Anne Milton

In early 2009, a man appeared out of nowhere offering me dirt on some of his former colleagues. One of those former colleagues later reported* that this same person approached them at the same time, first warning them that I was a convicted paedophile who had escaped justice, and then furnishing them with my home address; he was clearly trying to set one party against the other (in the most damaging and dangerous way) from the outset.

(He currently pretends that he acts in the way he does because he claims I ‘betrayed’ him over an article reporting his past conduct as – don’t laugh – an amateur anti-terrorism operative.)

From the very beginning and throughout our conversations, this person offered repeated assurances – often apropos of nothing – that he was nothing to do with Anne Milton (a local Tory MP of whom I have been critical). At one stage, he offered to operate as a ‘peace broker’ between us, and he would also speak in ways that gave a very clear impression that he was a regular at local Tory fundraising events, and there is certainly no denying the role his family have played in local Conservative politics (for generations).

Now, I can understand this person’s motive for wanting to use someone in my position to get at his former colleagues, but as random as the universe is, I do not think it safe to assume that he would do something so serious as falsely accuse a person of paedophilia on a mere whim.

In fact, I suspect the decision to smear me as a paedophile specifically was entirely calculated, and planned in response to the matter a the heart of my dispute with Milton; my proving that her activists smeared an opponent as a paedophile, and her deep embarrassment at being entirely unable to respond to that now she has turned a blind eye to it for years.

So, even though this person has made none-too-subtle threats about turning his attentions on my family should I dare to raise the names of any of his relatives, I asked Anne Milton about her relationship with this man, and after she (eventually) gave an infuriatingly vague answer, I went on to ask if this person or his blood relative(s) had donated any money to her past or present election campaigns.

It took me a month to get this ‘answer’ out of her:

“The law sets out which donations are public and private and I can’t tell you who made a private donation.” – Anne Milton

What Anne Milton refers to here is the law that states she must declare donations over a certain amount**. It does not state that all amounts under this must remain private, but this is exactly what Milton implies.

However, even if Milton were facing genuine legal/confidentiality difficulty, she would have no problem answering my question if the answer put her in the clear… and it is here that Jeremy Hunt (another local Tory MP) finally makes himself useful for the first time.

I asked Jeremy Hunt the same question, and this was his answer:

“In regard to the other persons you name, I have checked with my agent in South West Surrey as with all donations we have adhered to the rules and regulations laid out by the electoral commission. Personally both these individuals are unknown to me and checking the register they have not donated money to my campaign.” – Jeremy Hunt

Until Anne Milton can come forward with an equally clear answer about donations and a clearer answer about her relationship with the person who smeared me as a paedophile and broadcast my home address (with the unmistakeable intention of having one appear alongside the other), the dark shadows of uncertainly she leaves are only going to foster suspicions that this person acted (at least in part) on her behalf.

Further, if this is the case, after her ‘stalker’ outburst (that she denies, despite the evidence) Milton has a case to answer even if this person acted initially without her knowledge, and she certainly needs to take a position now this person is boldly repeating false accusations made by her and claiming the endorsement of local Conservatives.

Instead, Anne Milton refuses to make a clear public statement about her relationship with this man, and even pretends that the law prevents her from asking a direct question about campaign donations from this person and/or his family.

One might expect this kind of behaviour from a wild-eyed back bencher, but Anne Milton manages to get away with this while maintaining a position in David Cameron’s cabinet.

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(*Some of this relies in part on the testimony of a particularly vulnerable individual, but they and another party have provided enough circumstantial evidence to support, at least, their contention that this person shared my address with them. They could not possibly have known, for example, the date of a crucial meeting, which corresponds neatly with a relevant email they shared. In any case, the person I accuse of engineering a paedophile smear against me has repeated the same accusation and worse on their site, and published details about my home address on that same site… cleverly disguised in a story where he describes taking locals on a guided tour of my street so they might see the home of ‘stalker’. This person has issued a belated denial about the paedo-smears, but has recently also denied ever having been in my street. In other words; any way you slice it, he’s a liar, or very, very confused about what he did or did not do.)

