Bloggerheads

To begin with, just let me say this: Derek Draper, Derek Draper, Derek Draper, Derek Draper.

Sorry about that minor foray into the archives. Tim J of Conservative Party Reptile is concerned that I’ve not mentioned Draper enough, and would have you think that I’m trying to excuse Derek Draper’s behaviour or distract you from his deeds, even though I have already condemned his actions and publicly tagged him as the wrong man for the job before Iain Dale and Paul Staines started using Draper’s clumsy underhanded tactics to paint themselves whiter than white (in part before even the emails at the centre of ‘smeargate’, that were sent on Jan 13 and seen by Paul Staines aka ‘Guido Fawkes’ that same day*).

[Psst! In fact, for the most likely explanation for Staines seeing/receiving the McBride/Draper emails on the same day* they were sent, see this entry on my blog about an email Derek Draper sent in Jan 16. In that exchange, Draper appears to accidentally (openly) CC Greg Jackson, Sue Macmillan, Tom Miller and Alex Smith on our conversation instead of (secretly) BCCing them. What I didn’t blog at the time, was the part where Greg Jackson replied to the group without realising that I would be reading his comments about my ‘arrogance’. Draper and his gang are a bunch of keyboard-mashing nincompoops; chances are someone somewhere (probably Draper) CCed/included/emailed Staines or one of his informants thanks to an auto-fill function and a lack of care or common sense. The most likely scenario in the circumstances is that Draper tried to CC/BCC someone on the ‘smeargate’ email(s) but BCCed Staines or one of his informants instead. This is the most likely scenario because it allows for a long period where McBride was unaware of the leak that needed immediate attention, and Draper – who admits himself that he’s a self-destructive arsehole – was willing to gamble that his mistake would never come to light. If that’s the way it happened, it is likely that Draper is still the only person who knows it was his mistake, not least because he still finds himself in a job. In such a scenario, it is equally likely that Draper himself is still unaware of his own mistake, as he is famously ignorant of just about anything to do with the internet and how it works.]

[*MINI-UPDATE (14 Apr) – It turns out there are are conflicting accounts of when Staines was shown these emails (and what he did with them afterwards, and here I’d like to note that Staines’ carefully-phrased/timed denials about him seeking and eventually receiving payment for this story don’t add up to much). Paul Staines may have heard of these emails in Jan/Feb/Mar but not received them until as late as the early days of April. Of course, I can’t ask him about that because he’s a childish query-dodging so-and-so, but this still allows for the ‘accidental CC/BCC’ scenario, but to one of Staines sources, and not Staines himself.]

Tim J also appears to be mistaking ‘fixated’ or ‘obsessed’ with ‘well informed and justifiably concerned’.

Iain Dale and Paul Staines and Derek Draper all represent what is wrong and dangerous in the political blogosphere.

The reason Dale and Staines especially seem so popular is because (a) they manipulate and feed off the mainstream media sewer they claim to be above, (b) they lie and mislead people about their traffic figures, and (c) they individually do get an audience that’s roughly double mine by the ingenious method of telling people what they want to hear, censoring any valid challenge to their claims, and letting people smear anyone who isn’t an ally of theirs under comments.

Oh, and they and their supporters also use and abuse multiple personalities under comments (see two key entries on ‘sock-puppets’ here and here), so for every hundred comments on some days there’s maybe a dozen people in it. It’s very hard to catch people doing this on their own website(s), but Paul Staines has been caught doing it outside his own website (pretending to be supporter, no less), and Iain Dale has a long track record of (at the very least) allowing this sock-puppeting on his site when it is to his advantage and actually using such comments as a weapon in debates/discussions that aren’t going his way (a classic example awaits you here if you have the patience for it). Draper is too new to have any real form here, but he’s clearly a comment cheat, and not above a little sock-puppetry, even if he understands that it’s wrong (which I doubt).

