This entry was posted on
Monday, February 8th, 2010 at
11:03 am and is filed
under Tories! Tories! Tories!.

Unlike some of Nadine Dorries’ nearest and dearest blog-chums, I don’t go around attacking people from behind a shield of anonymity or a range of sock-puppets. In fact, I’ll usually seek to intervene if I see someone engaging in unfair/anonymous political gameplay, so as amused as I was by Nadine’s recent Twitter witlessness…

… I still took the time to politely ask the person who grabbed her old username to play the game fairly and squarely:

By morning, Nadine Dorries had published a false claim that I was behind the hijacking (details), claiming that I was anonymously taking control of this username and other variations of her name. She was also carrying on with some needless hysterics about my being some sort of “sick” cyber-transvestite. While I don’t expect Nadine Dorries to be entirely happy about what I have done quite openly with this single account, her claim that I have repeatedly (and secretly) hijacked her name in an effort to somehow restrict her access to Twitter is a damaging (and, I suspect, malicious) falsehood that I reject entirely.

So I was none-to-impressed when the person who had grabbed Nadine Dorries’ old username retweeted Nadine’s false claim without counter or comment, and I asked them to address the matter:

Sadly, it soon became clear that the anonymous web user was determined to remain anonymous in order to protect their reputation while not giving a damn about mine.

I took a more active interest and quickly established the IP address of the web user who had taken control of the username ‘nadinedorriesmp’ (86.178.153.142). I also discovered that, days earlier, the same IP address had been used to make this edit to the Wikipedia page for the Tory Reform Group:

What you’re looking at there is a classic no-no in Wikipedia; when someone asks for a citation to support any given claim about an organisation, a link to a repeat of the claim on the organisation’s website (in this case, word-for-word) doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Typically, this kind of muppetry involves someone who is at the very least closely associated to that organisation (by profession or friendship); it is not what one would expect from a passing stranger who has yet to develop a taste for the Kool-Aid.

Life is full of infinite uncertainties, but I thought it warranted a polite question. I asked Nadine’s anonymous tormentor what their connection was to the Tory Reform Group:

I didn’t get an answer. In fact, shortly after this question was sent, the nadinedorriesmp username was abandoned.

Meanwhile, Nadine Dorries continues to maintain a claim she cannot possibly prove, despite my emphatic denials, and has even ignored all offers to help her identify the real culprit.