(**”Under Electoral Commission rules, only gifts totalling £7,500 or more for a central party, or £1,500 for a constituency association, have to be declared… The thresholds increased earlier this year from £5,000 and £1,000 respectively.” – BBC, 23 August 2010 )

Nadine Dorries is currently attempting to explain away an enormously damaging admission about misleading her constituents with a compelling sob story about stalkers.

This is no better than her hiding behind a human shield at the height of the expenses scandal with an hysterical if not calculated announcement about fears of a suicide (which she made just after some ill-advised comments about expenses that made her look both corrupt and arrogant).

I am here to attempt to tempt you far enough into the detail to not only establish the sob story of Nadine Dorries to be a calculated lie, but also expose a dark side of right wing blogging that the present Conservative leadership have repeatedly turned a blind eye to.

I warn you that even in this condensed state, there is a fair amount of detail, not least because Dorries’ lies involve a series of people who have intersecting personal relationships and political interests. Some of Dorries’ supporters would delight in dismissing it all as a wild conspiracy theory on that basis, but if you would care to look into the detail below you will find that anything reliant on mere suspicion, opinion or contention is clearly defined with appropriate language.

Unlike some, I do not seek to pass off an expression of opinion, belief or fiction as fact.

Unlike some, if challenged on any of the specifics, I can produce evidence that shows what I publish is both accurate and pertinent.

So, let’s begin by getting you sorted for a nice hot tea or coffee, and perhaps a biscuit.

I’ll wait while you fetch and fix.

Seriously, you’ll thank me later. You’ll at least want to hydrate at some stage.

Go. Do.

(waits)

All ready? Good. Let’s proceed with the detail:

In January 2009, I uncovered a plot to generate tabloid headlines and anti-Muslim sentiment through fabricated evidence of extremism in web forums.

The man who fabricated the relevant evidence was Glen Jenvey, then a professional associate of (and source of intelligence for) the Conservative MP Patrick Mercer; a man on the fringes of his party, who puts himself about as an expert on matters of extremism and terrorism and earns quite a bit of money on the back of this.

Mercer’s office refused to respond to (never mind act on) emails and calls alerting them to Jenvey’s actions, even after Jenvey submitted/published dozens of entirely false claims – via over 50 websites – that I was a convicted paedophile.

I am not a paedophile, convicted or otherwise, though I have been labelled a ‘nutter’ for daring to object to these damaging lies.

Mercer later denied working with Jenvey after his fabrications were exposed, but this was a lie. He now refuses to discuss the detail with me or anyone else anyone on the grounds that I am an “electronic stalker”, claiming that he has received advice not to speak to me or even about me.

I am not a stalker, electronic or otherwise, though I have been labelled a ‘nutter’ for daring to object to these damaging lies.

The source of Jenvey’s claims of paedophilia appears to be another associate of Mercer’s named Dominic Wightman (aka Dominic Whiteman, aka Richard Walker, aka Olivia James, etc. etc. etc.). Jenvey maintains that Wightman told him that I was a convicted paedophile who had escaped justice and assured him that I needed ‘sorting out’ before emailing that man my ex-directory home address. Wightman denies some of this, but his previous denials have been gross distortions if not outright lies. Obviously, that does not make him guilty of this act, only a liar, but his denials do little to counter the evidence that he refuses to discuss in detail…. on the grounds that I am an “electronic stalker”

Mercer will not say if or when he broke contact with Wightman and why (again, citing his claim that I am an “electronic stalker”; he won’t comment on Wightman’s harassment of me because he claims I am harassing him by complaining about it).

While Jenvey was smearing me as a paedophile and members of Mercer’s staff were refusing to act on the matter, Iain Dale promised to contact Patrick Mercer directly to alert him to this, failed to do so, then lied about it. It only emerged a year later that Dale had called the very same staff members that he knew were not passing messages on, didn’t mention the paedophilia smears to them, and didn’t even ask them to pass any kind of message on. Iain Dale still equates this with contacting Patrick Mercer and fulfilling his promise while refusing to be drawn on the detail, which is a gross distortion of the truth if not an outright lie.

