Anne Milton - Guildford MP (and Dipstick)

I drew the line under this blog partly out of goodwill upon Tony Blair's departure, but also because of a growing smear campaign against myself and others by local Conservatives that I feared was getting out of control (i.e. in a way that would risk people other than myself).

But the smear campaign did not stop with this weblog's closure or even with my leaving blogging for a few months, it merely shifted to the anonymous comments of assorted Tory weblogs (including the false claim later repeated by Iain Dale that I had 'stalked' Anne Milton).

Further, it has now been alleged that I've been smeared as a computer criminal within local political circles, and if this is true, I won't stand for it.

Anne Milton, I'm calling you out. Again.

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This micro-blog remains closed, BTW. For all updates and Milton-related action see this category on the main weblog.

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Labels: dennis paul, mike chambers

1. Smears don't always work in politics, and even if they do bring you short term gains, they have a bad habit of coming back and biting you on the arse sooner or later.

2. Don't try to 'play' or manipulate the blogosphere through the use of anonymous accounts, websites and/or sock-puppets... especially if you're an amateur.

3. Never, ever make major updates or changes to your weblog when drunk or angry.

Labels: council elections, dennis paul, mike chambers

Just who in the hell does Dennis Paul thinks he's kidding?

Dennis Paul just published the following on his main website and on his weblog:

I have received an anonymous tip off that a leaflet attacking Lib Dem candidate in Onslow, Chris Ward, is to be circulated across this Ward after dusk this evening on car windscreens. The leaflet is understood to contain a number of points that a disgruntled student(s)? want to bring to the attention of the electorate. If this information is correct then it is a sad day for politics that some independent individual(s) has decided to resort to personal attacks. This is the politics of the gutter and I deplore it entirely. Having been the point of personal attacks myself, this kind of politics has no place in Guildford.

Dennis Paul and Mike Chambers are as thick as thieves.

Mike Chambers has been proved to be behind the anonymous smears published online, and Dennis Paul has played an active role in the promotion of those smears.

This pamphlet (should it exist) comes under the direct remit of the Electoral Commission from the moment it transfers from online to print.

Further, this 'innocent' online promotion of it only serves to lay a trail that will suddenly become a lot more interesting to a lot more people should Dennis somehow ride the Tory train to victory tomorrow... even if he later deletes the entry (which he no doubt will). The same goes for Chambers; he played this same game a few weeks too early on his website before deleting the relevant entry, and I have the records to prove it.

Finally, this smear can only reinforce what people of Guildford have already sensed from their antics this past month... that the local Tories will stop at nothing to gain power at any level.

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UPDATE (3 May) - I figured as much. The text of the original entry has been replaced with the following:

It would appear that talk of leaflets going round Onslow making personal attacks on an election candidate was a hoax. Thankfully, it looks like the electorate will be judging policies rather than personalities.

So character doesn't come into it, then?

Those voting in the wards of Onslow and Worplesdon should be aware - before they vote on the individuals they will be trusting with the proper and impartial management of their funds and resources - that both Dennis Paul and Mike Chambers have been caught playing (very dirty) party politics using time and facilities paid for by the taxpayer.

Heaven knows what Dennis thinks he's achieved with this little stunt. Did he picture Lib Dem activists in a last-minute dash around Onslow? Was he attempting to goad me and others into a last-minute promotion of the smear in the hope that some off his mud would stick?

It doesn't matter. He's just implicated himself... again.

Even if you're not morally outraged by what Dennis Paul and Mike Chambers have been up to (and what Anne Milton and the Guildford Conservative Association have been tolerating) you have to admit that these two chuckle-heads are so confident in themselves and their policies that - when the chips are down - they feel they can't compete without baseless personal attacks.

Worthless. Gutless. The pair of them.

Labels: council elections, dennis paul, mike chambers

There will soon come a day when the Conservative Party will want to be able to deny any knowledge of Anne Milton's antics. But I'm not going to let them get away with it.

Below is just a recent sample of the traffic from Conservative Head Office to this specific area of my website:

The good people who work for the Conservative Party have also been directly informed of a number of developments, and have even been provided with the relevant evidence. Each and every time they have fobbed me off.

Finally, I know for a fact that David Cameron was made aware of these disgraceful personal attacks by Anne Milton's activists, just a few weeks before he maintained a 'dignified silence' while his activists screamed "Personal attack!" on his behalf. That makes him a very special kind of hypocrite.