[Psst! Iain Dale once told me that he’d never – never – seen any evidence of my sock-puppeting on his site, even though he’s published many claims to the contrary.]

It should also be pointed out that this stage that being popular/successful does not make you right and not every visit to your website is a vote for you!

(ahem)

While writing this I discovered that Iain Dale published and fed to the media a false claim that Tom Watson was CCed on the ‘smeargate’ emails. He rested on this false claim a repeated demand that Tom Watson explain his inaction… over emails Iain knew he had never seen. This false claim (and demands/narratives very similar to Iain’s) later spread to several newspapers, and influenced many online conversations about this event, on Iain’s site and elsewhere.

The Stirrer – BLOGGER DALE ADMITS WATSON SMEAR

In an interview with The Stirrer, Dale confessed there was no evidence to support this assertion. He said, “I do accept that he wasn’t cc’d into the emails.”

He added: “Knowing the layout of that office, I can’t believe he didn’t know about Red Rag, but I can’t prove it.”

When asked why he hadn’t apologised for his error, Dale said that he had only posted it for around 15 minutes on his site on Saturday night, and had even emailed the Mail On Sunday with a correction – which nevertheless repeated the slur.

“I don’t know why they didn’t remove the reference” he said. “I can only assume arrived too late before they went to press.”

So Iain now claims that he originally thought this claim to be true, but then found out he was wrong 15 minutes after he published? Even if this were true – and it is unlikely, as Iain Dale is a shameless liar and the master of the plausible excuse – he still has to explain why he did not immediately correct all of the relevant entries on his site and/or make urgent efforts to correct the other newspapers who had repeated the claim… and why he continued with repeated implications of Tom Watson’s involvement while his readers were under the impression that Watson had been CCed on the emails, when he had not.

(And Iain is complaining because Tom is warning him that if he continues he’ll have to answer for this in court? He can go forget himself. Contrary to what some pseudo-bloggers would have you think, I am not against taking people to court, I am instead against unjust use of UK libel law to silence someone while denying them their day in court.)

Iain Dale and Paul Staines and Derek Draper should also be warned that they now give me no choice but to come at them at 24 frames per second.

Or perhaps 12 frames per second… just to get it out of the way quickly, because the smell of the shit they’ve been flinging is putting me off my blogging.

With you shortly.

Iain Dale -The Silence of “Propah Bloggah” Tom Watson

Tom Watson MP likes to call himself a “Propah Bloggah”. Strange therefore that his blog hasn’t been updated since Friday. All sorts of allegations are being made against him yet he declines to use the obvious medium open to him to refute them. Wonder why that would be, then.

For the record, here is the comment from me that Iain Dale has been repeatedly deleting under his claim that Tom Watson isn’t much of a blogger and/or a coward:

Compare to the silence of “Propah Bloggah” Iain Dale who refuses to discuss his twice allowing opponents to be smeared as a paedophile.

But he does not use the obvious medium open to him to refute this.

Instead, he cries ‘stalker’, and implies that he is contacting police when he is in fact complicating a genuine police investigation by being a childish fool and refusing to discuss what he did or did not do when asked to contact Tory MP Patrick Mercer about the smears (he didn’t, and then lied about it)

Iain Dale has also repeatedly implied that Tom Watson is involved in a personal smear/conspiracy against him without producing a lick of evidence to support this claim. That itself is a smear.

Now Iain Dale is making out that it is Tom Watson who is the coward, when Watson has issued statements (that Dale chooses to ignore) and talked to the press. Meanwhile, Iain Dale he has been avoiding questions about his own involvement in smears for weeks now.

He is dishonestly making out that he is not discussing it here because I am banned from his website, but the truth is he is not discussing it anywhere, and he banned me so he could continue taking comments here without discussing it.

Why did you not take the requested action to prevent to smears about me, Iain? Why did you stand by and allow me to be smeared as a convicted sex criminal?