Shortly after pulling this stunt, Iain Dale then hosted a discussion thread that was deliberately held open for no other reason that I can determine other than facilitating his libel of the Labour MP Tom Watson during ‘Smeargate’; Dale had issued an entirely false claim that Tom Watson was CCed on a crucial Draper/McBride email, which cost two newspapers an apology and a “substantial sum in damages”. Despite being forced to withdraw the claim, Iain Dale failed to retract it in a timely manner (he later lied about when he had done this), and actively exploited a series of highly questionable content and comment manipulation techniques that left his readers with the false impression that his accusation stood. The best that can be said in his defence was that he knowingly misled his readers on the specifics because he was certain of Tom Watson’s overall guilt

At the same time this was happening and the relevant discussion thread was being held open by Dale in a way that would publish any comment immediately (not standard procedure on Iain Dale’s site by any means, and risky at the best of times), two bloggers aligned with Iain Dale and Nadine Dorries, ‘Guido Fawkes’ (Paul Staines) and ‘Tory Bear’ (Harry Cole or Alexander or whatever the hell his name is), both started publishing entirely false claims and implications that I was associated with Draper and/or McBride and/or their planned smear campaign(s). On Staines’ site particularly, this involved a series of false claims and implications that I not only supported the plans of Draper/McBride, but did so in return for money.

I am not a smear merchant, paid or otherwise, though I have been labelled a ‘nutter’ for daring to object to these damaging lies.

Iain Dale, too, had begun to publish comments suggesting I was a smear merchant in league with Draper/McBride, but was only deleting my comments complaining about it. By this stage, Dale was not only using the open thread as a weapon against Tom Watson, but as a weapon against me, and he knowingly did so at a time when his thread was one of the hottest in town, and by then turning up for searches of my name, at the same time that Glen Jenvey was known to be cruising for open comment threads in which to publish his false allegations of paedophilia, while armed with my address and threatening to use it.

Dale was ignoring emails about this, and deleting comments urging him to moderate more responsibly. I still do not know if Dale did this mainly out of ignorance or malice, as he refuses to discuss the detail… on the grounds that I am an “electronic stalker”.

Iain Dale now cites repeated phone calls made in these circumstances as evidence of my stalking him, as does Dominic Wightman. Neither person mentions the context in which the calls were made. Years earlier, Dale also published entirely false claims that I had stalked Anne Milton and Nadine Dorries. He has offered to delete these claims from his site, but refuses to issue a retraction, despite knowing that what he privately defends as opinion or hyperbole is being presented by Dominic Wightman and others as fact.

(Dale’s only response to this is a denial about contact with Wightman. This is as meaningless as his denials about contact with Jenvey; he cannot substantiate what he has published, even as opinion, and yet continues to maintain these false claims knowing that his word on the matter is being used against me in an ongoing campaign of harassment. He does not have to engage in a conspiring dialogue for this to be wrong. His politics is blinding him to the action that should be obvious; we should as a blogging community be rejecting the antics of people like Wightman, not actively exploiting them to gain advantage over rivals or silence critics.)

When Dominic Wightman’s schemes and duplicity were discovered (he had been posing as my ally for months as his harassment campaign got rolling), he went to ground and I instead found myself having to deal with a group of self-described ‘cyber activists’ led by a man named Charlie Flowers; a man who had previously worked with Wightman in his harassment of Glen Jenvey (a former associate of Wightman’s in an amateur ‘terror tracking’ venture that collapsed in acrimony and disputes over money).

Charlie Flowers began publishing my home address alongside a claim that I was in league with Muslim extremists.

I am not in league with extremists, Muslim or otherwise, though I have been labelled a ‘nutter’ for daring to object to these damaging lies.

Wightman is the most likely source of my home address and the only possible source of the relevant ‘evidence’; at present he explains this away with a fantastical and absurd claim about his computer being hacked.

Charlie Flowers, both alone and in conjunction with several people he was manipulating at the time, repeatedly broadcast my home address to people they regarded to be hostile toward me (including members of the BNP). When the accusations of association with extremists began to fall flat, they proceeded to publish my home address alongside the accusations that I had stalked Patrick Mercer, Paul Staines, Iain Dale, Anne Milton and Nadine Dorries. They further claimed that I had sent death threats to MPs, implying Dorries to be the main target.

When confronted about this, Charlie Flowers made a statement that he was doing this on behalf of Nadine Dorries and others and claimed to have informed her of his actions and intentions. When this was brought to the attention of this MP, Dorries only pretended to report him to police and instead (she claims) reported me to police for stalking her.