Conservative Party Peeps, I have two messages for you:

1. Here's something really special for you to look at; one of Anne Milton's cheerleaders has been making deeply personal and libellous claims about me in Wikipedia (while making empty accusations of libel in the process... and accusing anyone who seeks to correct their vandalism of being me acting as some kind of magical sock-puppet):

Take a look at this, this, and *especially* this. Go on, take a good look. Here's a hint for you if you're confused; the bits highlighted in green are the parts that Milton supporters have added; thereby compromising your party and placing Wikipedia at risk of legal action. Oh, and take a few moments to browse through this website before you claim that this could be the work of a well-meaning member of the public; it was established long ago that the bulk of Anne Milton's endorsements came from Conservative councillors, activists and/or family members.

[Oi! I was arrested for hacking in 2005? Funny, I don't remember that. I don't even remember being questioned by the police. Surely something like that would stick in my mind for a long time to come. No? Oh well. Maybe the experience was so traumatic that I blanked it from my memory. Oh, and speaking of memories, I seem to recall that the *only* person who has *ever* accused me of hacking (mainly because he doesn't know the difference between hacking and tracking) is Dennis Paul, who currently claims to be 'a member of the Executive Committee of Guildford Conservatives and an active Branch Member in Worplesdon'.]

When I saw early abuse of the Wikipedia system that was focused primarily on Anne Milton's entry and tracked it back to a Parliamentary IP address, I sent a complaint to Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin. Surprise, surprise, he fobbed me off... not only with a vague suggestion that perhaps an over-zealous staff member was to blame, but also with the assertion that it was quite an acceptable and valid use of an MP's time to make 'corrections' to their Wikipedia entry. I found this reply to be particularly galling as the bulk of my letter read as follows:

Circumstances would suggest that these edits originated from Anne Milton’s office, but if you require a greater level of certainty before taking action, all you need do is request the HTTP/access logs from the relevant IT department for the times/periods specified above.

Now, I can understand the need for an MP to spend a small amount of time ensuring that their Wikipedia entry does not contain any inappropriate content or factual errors (this strays into a grey area, as part of an MPs duty is to ensure that their constituents are well-informed), but I do not think your average taxpayer would approve of this type of vanity-editing and/or censorship using time and facilities that they pay for.

McLoughlin didn't even acknowledge this section of the letter, and failed to follow the matter up with a simple technical exercise which could easily have confirmed or ruled out Anne Milton's involvement.

The HTTP/access logs I mentioned all those months ago are sure to have been deleted by now in the natural course of server maintenance. So now there's no way of clearing Anne Milton outright.

And since that exchange, the abuse of Wikipedia centring on Anne Milton's entry has escalated. All that these people have learned is (a) how to better cover their tracks and (b) that nobody in authority is going to do a damn thing to stop them.

How often do you find yourself wondering why they call you 'The Nasty Party'?

2. Much shorter this one... but I'm not sure that you'll thank me for it:

You chose her. You backed her. Hell, since all of this happened you even *promoted* her.

Do yourselves a favour... next time you pop by to check what Anne Milton has done recently that compromises you, take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and think about how you have compromised yourselves.

Labels: david cameron, dennis paul, inaction, mike chambers, smear-blogs, wikipedia

... showing his true colours.

I particularly love the little facial dance he does when he sees himself on a nearby monitor.

Labels: mike chambers, smear-blogs

If it weren't for this entry on this weblog, Anne Milton and her staff would have remained blissfully unaware of a little thing called Wikipedia, and they certainly wouldn't have known about the vandalism of her entry there. This new level of awareness led to repeated attempts to cleanse the entry of all impurities (most notably from inside Parliament during working hours, showing these people had no idea that this activity would be tracked and recorded).

From this exchange alone we can determine at least three things:

1. Anne Milton and her supporters are completely without a clue
2. Anne Milton and her supporters are very touchy about links/references to this weblog
3. But... Anne Milton and her supporters rely on this weblog for information (see: #1)

There are plenty of past exchanges that set all of the above in concrete, but today, I'm going to bring you a fresh one...

The New Statesman is running a special weblog for conference season. One of the many MPs contributing is Anne Milton.

What immediately caught my eye was this final passage in her first post:

"Also meeting up with a crowd from Guildford for a quick drink - they are such good people (as are all political party activitsts [sic] - such a loyal and supportive crew!)"

This follows recent posts made by Dennis Paul (and recent comments made by Dennis Paul pretending to be other people) after he 'quit' blogging...

1: "A short plug for colleague Mike Chambers website. He is a local campaigner in Onslow whose site can be found at www.ycge.com and is doing tremendous work in Onslow and the University."

