This entry was posted on
Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at
10:09 am and is filed
under Old Media.
Boris Watch has spotted it, and it slipped under the Guardian’s radar at the time, but I’d like to highlight this for regulars at Bloggerheads as a warm-up of sorts.
This is a comment left on the Guardian’s website using the ‘kennite’ account. In other words, it is a comment made by Andrew Gilligan or his mysterious life/business/tennis partner (background).
I invite you to watch ‘kennite’ and marvel at the sheer gall of it all as he belittles Ken Livingstone (author of the article) and Brian Paddick (‘BrianforMayor’):
kennite
Mar 23 08, 10:12pm
I’ve never seen this before: an incumbent Mayor, and two of the other candidates, posting on a talkboard. On a public holiday, too. Could they, perhaps, be desperate? Interesting to see that Boris doesn’t feel the need to post.
(rolls eyes)
Because what ‘kennite’ was doing – even if he is a ‘partner’ of Gilligan’s and not an invention of Gilligan’s – wasn’t at all pathetic or desperate, was it?
Oh, I’m going to enjoy this…
(prepares stick)
By Tom November 25, 2008 - 12:13 pm
What's interesting about that comment is that it shows Gilligan not just attacking Livingstone but actively promoting Boris, which I suspect he was careful *not* to do in his published journalism.The question underlying all of this is – did Gilligan start all this as part of a personal vendetta against Labour (and was then mercilessly ridden by any Tory who wanted to push a line) or is he actually a fellow traveller with the Policy Exchange right wing?There's evidence both ways – on the one hand no PXers appear to have jumped to his defence, but on the other the online and offline tactics employed have more than a whiff of Cold-War style disinformation, if not downright Rovian swiftboating*, and we know where people like Dean Godson (and, lest one forget, Paul Staines) got their grounding. Tom Griffin noticed that, too – I remember he was amused that all this intense effort was being made over bus design.* Where was Livingstone's advantage strongest? Transport. Where did PX/Gilligan get most involved? Transport. Compare the activities around the Kerry/Bush war records.