(Currently, Dorries is blurring the lines between claims she now makes about four unnamed people stalking her, but is heavily implying that I have been sharing her personal details on the web. This is not only untrue, it is astonishingly near to the opposite of the truth; Dorries has knowingly exploited a situation involving the publication of my home address. She has also had a man over to her home as a dinner guest who, prior to all of this, had repeatedly published my home phone number on his site – he says just to ‘annoy’ me. Further, in recent weeks, Dorries has attacked a constituent of hers who had dared to be file a complaint about this. Dorries attacked this constituent with a false allegation that this woman was a benefits cheat, and furnished journalists with the woman’s name and home address as part of her smear campaign. I do not know how Dorries came by this personal/sensitive data, but surely she should face repercussions if she came by it as part of her duties as an MP, through a letter to her or via her office/party access to the electoral role, for example.)

Later, during the 2010 election, I was invited by constituents of Nadine Dorries to a public meeting where they expected Dorries to lie about the investigation into her expenses, and the circumstances surrounding it.

(During this investigation, Dorries explained inconsistencies in her account to the Commissioner by stating that 70% of what she published on her blog was fiction. After the investigation concluded – she claims in a way that exonerated her of any wrongdoing – she publicly backtracked to claiming she had only meant 30% of her blog was fiction, before going on to maintain a day later that every word she published on her blog was absolutely true. I have also recently discovered that Dorries insisted on a change to the date of the hustings (!) in a way that avoided any report of the event in her local paper prior to the election, and also arranged the timing of her arrival and departure so she might avoid any direct confrontation or open Q&A session. Dorries is legendary in political circles for her pretences at engagement when in fact she shuns it, only engaging with people who do not confront her with difficult questions. After previous hustings, she knew she was on a sticky wicket and likely to face some difficult questions at the final hustings before the election. So did her constituents. It’s why they invited me to come and get the evening on record in the interests of democracy. But Nadine is so far gone; she sees this and any attempt to confront her about her ongoing lies as a personal attack and an affront to democracy.)

Knowing full well that my home address was being published alongside a false accusation that I had stalked her and others, Dorries sought to escape that situation by twice addressing a hall full of hundreds of people and accusing me of stalking Patrick Mercer, stalking Anne Milton “to the point that police became involved”, and stalking her to the point that a formal police investigation was underway.

Dorries then not only stood by that accusation knowing it to be entirely false, she went on to build on it, using the stabbing of the MP Stephen Timms to explain her decision to close her blog and Twitter account shortly after the election, with a direct and unmistakable insinuation that I presented an equal danger to her; this included a claim that she was advised by police in this context to cease any tweeting/blogging. It later emerged that Dorries had closed her blog and Twitter account a week before Timms was stabbed. Unless her recent self-diagnosis as a sufferer of “profound dyslexia” covers confusion about which way time flows, her claim that this event prompted her decision cannot be seen as anything but a calculated lie.

Andy Rayment, Chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association, responded to my concerns about Dorries’ repeated attempts to portray me as a mentally unbalanced stalker (including the evidence showing Dorries to be a liar) with a curt email in which he declared that he refused to communicate with “nutters”. Dorries then revealed any concerns she may have had about me being mentally unstable and potentially violent as a sham when she gleefully repeated this correspondence on her blog.

To be clear about the accusations that some journalists might be tempted to take at face value:

– There is no evidence of Patrick Mercer making any credible report to police about my stalking him. If he had, I would have been contacted by police a long time ago. It is standard procedure. (I know this from experience, and not in the way some would have you think. The people who have been involved in the worst of the harassment targeting me have so far escaped prosecution, but all of them have received unwanted attention from police as a result of my complaints.)

– The same applies to Iain Dale, who still refuses to discuss the circumstances in which he sought to exploit my being smeared as a paedophile, and actually seeks credit for not actually smearing me as a paedophile personally. (So *much* to be proud of, Iain!) He is now incensed that I may have to resort to civil action to have him issue a retraction of his repeated claims that I stalked him and others, even though he knows he cannot possibly substantiate his claims in criminal or civil court, or even in an open debate. Instead of taking the route he insists I should take with those harassing me (i.e. reporting them to police, as if I have not done so), Iain Dale has sought to address his claims that I harassed him with accusations made primarily behind the scenes, in what can only be described as a whispering campaign.

