This entry was posted on
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at
12:08 pm and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.
Bournemouth Echo – Website praise for Bournemouth councillor comes from… councillor!: ‘Omegaman’ is registered with an address containing Cllr Grower’s name, which does not appear to other readers. When contacted, Cllr Grower initially suggested several people had access to his computer and said: “It could be anybody. It could be me, it could be Santa Claus.” But he later said: “I have done nothing against the law. And probably next time I will just use a different pseudonym.” Cllr Grower said responsibility lies with the Daily Echo because people can post under assumed names, and that the comments were only fun that no-one took seriously. When asked if his approach was appropriate given his public role, he claimed members of other parties did the same.
So first he tries to bullshit his way out of it, and then he issues a haughty “So what?”
For some reason I’m reminded of nuisance caller and sock-puppeting loser Phil “I meant to do that!” Hendren.
Labour Councillor Ben Grower, like councillor-wannabe and chick-magnet ‘Dizzy’ Hendren, will no doubt from this day forward be *outraged* if/when anyone even suspects that anonymous sock-puppets defending his corner or launching an attack from it are in fact his own creation(s), but I’m sure he can continue to offset this with repeated claims that everyone else is at it.
(Thank you Toby for the heads-up.)
By mikkimoose January 13, 2009 - 2:53 pm
You might like to mention that he is a Labour councillor (I assume otherwise, coming from Bournemouth), long-time Labour leader no less. I'm sure it would be mentioned if he were a Tory.
By Manic January 13, 2009 - 3:14 pm
It's a fair cop. Done.
By Professor Paul January 13, 2009 - 4:18 pm
Glad to see Iain Dale getting on boardhttp://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/01/labour-counc…Shame he was three hours late!
By Manic January 13, 2009 - 4:36 pm
Going by Iain's past bloggage on this front, it probably wouldn't have rated a mention at all if it was a Tory at work (unless Iain was defending the puppeteer by claiming that their account was hacked somehow because their password was '1234', obviously).
By Tom January 13, 2009 - 4:37 pm
Heh – I was in the middle of tipping you off about this one when I checked the RSS and saw you were ahead of us as usual."When asked if his approach was appropriate given his public role, he claimed members of other parties did the same."Well, this bit at least is true. A pox on all of them.
By Manic January 13, 2009 - 4:52 pm
Agreed; members of all parties have done so in the letters pages of their local newspaper for years. Doesn't mean we have to accept this as the status quo for comments on newspaper websites, though.
By Tom January 13, 2009 - 5:45 pm
must…resist…temptation…to…indulge…in…'will-you-condemn'ism…kennite is 17 3/4.