This entry was posted on
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at
4:18 pm and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.

Got any doubts about that equation?

Well, we’ve all watched Derek Draper’s manufactured outrage about words used or ‘defended’ by Iain Dale and Paul Staines (aka ‘Guido Fawkes’)… now I invite you to watch Alex Hilton playing the very same game.

Alex is reacting here to my calling Paul Staines a ‘pussy’ in an earlier email. He’s talked himself into a hole on one of his own damn websites (latest here), and is either ignoring me or attacking me, depending on if he thinks he has the upper hand at any given moment. On this occasion, he clearly thinks he has the upper hand because he is speaking to me:

—– Original Message —–
From: Alexander Hilton
To: Tim Ireland
Cc: Guido Fawkes; Jag Singh
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: For the record

Tim,

The use of the word “pussy” in this context is both mysogynistic and frankly offensive.

Too often women’s body parts are used as a term of abuse which simply adds to the commodification of their sex.

But hang on a moment – I don’t actually believe you are a mysogynist, you seem merely to have had a lapse of political correctness on this occasion.

Not to worry

Alex

I’ll happily admit that Alex might have some pudding here… somewhere among all those eggs. I love the casual sign-off, especially. He makes a big deal about a little nothing – after announcing that he won’t be emailing me any more, I might add – and then ends with a casual ‘not to worry’.

So he’s outraged, but he’s not, but he is, but he’s not. This is not 100 miles from his position on asking people what they think (and please note that I’m paraphrasing here):

Tell me what you think. No, tell me what you think based on what I claim, not on what you know. Or what I told you. Or what you think about that. Yes, that’s it; tell me what you think, but don’t think. Hang on… what exactly are you driving at? Why are you being so mean to me? That’s it; I’m ignoring you!

(Psst! Alex’s invitation to publish our private correspondence on this topic is here, BTW. I sent an email to him almost two hours ago announcing my intention to publish on my website, but it looks like he’s ignoring me again… until the next time, when he won’t be. But he will be, but he won’t be. Oh, and I should point out in the spirit of disclosure that in that same email I called Paul Staines “a pathetic, sock-puppeting fallopian tube” and I bloody well meant it. Sorry, ladies.)

–

UPDATE (18 Feb) – It’s just past midday. The two posts that Alex started about this on LabourHome (and subsequently every comment underneath those posts) have been deleted/withdrawn without explanation. This is what we bloggers call ‘retro-moderation’. Why does Alex want to hide this all of a sudden? He seemed awfully keen to wave it about until a few minutes ago. Are the secret ‘threats’ now so secret that even Alex won’t talk about them?

URLs of deleted threads:
http://www.labourhome.org/story/2009/2/16/131227/809
http://www.labourhome.org/story/2009/2/17/11307/3162