– In Anne Milton’s case, the only person who was investigated by police was a Conservative activist then working under her (and very closely with her), who sought to target a political opponent with an anonymous and entirely false claim that his opponent was… wait for it… a paedophile. Milton won’t like talking about that, but she cannot deny it, and she cannot deny knowing about it and the evidence of that man’s involvement before going on to endorse him as a candidate for local council. (She only ‘blanked’ him after he lost; what a lovely person. Yay, politics.) On that note, I should also point out that Anne Milton is also a (hopefully former) associate of Dominic Wightman’s (i.e. the man doing the key dirty work in this ongoing campaign of harassment against me). Milton denies saying anything to him or anyone else that might give them the idea that I was stalking her, but I can prove this to be a lie.

– Nadine Dorries cannot produce any evidence of a police investigation into my stalking her, as no such investigation took place. Through her supporters – mainly ‘Tory Bear’ – Dorries now presents my presence at that meeting (where she claimed I was under police investigation for stalking her) as the ONLY evidence of my stalking her. In any case, even if Dorries thinks she is telling the truth about some of her stalking claims (which we cannot discount, as she appears to be genuinely delusional on some points, not a claim I make lightly), the lies she told to constituents pre-date any of her cited or published concerns about stalkers.

To be clear on this point:

All of the events Nadine Dorries describes as ‘stalking’ took place after the lies she told constituents about the amount of time she spent in her constituency.

Further, she gave the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards an entirely different reason why she engaged in this deceit:

I often posted comments on my blog relating to [name of town] in my constituency. Since I first rented in the constituency, I made a song and dance about being at the property. I have mentioned it on my blog a number of times. This was done to comfort my Association. The previous MP only visited the constituency occasionally—sometimes only as often as once every six weeks—and they were keen that I reversed that impression. His lack of time in the constituency contributed to his de-selection. – Letter to the Commissioner from Ms Nadine Dorries MP, 25 January 2010

When Nadine Dorries claims or implies that she lied to her constituents about the amount of time she spent in her constituency only so far as to alter a few key dates and locations to throw stalkers off the scent… She. Is. Lying.

Nadine Dorries is lying because she has dug herself into a deep hole after a series of earlier lies, and she appears to have lied not only to her blog readers, constituents, and a series of journalists following this up, but also to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

I am willing to be interviewed about or challenged on any or all of this, and can produce evidence to back up everything I relate and describe, including the crime reference numbers relating to the two police investigations into this (ongoing) campaign of harassment against me, that recently got so ugly as to involve anonymous and entirely false accusations of criminal damage against my children.

If you press Dorries or Dale or Mercer or anyone else about this, they will refuse to talk to you or lie to you, but they will not be able to produce any evidence* to back up what they claim outside hearsay and opinion from their circle of deceit.

(How this works: Dorries claims I stalked her and points to what Iain Dale says as evidence. Iain Dale claims I am a stalker by pointing to what Nadine Dorries says as evidence. At one stage, Iain Dale even went so far as to declare that I only criticised Nadine Dorries as a way of getting at him. He even has the audacity to suggest that there is no smoke without fire when he knows damn well that he is the one generating the bulk of the smoke.)

Make no mistake; this is nothing more than a smear campaign involving people with aspirations of influence that far outweigh their integrity.

Calling the police and accusing someone of stalking does not make the subject of your claims guilty of stalking.

Hell, even Jenvey was calling police and accusing me of harassing him while he was publishing entirely false allegations about my being a paedophile.

Dorries is no better. She knowingly exploited a situation that put me and my family at significant risk and in considerable fear of danger, and heightened this with a damaging and self-serving lie about a police investigation that never took place.

And Nadine Dorries did this for no other reason than political gain; at best, to talk her way out of a corner.

I have never been approached by police about any complaint of harassment aimed at me, which is standard procedure for them following any credible complaint.

I have never been investigated for stalking or harassment or been issued with any kind of warning by police about my behaviour in this respect.

I have no criminal record for violent crime or any other kind of crime.

