Has Iain Dale been caught stealing from the BBC?

You can see Iain Dale bitching about the BBC and the dreadful waste of licence-payer’s money in one sense or another here, here and here.

Meanwhile, if you look at the code for Iain’s dandy new site design, you will see that the icons for his link-whoring widgets…

… would appear to the untrained eye to be drawn (or, if you prefer, leeched) directly from the BBC’s web servers:

[Note – I wasn’t clever obsessive enough to find this myself; Garry (a fellow member of the vast leftist conspiracy) had to find it for me.]

1. A bit inconsistent, don’t you think? I mean, you can waffle on about scale all you like (it’s about 2Kb and change with each download) but if you don’t like being called a hypocrite (and Iain doesn’t like being called a hypocrite), then you can’t go around bitching about how this or that is a waste of a licence fee when you yourself are hoovering up the BBC’s resources in order to promote your own website.

2. Does Iain have permission to do this? I mean, the BBC offer advice on these widgets here, but I’ll be damned if I can find a page on their site that invites the public to leech the relevant icons for these widgets directly from their servers.

Just asking is all. I wouldn’t want to accuse anyone of stealing without proof.

Iain? Any response*? Have you been stealing from the BBC, or am I missing something?

[*Iain: Please note that quietly changing the code while ‘ignoring’ me technically counts as a response, but I’d much rather that you were polite about it.]

UPDATE (07 Feb) – The leeching from the BBC has been described as an “oversight” and a “mistake” by Iain’s web designer (who made the same error on his own website) and the relevant code has been corrected, so Iain was leeching from the BBC without permission, but isn’t at present. I suggested a modest donation to Children In Need to make up for it (i.e. to bring balance to the equation in a way that would allow Iain to continue to bitch about licence fee wastage in the future without risk of being called a total hypocrite). This idea was considered… and then rejected*.

[*Tch. Won’t somebody pleeeease think of the children?]








Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | 11 Comments

Shane Greer: see you next Super Tuesday

Shane Greer and the company he keepsStill no response from Shane Greer, who seems perfectly happy to declare that I’m “obviously unbalanced” and group me with a convicted stalker, and ignore any response to it while he pisses off to Washington, apparently in the company of the tax lawyer whose ‘client’ is threatening to sue me for libel.

[Psst! That same lawyer is on Greer’s blogroll. Look to your right for a screen capture.]

Incredible, isn’t it?

In fact, if I didn’t think so little of Richard Littlejohn, I’d say something about the difficulty one might have making it up.

[Damn it. I just did, didn’t I? Oh well. Moving on…]

And, as I point out here, all too often it starts out this way:

Someone claims/does something that is totally out of order, resists every reasonable attempt to challenge their position, and then eventually screams ‘harassment’ when I continue beyond the point where they expect me to give up and go away.

Well, Greer has finally annoyed me enough for me to use his name in the headline, thereby starting the process that will soon have me in control of a top search result for his name.

In future, when someone searches for ‘Shane Greer’, they’ll see what a thoroughly fair, pleasant and reasonable person he can be.

I look forward to a convincing performance when the time comes for him to play the victim.

UPDATE (11:15am) – Oh dear. Look at what can be managed in less than two hours…

UPDATE (11:25am) – Screen capture updated. I jumped from second to first place while updating this post:








Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | 2 Comments

How to email Gordon Brown

———————- | SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT – JANUARY 2009 |———————-

Gordon Brown’s Downing Street team is no longer accepting email for the Prime Minister. This service has been down since August 2008, and some of us have been left wondering out just how hard it can be to accept, store and process a few emails.

So I’ve decided to find out.

For the next 24 hours 7 days, I will be accepting email for Gordon Brown via the following address, and hand-delivering these emails to 10 Downing Street:

This is a strictly limited offer, and is available at this stage only for the following 24 hour 7-day period:

12:00 midday 26 January 2009 – 12:00 midday, 2 February 2009

Please note that if you use this service, you must be willing to share; your email will be read/scanned by me and used for statistical purposes.

Besides, people who want to write letters privately to Gordon Brown need looking at.

24 hour A one-week window, folks. Then I’ll collate, run an executive summary up and drop it by Downing St. Just to see how hard it can be.

UPDATE (5 Feb) – I’ve been reliably informed that an ’email the PM’ facility should be back in service by the end of February.

And now back to our regular programming…

———————- | SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ENDS |———————-

[archived post continues below]

Sending an email to Gordon Brown couldn’t be simpler… and I should know, because I wrote the specs for the system. Of course, I haven’t been paid for that yet, but I live in hope.

Option #1

All you have to do to send an email to the PM is visit the page linked below, choose a category or write your own, and take it from there:

10 Downing Street – Email the PM

Please be aware that the e-mail system involves your email being read by a series of staff members and grouped into a monthly report. If your message is important, sensitive and/or confidential in nature, you’ll be better off sending a letter to 10 Downing Street, London SW1 2AA (which will, at least, result in your message being read by fewer staff members).

Option #2

You could try sending an email via Gordon Brown’s parliamentary address – browng@parliament.uk – but during Blair’s time as PM, all emails to his version of this address went into a deep, dark hole without so much as a ‘bounce’ message, so I’d wager that it might be more effective to scream into a pillow in a sound-proofed room.