Tim Ireland

When the time comes for Iain to whine “Tim Ireland has left X number of comments on this site”, keep in mind that what he is really saying is; “X times now, Tim Ireland has asked me to account for my allowing him to be smeared as a paedophile, and X times I have refused to face it while making out that someone else is a blogging coward with something to hide from his readers.”

I can’t blog full details, but Iain is at the moment compelling me to pass his details to the police, simply because he will not answer a simple question. Iain not only knows this, he is even refusing to acknowledge receipt of an email that explains this to him. Again, I cannot give details, but it’s not one of those weak “I’m going to report you to police” threats that Iain is so fond of, but a situation where the only correct moral and legal action I can take at this stage is ask them to ask him about X because he’s not talking to me (because he refuses to speak about X).

This is the most childish stunt that Iain has pulled to date… and that’s really saying something.

Is he really waiting for me to do this so the police can ask him what he told Mercer’s staff and why he didn’t contact Mercer directly as requested? Why? So he can help Jenvey by using the opportunity to tell police I’m a stalker? If so, why hasn’t he done this already if he really thinks it’s true?

If anybody has any better theories, I’d love to hear them, because I have no idea what’s going on in that head of his.

(Psst! We talked recently, in a frank and friendly conversation, and he doesn’t think what I’m doing today counts as stalking at all. Further, he has never truly believed that I have ever really stalked him, and the furthest he would go – before a change of subject – was saying that “sometimes it feels that way”. In short, Iain is smearing me, too. While playing the victim. What a bastard.)

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UPDATE – I’ve made it clear elsewhere and will say again here that Dale and Staines have been grouping the published emails with an as-yet-unseen email that they claim exists and proves a conspiracy to smear Iain Dale originating from Downing Street. Apart from condemning the content we’ve seen to date, I’m reserving wider comment on the McBride/Draper smears themselves until all of that evidence has been published, and so far it hasn’t.

For the sake of brevity, I must leave to one side the dishonest/one-eyed way in which Iain Dale defended Carol Thatcher, and Iain (again) peddling his self-serving nonsense about political representation in the weblog community, and instead draw your attention to a misleading claim about Paul Staines (aka ‘Guido Fawkes’) that Iain has now seen published by two newspapers in two different opinion pieces on the ‘Smeargate‘ story he’s so desperate to be a part of.

I know how these people work because I have been a victim of their covert operations. McBride ordered his attack puppy bloggers, who include Derek Draper, to smear me as a racist after I tried to explain Carol Thatcher’s use of the word ‘golliwog’ in a BBC green room. He did the same with Guido Fawkes, who found himself tainted as ‘homophobic’. – Iain Dale in the Mail

He has accused me of racism and Guido Fawkes of homophobia. How low can you get? It now transpires that these accusations emanate directly from Downing Street. – Iain Dale in the Telegraph

Yes, and the ‘accusation’ that Paul Staines is homophobic “emanate(d) directly from Downing Street” in the same way that this ‘accusation’ now emanates from Bloggerheads.com:

Sometimes, the sky is blue.

Describing Paul Staines as homophobic is not an accusation, but a statement of fact.

Paul Staines still maintains the position that by implying that a certain MP was a paedophile several times in his failed podcast venture ‘Guido and the Monkey’, he was in fact hinting that the MP was gay.

How is it not homophobic to equate homosexuality with paedophilia?

Is it Paul’s position that he was merely confused at the time… and the next morning, and every day up until now?

Or is it Paul’s position that he was merely drunk at the time… and the next morning, and every day up until now?

To equate homosexuality with paedophilia in the way that Staines did is clearly a form of irrational discrimination against homosexual men.

Paul Staines can therefore be fairly described as ‘homophobic’.

End of.

“When is a smear not a smear? Alas, when it is true.” – Paul Staines (aka ‘Guido Fawkes’)

Let me be blunt:

1. I do recall saying that Derek Draper was the wrong man for the job (or what he made his job out to be), and look at what his bullshit has led to.