Three of these people are Conservative MPs, and one of them is a member of Cameron’s cabinet.

If you’ve read this far, I’d like to ask you to do something about it by (a) writing about it, (b) getting the word out on Twitter, (c) filing a complaint with the Conservative Party, and/or (d) writing a letter to David Cameron at 10 Downing St.

Thanks for your time.

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[*As should be clear from an earlier passage, if Anne Milton is able to produce a crime reference number, it will not relate to an investigation of my conduct, but an investigation of the conduct of one of her activists. While it did not culminate in a prosecution, that investigation did NOT clear the relevant activist or his associate(s) of wrongdoing, despite what Anne Milton or Iain Dale may imply. I am in possession of that same crime reference number should Milton attempt denying any of this.]

Let’s begin with this segment of the interview between Jon Snow and Zac ‘Comedy’ Goldsmith:

Jon Snow: Why is a poster that has your face and your name on then paid for by local councillors who are fighting the council elections?

Zac Goldsmith: Before having the posters designed, which were centrally designed, we [i.e. the Conservative party] checked. We didn’t want to have to do two posters, local election and national elections, because people aren’t going to have two posters in their garden. We wanted one poster for both campaigns and we checked…

Jon Snow: But your poster doesn’t even refer to the council elections!

Zac Goldmsith: It’s says “Vote Conservative”, it was a local election campaign

Jon Snow: “Vote Zac Goldsmith!” Your name.

Zac Goldmsith: It says my name, my picture, and “Vote Conservative”. I am telling you that is absolutely standard across the country.

source/watch

During this exchange, Zac Goldsmith appeared sometimes to give the impression that this was standard in all parties across the country, but for now, let’s assume that Zac is only qualified to make specific claims about the advice given by his own party, and take him at his word that this was a ‘standard’ solution for Conservative candidates “across the country”.

Then, let’s take a look at an example of one of these posters, and divvy up the… er…

Sorry about that. OK, let’s choose an alternative example using a less controversial candidate, and divvy up the… uh-oh…

Very well, let’s choose another example of a poster using text only to… oh…

Right, on second thoughts let’s take a look at a generic mock-up of one of these posters and divvy up the real estate.

[Psst! But not before pausing to ask if candidates based their poster count on the actual number of posters deployed, or merely the number of sites... which would not take the figure for replacements into account.]

The first thing you may have noticed is that these posters are pretty uniform in design (and while I have seen a poster saying ‘Re-elect (name)’, I have seen none that say ‘Vote Conservative’ as Zac Goldsmith has claimed*… although, even if he is mistaken, perhaps it’s a mark of the man’s modesty that he couldn’t bring himself to look at his own posters.)

The second thing that may have gained your attention is that the posters are clearly not split 50:50 between the ‘candidate’ part and the ‘Conservatives’ part, but are instead uniformly split 75:25 in favour of the candidate (i.e. the person running in the national election).

So your average voter who may have questions about the appropriateness of this claim to begin with might also start asking why the cost is split 50:50 when the standard design of these posters would suggest that a 75:25 split would be more appropriate…. if we are to deem this practice acceptable at all.

Meanwhile, we must also consider that while some Conservative candidates ran in constituencies that included/overlapped boroughs where local elections were conducted on the same day as the general election, these areas do not match or map over each other precisely. Putting posters throughout a constituency may only cover part of a borough, or part/all of two or more boroughs… and (crucially) some boroughs did not run local elections in 2010.

Were costs for posters in such cases always split 50:50? (Oh, and is this the part where we’re patronisingly assured that it’s all very complicated and this is why the sums work out so neatly?)

And what about those Conservative candidates who ran in the national election in areas where no local elections were taking place anywhere near them… but still split the cost of posters 50:50 anyway?

Take a bow, Anne Milton of Guildford:

I’ve asked Anne Milton about this, but she has so far refused to comment… so excuse me while I try to make sense of it all on my lonesome:

I think in this case we’re expected to believe that the Guildford Conservatives are 100% confident that they will go on to ‘rent’ these posters out a second time in an upcoming election, and it is on this basis they have halved the amount of their candidate’s poster expenditure (on paper).

