Anne Milton - Guildford MP (and Dipstick)

BBC - How a six-year-old beat the House of Commons computer system: Now that Brianagh had managed to smuggle her keylogger into the House of Commons, Anne Milton, Guilford's Conservative MP, agreed to help Inside Out put the secure House of Commons computer system to the test. Anne Milton agreed to leave her computer unattended for just 60 seconds. But it took six-year-old Brianagh just 15 seconds to sneak into Anne's room and hide the keylogger on her machine. And, although Brianagh had effectively attached a bug to a sensitive computer, not a single alarm was raised.

There's not a lot I can say about Amme right now, as my hospital is being held hostage... but two things do need to be noted for the record:

1. This turn of events provides Anne & Co. with a potentially plausible excuse for the highly questionable Wikipedia edits and smear-blogs. Dennis Paul is already primed for this, as he loves to scream "Hacker!" when he gets caught doing naughty things with his computer.

2. All producers of factual programmes should be made aware that - if they ever need a publicity-hungry MP who can convincingly say "Gosh, I didn't know that!" - then Anne's their man.

Cheers all.

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

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

Given recent developments, I think it's worth pointing out (as it has been pointed out to me) that the Guildford Conservative Association operates very much independently of Anne Milton's office.

(ahem)

And now, for no reason whatsoever, here are some of the individuals who posed as your average man or woman on the street, endorsing Anne Milton in her 2005 election literature...

Meet 'Jill' from Compton:

Jill appeared in Anne Milton's April 2005 election pamphlet and said: "Let's have Anne as MP. Let's get Matrons back in charge - Anne's a voice of common sense."

Ah, yes... common sense. Common sense would dictate that - if you had a vested interest or a close association of any kind - you would be careful to declare it in such situations. Perhaps this is why Jill took the precaution of using exactly the same photo on the Guildford Conservative Association profile page; she wanted to make matters as 'obvious' as possible to the general public upon her appointment...

On the Guildford Conservative Association website she is currently listed as follows:

Jill Eyles - Deputy Chairman (Membership and Fundraising) of Guildford Conservatives

Jill is married with four children and has lived in the Guildford constituency for nearly ten years. She has been actively involved with the Conservative Party for most of her adult life and has campaigned in Streatham, the old constituency of S.W.Leicester, Brentford and Isleworth, when she also stood as a candidate for the local council and now Guildford. She has been involved in fundraising for many years mostly for Arthritis charities and most recently CHASE, the Childrens' Hospice based in Guildford which has now built 'Christopher's' at Artington where she also works as a volunteer. Jill also sits on Compton Parish Council where she is responsible for planning matters.

Needless to say, none of this background information appeared in the relevant election literature.

But we're not done yet, folks...

Appearing right next to Jill (and the lovely Dora) is 'Jonathon' from Blackheath:

When appearing in Anne Milton's April 2005 election pamphlet Jonathon said: "Anne is great value. She'll be a great MP. She's done so much for local people."

Jonathon also appears on the Guildford Conservative Association profile page:

On the Guildford Conservative Association website he is currently listed as follows:

Jonathan Lord - Chairman of Guildford Conservatives

Jonathan lives in Blackheath and, in addition to leading the Guildford Conservative Association as Chairman, he is also chairs the Wonersh and Blackheath Branch. His key aims for this year are to increase membership, to raise the income of the Association through successful events, and to prepare all the groundwork for successful borough-wide election campaigns in both Guildford and Waverley in May 2007. Prior to living in Bramley then Blackheath, Jonathan was based in central London, where he was a Councillor for the Ward of Little Venice and Deputy Leader of Westminster Council. Born in Oldham, he also stood as the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Oldham West and Royton in 1997. Jonathan has over twenty years' of business experience in advertising, marketing communications and technology. As a Director of Saatchi & Saatchi, he ran campaigns for Hewlett-Packard across Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a Director of LastMile Communications Ltd.

Needless to say, none of this background information appeared in the relevant election literature.

But we're still not done, folks...

Meet 'Christine' from Stoughton:

Christine appeared in Anne Milton's April/May 2005 election pamphlet (you can download a copy of this as a PDF file here) right next to the even-more-lovely Kathy.

When appearing in this pamphlet, Christine said: "Anne got straight on to the police about the problems with vandals round here."

Oh, how nice... and yes, you guessed it, Christine appears on the Guildford Conservative Association profile page, too... and - like Jill - she has taken the precaution of using exactly the same photo. I mean, we wouldn't want to go swanning about deliberately misleading the electorate, now would we?

On the Guildford Conservative Association website she is currently listed as follows:

Christine Stacy - Deputy Chairman (Political) of Guildford Conservatives

Christine is married and has lived in Stoughton for nearly 40 years. Following a successful career in communications including service and personnel management, including as Branch Secretary for some years in a moderate trade union, she took early retirement. She is heavily involved in the voluntary sector working with the frail and housebound and was also a Governor at Northmead School in Stoughton for 8 years, including for 2 years the Chairman of Governors. Christine has a keen interest in the health service and thoroughly enjoys helping a local branch of a pensioners' organisation. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, gardening, good health and chocolate in moderation! She recently stood Conservative Candidate in the Guildford North division (Stoughton & Stoke) at the County Council elections in May 2005..

Needless to say, none of this background information appeared in the relevant election literature.

So that's three out of four current members of the Guildford Conservative Association who - before their appointment to this association - appeared in Anne Milton's 2005 election literature endorsing Anne Milton without declaring their past or current affiliations to this candidate and/or the Conservative Party (the only exception being the Right and Truly Honourable Lord Howell of Guildford).

Meanwhile, Conservative activists closely associated with Anne Milton continue with false claims that this weblog is the work of Liberal Democrats (and much worse besides) and when I choose to complain to the Guildford Conservative Association about this kind of thing, for some strange reason the only reply I get is from Anne Milton's office. Now why do you think that is?

[Note for the record: After receiving no reply from the Guildford Conservative Association about recent smears, I finally managed to call - and get through to - Jonathan Lord on Friday. He was kind enough to put me on speaker-phone. Make of that what you will.]

Labels: smear-blogs, tory ringers

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