This entry was posted on
Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at
1:43 pm and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.
Last night I ran out of patience with both Paul Staines and Iain Dale and their repeatedly publishing/allowing false claims about me on their respective websites. Typically, these are often confused with banter or abuse (or deliberately presented as banter or abuse), but I made it clear to Paul Staines yesterday that I would no longer be tolerating the repeated claim that I am a paid servant of Tom Watson, the Labour party or the government, because it simply isn’t true.
Paul Staines has now removed a large number of these false claims from his website, and I’ll conduct a further check later (it may take a while as this been going on for years) but he has acted on everything on the shortlist of archived entries I made privately last night (i.e. a list that Paul has not seen), so he is taking this seriously and actively seeking out relevant errant entries. Good.
And I did it all without the help of a lawyer.
(If you spot any more, let me know, as we have an agreement that no such claim is to be tolerated on the order-order.com website ever again.)
Compare this to the actions of Iain Dale, who refuses to even discuss this matter (or any other), and is now winding his readers up and publishing false claims that I’m a mental case, along with further allegations/implications that I’m only upset about false claims that I’m in the pay/employ of Tom Watson, the Labour party or the government because… erm… I’m in the pay/employ of Tom Watson, the Labour party or the government!
This pigheaded publication of outright lies on his site about me and others while I am banned from responding should give you some idea why I might have cause to re-dial Iain about 40 times last night (while he was busy being hilarious and deleting comments from me but not about me on his site). I wasn’t going to stand for it any more and I wanted the ‘in pay of’ matter at least settled immediately. I still do.
The ‘threats’ he speaks of are actions I will be forced to take if he continues to publish false claims about my integrity (again) and now mental state (again) on his website.
Again, I will be trying to resolve the conflict without turning to libel lawyers, but Iain’s appallingly dishonest escalation today isn’t leaving me much choice.
REMEMBER: FFS, as with Staines, I’m not asking Dale for a front-page apology or a humiliating climbdown… I know he’s far too precious for that. All I asked him to do last night was remove claims about me from his website that he could not back with evidence, and he wouldn’t even bloody well talk to me. He still won’t, even when he’s blogging about me *and* and letting his readers slag me off under comments…. which is, you know, a major part of what I’m upset about in the first place.
By Jimmy April 16, 2009 - 2:28 pm
Tim,I don't have a dog in the fight, but a couple of observations:I can't see it's defamatory to be accused of working for the Labour Party. I'm aware from experience as a Labour member that any time I post some right wing conspiracy theorist will accuse me of working from a bunker underneath No. 10. I find the paranoia amusing. I can't imagine why you'd let yourself get wound up by it.A paedo allegation of course is something else, but the only reference I've ever seen to this has come from you.Finally, spamming someone's site makes you look like a bit of a tit, even to those who might otherwise be sympathetic.
By Athelstan April 16, 2009 - 3:13 pm
Just a friendly note Tim, I think the reason You are getting all those comments expressing doubts about Your mental health is largely the result of your own behaviour, i.e. you're not doing yourself any favours. Most people havent picked up Your actual complaint and if they did it wouldn't bother them that much, for the record I don't believe You're paid by Tom Watson. ( I don't think Iain does either for that matter.) I think You need a thicker skin if You want to continue with this kind of activity, sticks and stones and all that. Just my thoughts, its your life after all. Best Wishes :)
By Manic April 16, 2009 - 3:44 pm
Jimmy: That's why Iain leaves the shells, instead of deleting the entire comments. And I deny spamming. Iain's ban is based on a lie.Athelstan: Iain has misrepresented my many attempts to contact him about this and everything else and has (again) given a dishonest account to his readers and used them to attack me while playing the victim. And when I express concern about someone's claims and they publish claims in response that claim or imply that I'm in the pay of the person they happen to be attacking/smearing, it has nothing to do with thickness of skin.
By Guy Gooberman April 16, 2009 - 4:47 pm
This is a terrible affair and must be frustrating, I had a similar thing but on a far smaller scale only recently and thankfully the blog owner eventually assisted me but only by closing the threads, the comments still stand.Aside from joing your Iain Dale club is there anything else any of us can do?These kind of acts of cowadice turn my stomach, I wish you all the best in convincing Iain Dale to behave with some level of decency.