2. Anyone – anyone – foolish enough to hand this gift to Staines on a platter with a rich creamy sauce of Downing Street goodness deserves to slapped around by this git… at least for a bit.

That said:

All of this ‘Smeargate’ stuff could be true and exactly as Paul Staines says it is and/or as he makes it out to be, but that would do nothing to dilute the hypocrisy of Paul Staines accusing a fellow spin-doctor of being a smear merchant.

Let me give you a quick example of his work from my own personal collection:

I have a popular article on my website that discourages people from starting their own porn websites in pursuit of a fast buck. Paul Staines, seeing this, tells his readers that I “exploit porn for traffic” while knowing the opposite of what this implies is true (and while refusing me a right of reply).

That’s a smear worthy of the description, and Staines spews them out constantly, either through deliberate misinterpretation (see: spin), rumours dressed as humour (see; ‘rocking horse‘), or anonymous sock-puppet comments that he may or may not submit to his own website (as he has been caught doing on others).

Here’s another; implying that Mark Oaten is a paedophile (on the basis that he is gay, because Paul ‘not a homophobe’ Staines would have you think that being gay makes you a paedophile).

Any outrage you hear from Paul Staines and his followers is bound to be fabricated, as they’ve quietly tolerated repeated smears on the order-order.com website and elsewhere for years.

(Speaking of paedophilia and people quietly tolerating smears, Iain Dale is right now accusing Tom Watson of doing to Tory MPs essentially the same thing that he himself did to me recently; Iain was in a unique position to take action when someone posed as a Daily Mail reporter and falsely accused me of being a convicted sex criminal. Despite my plea for help, Iain did not take that action, and then lied about it, and now refuses to talk about it. He claims it is because I am ‘banned’ from his website, but he knows damn well that he slapped the ban on because he did not want to discuss this issue and I dared to press the matter. On top of this, I now have someone claiming that Iain Dale is actively involved in Glen Jenvey’s schemes. I have reason to distrust the claim, not because I think it’s beneath Iain, who will happily stand by and let fellow Tories smear their opponents with false claims of paedophilia, but because they also claim that Iain is helping by “sharing information” when I know he’s got nothing on me, and never has. I have tried to get some kind of response out of Iain Dale about any of this, but he is refusing to answer my emails or take my calls.)

I reserve further comment until I have read the email(s) that Paul Staines offered to publish immediately on television a few weeks back, then decided not to publish, before offering them for sale to newspapers giving them to the NOTW for free because… erm… I’m sure he’ll make that clear later, and explain why he’s not taking legal action against the newspapers making claims like this:

The emails were obtained by the Tory blogger Paul Staines, who runs an internet site called Guido Fawkes, and had been touted to newspapers including The Daily Telegraph, which declined to purchase them. However a number of other newspapers were preparing to publish them on Sunday. – (source)

Oh, and if I haven’t made it clear, I say all of this without wishing to mitigate or excuse any action taken by anyone proven to be involved in what these pompous arseholes have already tagged ‘Smeargate*’.

(*You know, like they’re Woodward and Bernstein… because after years of slinging shit from the monkey cages, they’ve finally found someone stupid enough to sling some turds back. With nametags on them.)

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UPDATE – Some related bloggage on a similar theme:

Hopi Sen – The Hypoocrisy… it Burns…
Francis Sedgemore – Why we hate politics (part 99)

PS – Keep an eye out for anonymous comments claiming that I say any/all of this because I’m a paid/unpaid agent of New Labour, Downing Street, Tom Watson, etc…. because that’s a smear, too. Unlike Paul Staines and Iain Dale, I have never at any stage had any secret/undeclared funding/facility arrangements with any party, political player or pressure group. Not that this stops both of these clowns repeatedly publishing claims to the contrary on their respective websites while disallowing any response from the target of this persistent smear.