

The Times - MPs don't know their Sunnis from Shi'ites: Anne Milton, the Tory MP for Guildford, wears the dunce's cap after getting 13 out of 14 questions wrong. It even slipped her mind that she was a member of the Friends of Islam group. "Ooh, am I?" she said. "Oh yes, I suppose so. I forgot. I don't think I've sat on it yet."

Oh dear... where to start...?

Well, let's begin at the bottom (where Anne is) and work our way up....

1. Anne Milton forgot that she was a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Friends of Islam Group and does not even appear to have attended a single meeting of the group. Given her performance on the Health Select Committee, we should not be surprised.

2. To anybody who is actually surprised by this turn of events; I would like to point out that Anne Milton was once outwitted by Geoff Hoon.

3. Poor Anne was singled out as the most ignorant MP, but it should be pointed out that only 30 MPs faced the challenge. OK, so all of these MPs were chosen on the basis of their claimed/implied 'expertise' on the Middle East, but let's at least try to be charitable here; if every MP in the country faced the quiz, she may have fared a little better... comparatively.

To help make this very important point a little clearer, we must seek wisdom from The Simpons:

Homer: I'm sorry, Marge, but sometimes I think we're the worst family in town.

Marge: Maybe we should move to a larger community.

4. Anne may even have known a few of the answers had she spent more time reading Wikipedia and less time making vanity-edits to her entry.

5. It must be kept in mind that this most-capable of representatives votes in Parliament and even poses questions that are specific to the Middle East... but I think I've already made it clear that I think she is an unworthy and incapable representative, so I won't pose the obvious question again.

6. But I will pose a new one;

Will Anne Milton do the honourable thing and resign from the All-Party Parliamentary Friends of Islam Group?

(Psst! Amme! Next time you're put on the spot by a journalist, here's what you should do; totally ignore the question(s) they put to you, and instead have your activists post libellous claims about them on the internet. Anonymous websites about their wives and children should shut them right up, and - if this fails - have your activists spread rumours about an arrest record in a way that puts Wikipedia at risk instead of your good self.)

Labels: hypocrisy, ignorance, middle east, royal surrey