Option #3

If you have the public on your side and you wish to rattle Gordon’s cage electronically, you may wish to instead reach out to the PM via a petition, and you can now do so online:

10 Downing Street – E-petitions

If you get enough people behind you, you might (eventually) receive a satisfactory reply. I say ‘might’, because 5,098 people signed my petition and neither Brown nor Blair have seen fit to respond to it. So far.

Option #4

The fourth option is a little more difficult and time-consuming, but deeply satisfying; simply run a blog for a few years and subject the PM and/or his government so much trouble or embarrassment that you rate regular visits from Downing Street’s web-watch team.

Then all you have to do is go public with your email. This system allows for the use of HTML (as opposed to plain text), which is a far more elegant way to communicate, in my view.

Below is my latest public email of this type, and my first to Gordon Brown (not counting this little intervention to mark the long-overdue departure of Tony Blair):

To: Gordon Brown

From: Tim Ireland

Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:15 AM

Subject: I’m feeling frisky

1. Gordon. I can fix this little problem for you:

Get in touch when you have a mo. (Oh, and you’re using a system that I wrote the specs for and your predecessor has yet to pay for. We might have to settle that matter before I start on any new projects for Downing St. Sorry to be so obsessive persistent.)

2. Iraqi employees. This issue will fuck you in all sorts of unexpected ways if you’re not a lot more careful (and a hell of a lot faster) than you have been in the past. It doesn’t help that your boy Miliband is widely regarded as a joke. I’ve faced the guy down myself, and he’s lucky to be regarded as bush-league.

3. When are you going to sack that S.O.B. Jack Straw? He’s a walking roadblock. If you want my trust, he needs to be out on his arse. And I’m not alone.

Cheers

Tim Ireland

PS – SOCPA: I’d like to bring it to your attention without the usual rigmarole of having to stalk your wife. Ta.

So, there are your current options for electronic communication with the Prime Minister. Use them wisely.








Posted in Gordon Brown | 6 Comments

Iain Dale’s inner childishness revealed

Well worth a look is John Hirst’s first foray into dedicated satire:

Iain’s Daily Diary

John totally nails Iain Dale on his outright hypocrisy right here. Enjoy.

(Oh, and make sure that you applaud, otherwise John might next come after you next… with an AXE*!)

[*This is satire. I’m pointing this out because certain people have trouble recognising it.]








Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | 3 Comments

FAUX News strikes again

A perfect example of their bullshit propaganda.

In totally unrelated news, Karl Rove has now joined Murdoch’s FOX News Channel as an election coverage contributor.








Posted in Rupert 'The Evil One' Murdoch | 1 Comment

Many comments now live over at Greer’s

Lots of freshly published material to read here, but still no response from Shane Greer (who gives his reason for a delay in publishing comments here).

Mind you, Shane has published a comment from our old friend Praguetory declaring me to be obsessive and paranoid, so perhaps I should take that as my response.

[Psst! Also check the thread for a comment from someone claiming to be Gareth Davies, which should please a few oldbies. Gareth, if that really was you, I’m deeply impressed. Not just by what you said, but the fact that you said it. My hat goes off to you, sir.]








Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | Comments Off on Many comments now live over at Greer’s

Iain Dale: once again condemned by his own words

No response from Shane Greer yet.

No response from CCHQ yet.

No response from Paul Staines and his tax lawyer, either.

But at least Iain Dale has responded to this…. and if you have the stomach to watch him hiding behind his sock-puppets as they play the man, click here for confirmation that he *does* approve of such attacks on his site because, in his words; “[The attacks on John Hirst] are fair comment. Jailhouselawyer calls me far worse on his blog. If he can’t take it he shouldn’t dish it out.”

1. So what’s changed in the last year and a bit, Iain?

Iain Dale (Jan 7, 2007): “Verity and Jailhouselawyer, take your stupid fight elsewhere. No more of it here. All future comments attacking each other will be deleted.”

2. Fair comment? You what? (See: #4)

3. Iain will often retreat into the language of the playground. All that’s missing from my personal collection of comebacks is “I am rubber and you are glue…”

4. Iain Dale claims here that John Hirst has called him something worse than an unrepentant killer and benefit cheat with a dodgy degree. Do correct me if I’m wrong, but unless he can find something to back it up, that’s libel isn’t it?








Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | 12 Comments

Share the love

You are invited to share this video with a creationist. (via)

You are invited to share this video with a Bush supporter. (via)

Actually, things being what they are (NSFW audio), in most cases you’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone.

If you crave more video goodness check out this feature on Barely Political’s productions over at Matt’s.








Posted in Video | 2 Comments

Keep on the sunny side

Sydney Morning Herald – Ads to woo British more sledge than sweet talk: Australia is to launch an aggressive campaign aimed at attracting a new generation of British immigrants. The ads for the South Australian Government include slogans such as “Sod London house prices” and “Screw working in Staines, hello Adelaide”. Bill Muirhead, an Adelaide-born partner in the M & C Saatchi ad firm in London, and agent-general for South Australia, said he was aware the campaign might create enemies. “It might appear we are being rude, but a lot of things in Britain aren’t good,” he told The Times. “We went for Staines because it sounds nasty.”

Well, I can’t argue with that last point, but otherwise they can go screw themselves; I love it here.








Posted in Consume! | 7 Comments

On the subject of stolen images

The Great Architect tells the tale of his struggle to protect his property… and also reveals something quite surprising about News International.








Posted in Photoshopping | 1 Comment