2: "I am delighted by the swift action taken by Conservatives to improve safety at Ashenden estate following a brutal attack there. Mike Chambers who promptly set up this campaign has shown local leadership in bringing the key parties together to get improvements in safety."

3: "Local tory troubleshooter Mike Chambers was reported in the press today having got heads together to improve security at Ashenden. This is just the kind of leadership our community needs."

Yes! This is just the kind of leadership our community needs!

Why, it's almost as if a memo has gone out about improving the image of local Tory activists in general and one Tory activist in particular. One can only wonder why.

But... what really had me chuckling yesterday afternoon was the blogroll next to this post (that also appears on every other page of the conference weblog):

Yes, among the links to weblogs by MPs is a link to this weblog about an MP.

Now, it remains to be seen if this is the result of someone at the New Statesman having a laugh or lacking a clue, but one thing is certain:

Anne Milton, and her staff and her supporters all would have seen these pages, but nobody appears to have spotted this... and Milton is so thin-skinned that there is no *way* that she'd contribute to the conference blog if she knew that link was there.

But she sure as hell knows about it now.

Stand by for ACTION!

[PS - Psst! Amme! Going to bed at 2am is a late night. Going to bed at 2pm is a nap. Just thought I should clear that up. Oh, and when you next meet up with your neighbouring MPs, do let them know that I haven't forgotten about them... and please tell Jeremy that he's first cab off the rank.]

[NOTE - Having just checked spelling and links prior to publication I can see... *sigh*... that the Wikipedia 'cleansing' debate has kicked off again this morning. While it's fun to watch Miltonites embarrass themselves with a 'fair and balanced' approach that's on par with FOX News, Wikipedia is not the place for this kind of partisan crap.]

[UPDATE - Anne Milton's new website has just gone live (after spending well over a year 'in development'). I've just added it to the navbar. Oh, and whoever took this picture will want to check their memory cards, as I was standing right behind her at the time. Seriously.]

Labels: dennis paul, ignorance, mike chambers, smear-blogs, wikipedia

Two of Anne Milton's most ardent supporters - local Conservative campaigners Mike Chambers and Dennis Paul - are heavily implicated in an anonymous weblog smear campaign that will turn your stomach:

Click here for the full exposé.

Dennis Paul has since stopped blogging on his official weblog (where further accusations have been made against myself), but the anonymous websites - one of which features a baseless claim that one of their political opponents is a paedophile - are still live.

Anne Milton was informed of the latter site - and the involvement of her former election campaign team member Mike Chambers* - a month ago. Her response was to get a researcher to promise that she would "look into it" only if the victim of this smear came forward.

(*Note - It only became clear in the past week that Dennis Paul was equally involved.)

My view is that - in a case such as this - it doesn't matter what the victim does or does not want to do or say; if a former member of your campaign team and a current local Conservative campaigner is implicated in a smear campaign, it is up to the most senior Conservative representative in the area to investigate it.

When it involves the type of accusation that has in the past led to attacks on innocent people by unbalanced individuals, then it is up to the most senior Conservative representative in the area to investigate it pretty bloody urgently.

Sadly, despite a clear opportunity to deal with this problem, Anne Milton now has to deal with the following facts:

FACT: This involves a criminal act; specifically, a hate crime.

FACT: On Tuesday 18 July 2006 I informed Anne Milton via email that I had proof that Mike Chambers was connected to this criminal act, and she did not even ask to see that proof.

FACT: The relevant smears against myself, many previous attacks on my good name, and this hate crime are all a direct result of my daring to scrutinise the performance of my local MP (which I believe is the right of any constituent). In short; with or without her knowledge, Mike Chambers and Dennis Paul were operating for her benefit and/or for the benefit of other local members of her party.

I am not for a minute suggesting that this is why she is dragging her heels; in fact, I have asserted time and again that she is *constantly* dragging her heels - and once again I'm forced to go public with my findings just to get this woman to Do. Her. Bloody. Job.

Seriously; does she have to be shamed into doing every little thing?

UPDATE (22 Aug) - I now have proof that Mike Chambers is directly involved in the 'paedo' smear... and Anne Milton's office is *still* stalling.

Labels: dennis paul, inaction, mike chambers, smear-blogs

Full report here.

Labels: dennis paul, mike chambers

This weblog is shutting down for a couple of weeks so I can focus on The Political Weblog Project.

Oh, but here is a message for Dennis Paul to tide you over.

PS - Anne Milton appears to have a new website on the way. I'm sure it will be quite wonderful to look at.