However, this level of creative accountancy not only assumes that Anne Milton will run again, but also assumes that the Conservatives will not change their logo, and that this MP will not change her appearance. OK, so perhaps it can be argued that logo changes are infrequent but the same cannot be said of changes to the appearance of certain MPs:

Amateur propagandist and professional bullshit artist Shane Greer claimed in a recent post on the Total Politics website; “when it comes to accounting for the expense of those posters every other campaign uses the same trick”… but even if we only look at two MPs (from one party), it is clear that there are at least two entirely different ‘tricks’, and neither of them pass the smell test.

Finally, even if we are to accept vague assurances from a range of Conservatives that this is practice is widespread (i.e. that all parties are at this) I do not regard this as acceptable, and neither should you, as it would be yet another example of one set of rules for us, and another set of rules guidelines for MPs.

Here’s a challenge for the shiny, new Conservative party and their claims to aspire to a new standard of transparency; this information is already in the public domain, and CCHQ could within hours produce a list of every candidate they fielded, how they split the costs of posters, and on what basis they justify this split. While they’re about it, they could also publish the relevant advice to these candidates that Zac Goldsmith heralds as ‘standard’.

Or (and I think this is far more likely) they could compel the ‘great ignored’ to fuss about and ferret out the details on a candidate-by-candidate basis in the hopes of masking any corruption in their ranks.

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*UPDATE (5pm) – Finally found a picture of one of Zac Goldsmith’s posters in Flickr. It does indeed say ‘Vote Conservative’ on the bottom half quarter, so he does have that going for him.

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UPDATE (23 Jul) – Channel 4 and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have discovered that Conservative MP Daniel Byles cut the £2,300 bill for his posters to less than £700 on his declaration on the basis that he plans to use them in two future elections. Move over, Paul the Psychic Precognitive Octopus.

Meanwhile, Anne Milton’s office insist that I refer any questions to the Guildford Conservative Association, but they in turn have told me that I cannot expect any answers for over a month, because the agent, Jackie Porter, is on holiday until the end of August.

And CCHQ? They clammed up a few days ago after making some vague claims suggesting that the ‘standard’ advice Zac Goldsmith spoke of came directly from the Electoral Commission.

Almost four years ago now, myself and some Guildford-based Liberal Democrats were smeared via a series of anonymous weblogs and anonymous comments on established weblogs (see latest post).

Many of these smears were a direct response to my weblog about Anne Milton (1, 2), who was then the MP for Guildford and is now campaigning to retain the seat. During this period, I found evidence that two Conservative activists attached to Anne Milton (Dennis Paul and Mike Chambers) were involved in these smears against me, as well as the worst of the smears against some local Lib Dems (specifically, the accusation that one of their opponents was paedophile).

No meaningful action was taken. Certainly nothing was done that led to the removal of the smears. But I am now advised that an ‘investigation’ of sorts did take place, and it is here that we cut to the account of my source, whose name will be revealed shortly…

MC: “Two years ago, there was an ‘investigation’ I suppose you can call it that. I remember it and all the candidates were asked if they were aware of any involvement…”

Perhaps there was more to this investigation than just asking people if they were involved, but no-one from the Guildford Association showed any active interest in my testimony or any of the evidence I had to hand.

I pointed out to my source that I wasn’t asked for any further details during this ‘investigation’ (or told of any result after). When I emailed details, those emails were ignored. When I followed up with a phone call, I was instructed to “put it in writing”, and the most likely reason for this was explained as follows:

MC: “I know it’s not nice to be, feel ignored, stonewalled, whatever you call it, and I’m just guessing that, in the case of Anne Milton, she’d formed a view, influenced no doubt by your approach to her and then later supported or influenced by [Dennis Paul's] concerns about hacking and stuff and, I have to say your view, within the Conservative Association, you were, like you said an ‘angry man’, that was hacking computers, sending viruses…”

Tim: “Was that a widespread view?”

MC: “Well, ‘widespread view’, I mean….”

Tim: “Well, you said that was the view within the Conservative Association.”

MC: “Yeah, Association strictly speaking is all of the members…”

Tim: “Yes..”

MC: “… what I’m talking about really is the centre core; the Chairman [Jonathon Lord], and the senior officers, and of course our MP [Anne Milton].”

