Anne Milton (Campaign Blog)

Conservative MP for Guildford
http://www.bloggerheads.com/anne_milton/

Campaign blog by: Tim Ireland

Launched: March 14, 2005

Format: Blogger.com (standard template FTPed to server)

Comments: Yes
Trackback: No
Syndication: Yes

This was a tough call for me. When I first called for proxy-blogging, I realised that I'd have to at least offer Tim Yeo amnesty, lest people treat this as an ideal and/or assume that the best approach was an aggressive one. (You can read more about what my issue with Tim Yeo is by clicking here. Just if you're interested.)

Then, in 2005, the election loomed and a local candidate by the name of Anne Milton came to my attention. You can read about my first encounters with her here to learn why I started the blog. To learn why I continue it today... well, a chap by the name of Chris Ward met her under far more favourable circumstances, but the way his relationship with Anne developed echoes my experience closely, so his comments on this are worth repeating here:

Chris Ward: I may add that I met Ms Milton under rather nice circumstances and we got on rather well. At the time I was concerned about racial hatred, particularly with literature the BNP were circulating. I believed that this could put our international community at UniS at risk. Anne Milton seemed to agree with me, she seemed quite adamant that the type of thing was deplorable. When I joined the Lib Dems, even then I did not have a dislike for Ms Milton, obviously we were on opposite sides of the campaign battlefield, but that's no reason for a personal dislike. I dislike her because she refused to disown certain literature that was circulated around Park Barn. It contradicted everything she said to me, and made me understand she was fighting for something different.

You can read more about the offending literature by clicking here and following your nose (which is pretty easy to do, because the whole affair stinks to high heaven).

Over time, my impression of Anne Milton became less and less favourable. You may want to read my election-eve statement to get an idea why, or you can simply place your faith in the following comment I made in that post:

I wouldn't trust Anne Milton as far as I could throw her. I place no faith whatsoever in her abilities, her word, her promises, or her character. I had my doubts when I started this weblog, but did not form a firm opinion until I had been exposed to much of what you see above.

Then she won the seat by a margin of 347 votes!

The blog continues with a new focus;

How many of her campaign promises will she keep?
How does she conduct herself as our parliamentary representative?

Early signs are not good.

Though the offer of amnesty for Tim Yeo (which still stands) may allow me to continue to refer to this as a 'proxy blog', I think in the case of the Anne Milton weblog a new classification is in order; it is best described as a 'campaign' blog (and, unlike most proxy-blogs, it certainly does not include an offer for her to step in and take charge of it herself).

Note - Because of the high priority already afforded information published at bloggerheads.com (see: Why do I need my own domain?) this weblog earned the top search result for 'anne milton' in every major search engine within a few short weeks and continues to maintain that position. MPs and Councillors should take note of this. If you fail to engage at the correct level, you may be overtaken by other sites that do - and if one or more of those sites is not acting in your favour, you have a problem.

Posted by timireland on March 14, 2005 1:01 PM in the category Blogs: Campaign

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