Labels: david cameron, dennis paul, housekeeping, mike chambers

[SPECIAL UPDATE (Jan 2007) - Click here to find out what Michael Chambers has been up to since this first outing.]

Hehehehehe.

From the comments under Anne Milton's latest pamphlet: Mike Chambers curiously has a very close resemblance to the original Alfred E. Neumann of MAD magazine ("What, me worry ?") Are They related ? I think we should be told; it was bad enough having Anne Milton looking like Julian Cleary having a bad-hair day !

You know, our man from Shalford may just have a point...

Labels: mike chambers

[SPECIAL UPDATE (Jan 2007) - Click here to find out what Michael Chambers has been up to since this first outing.]

There was something that caught my eye on the latest Anne Milton pamphlet to drop through my door. It all began with the back page featuring real-genuine-on-the-spot-people-on-the-street giving their opinions and showing that Anne Milton is the talk of the town and beloved by all. But the subject of one of these vox-pops also appears on the front page in a group shot of local Tory councillors.



They may very well have collared an ordinary member of the public on the street for a vox-pop and then coaxed her into the group shot. I admit that this is possible. But it was enough to make me curious about some other faces on the back page.

I began with 'Mike', who says: "Fun, enthusiastic and a real fighter for young and old. Anne's a winner."

The only problem is that 'Mike' bears an uncanny resemblance to Mike Chambers, who describes himself here as "Chairman of The Conservative Society" (for the University of Surrey, presumably) and a "Tory party activist"...



This isn't the only discussion board that Mike Chambers has been active on, BTW. Here's Mike Chambers singing the praises of Anne Milton and here he is slagging off Lib-Dem MP Sue Doughty.

Here he is getting a plug on the Guildford Conservatives website, and here he is again on a decision to "establish a Guildford branch of Conservative Future – the wing of the Conservative party for 18-30s" (this same page also announces an exciting future event - Comedy Night with Jim Davidson!)

The photo above was sourced from this photo gallery at the University of Surrey Conservative Society website, where you can see Mike Chambers meeting Anne Milton and meeting Jeffrey Archer.

If the two Mikes are one and the same, then:

1. Yes, he's local
2. Yes, he's welcome to his opinion
but...
3. He's hardly your typical man on the street, now is he?

So, that's one. Before I dig any deeper, let's begin with that and ask Anne Milton straight out...


To: anne AT annemilton DOT com
From: Tim Ireland

Dear Anne,

I've just received a copy of your latest pamphlet. On the back are some vox-pops that appear to be from ordinary members of the public, but 'Mike' looks an awful lot like Mike Chambers, who is a self-proclaimed Tory party activist and - as far as I can tell - Chairman of The Conservative Society for the University of Surrey.

1. Are the two Mikes one and the same person?
2. Who else on this back page is closely tied to a Conservative organisation and/or your campaign?

Before you answer by promising to investigate, please remember that you promised to investigate an unpleasant call I received recently, but failed to reveal or 'discover' that the call came from a Tory Party call centre.

Tim Ireland

UPDATE (2:00pm) - I emailed Mike Chambers about it, too. At his Learning & Skills Council email address. And since then, someone using this Learning & Skills Council IP address has visited this page and refreshed it quite a few times. Perhaps Mike is waiting to see if there's an answer from Anne. But an answer from him would do just as well. Mike, I know you're probably reading this... would you care to confirm or deny?

UPDATE (5:30pm) - Well, this pretty much nails it for me... I popped into the Univeristy of Surrey discussion board linked above and asked some regulars if this was the same Mike they knew and loved. There was some confusion at first, because the Mike in Anne Milton's pamphlet does look like Mike Chambers... only much younger. But I'm now convinced that it is him. The clincher (apart from the responses on this board and two private confirmations by email) was the response from 'maxski', who not only knows Mike, but is involved in some of his Tory activities. His response wasn't 'yes' or 'no', but "Haven't you got anything better to do???"

(BTW, my answer to that question is; "304 days, 17 hours, 44 minutes and 54 seconds"...)

UPDATE (7:00pm) - We now have confirmation direct from Anne Milton that it is Mike Chambers. Her position can easily be summed up as 'So what if it is?', as the pamphlet says "What do local people think about Anne Milton?" and being a Tory party activist does not stop someone from being a local person. Technically. I personally hold a different view. The pamphlet is designed to suggest that these are normal work-a-day people who have nice things to say about Anne as she is 'the talk of the town', when in reality, an unknown number of them are closely associated with her party and/or campaign. Anne has promised to get back to me with details of the other vox-pops. Updates to follow.

Labels: mike chambers, tory ringers