If this claim is true, then Dennis Paul was successfully denying involvement in a smear campaign against me and others… by engaging in a further smear campaign against me; one specifically accusing me of criminal acts and intentions.

My source went on to claim that Jonathon Lord (then Chairman of the Guildford Conservative Association, now Parliamentary Candidate for Woking), Anne Milton (then Guildford MP, currently Parliamentary Candidate for Guildford) and others had subsequently adopted the position I was a criminal hacker capable of targeting anyone who received/opened/answered emails from me, or even just visited my website.

(To put his ‘guessing’ into context, my source was guessing that this was the reason why I was having difficulty communicating with these people, but he was in no doubt about the specifics of the claims made by Dennis Paul and who they had influenced.)

This fresh account tallies with material published by Dennis Paul at the time:

“If you contribute by blogging genuinely on some sites, you may provide the host with your IP address when you blog which enables unscrupulous hackers to attack your computer. That is why they are so obsessed with the IP identity of those who blog. You may limit this risk by moving from a static IP address to a Dynamic IP address, but you are still vulnerable while you remain online without protection.” – Published under his own name by Dennis Paul (16 Aug, 2006)

“A number of liberal supporters in Guildford are graduates with computing expertese. They can hack through website visitors pc with ease – all they need is your IP address to target your computer. These ‘blogsites’ are a venus fly trap to them. At a national level, Police intellegence use the same expertese to monitor and catch muslim extremists. You only have to visit their site and they can target you. The best thing is to avoid their sites altogether, and avoid clicking on links that could take you to their sites.” – Published as an anonymous comment by Dennis Paul (22 Aug, 2006)

I agree. If you click on links to these sites, who knows where it could take you. Next thing you know, you could be on some paedo site with the Police knocking on your door accusing you of visiting innapropriate websites.” – Published as an anonymous comment by Dennis Paul (22 Aug, 2006)

We also have this, which is either (a) the work of Dennis Paul or a core member of the Guildford Conservative Association, or (b) a pretty good indication that the alleged smear spread further than Dennis Paul and the core of the Guildford Conservative Association. This ‘talk’ edit from Wikipedia attempts to justify repeated attempts to remove links to my site from Anne Milton’s Wikipedia entry:

“I removed a section that contained inaccurate information, and links to a libellous web site. This is not vandalism at all. The person’s web site whos link I removed is a vandal and a hacker and was arrested for hacking last year, so should not be promoted in any way on this site, which is the home of factual information not lies and self promotion.” – Published by an unknown contributor to Wikipedia (01 Dec, 2006)

For the record, I have NEVER hacked anybody or fed any viruses or Trojans to anybody, and I certainly haven’t been arrested for these or any other offences.

But I do appear to have been cut off from democracy at a local level by a smear (while another innocent man appears to have endured an even worse smear for far longer than was necessary), purely because the ‘expert’ testimony of Dennis Paul was accepted by local Conservatives. Oh, and David Cameron.

David Cameron’s office was presented with all published evidence, but the local Association’s view held and the Conservatives decided to back Dennis Paul as a candidate. I got an email with this in it on the same day Dennis was having his picture taken with the man himself:

“We have looked into the concerns you raise regarding Guildford Conservatives and are satisfied that these matters are being carefully investigated at the local level.” – David Beal, Correspondence Secretary, David Cameron’s Office (01 Feb, 2007)

I’m seeking an immediate response from Anne Milton, Jonathon Lord, the Guildford Conservative Association.

I am hoping they will admit the allegations and immediately disown the lies of Dennis Paul. Unless they wish to deny what’s been alleged here, of course, in which case they will need to immediately disown the lies of Mike Chambers… because he’s my source.

(Psst! That sound you hear is a dozen local coffees being spat out at once.)

Either way, Anne Milton can no longer ignore the hole she dug for herself when she trusted either or both of these clowns as campaigners and went on to endorse them as candidates.

More to follow.

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[For the record, Mike Chambers denies involvement in the 2006 paedo-smears, and puts forward the view that they were a part of a 'dirty tricks' set-up by the Lib Dems, who smeared themselves and/or one of their own for political gain. He has no evidence to back this up, only his personal certainty that the Lib Dems are the real nasty party, and the only people capable of such deeds.]