Bloggerheads

Man, that is a *lot* of effort for a little biscuit, when a simple post or email would have settled it, but I guess Paul Staines has seen better days and Phil “I have no reputation” Hendren is still busy making a name for himself. And it’s no surprise at all that the lead blogger circle-jerker Iain Dale is pitching in.

It creates a compelling illusion for the witless though, and you can see Paul Staines reinforcing that illusion here. By needlessly going all-out on Tom Watson, they seek to convince others that Tom would not have acted honourably (or at all) otherwise.

But, to be fair, these three are notorious for never admitting when they’re wrong, unless a fellow Tory is involved… so perhaps they’re merely projecting their values onto Tom here. I’ve certainly seen that in the case of another member of their team, Praguetory; he’s a serial retro-moderator and a total control freak when it comes to comments, but he’s claimed a moral authority over Tom Watson ever since a concerted spam attack on Tom’s comments function meant that some of his comments fell by the wayside (in Dominic Fisher’s mind, they were censored).

[Meanwhile, not one of these three bloggers has mentioned the name Philip Clarke, which I find curious (see: misleading attacks on Bob Piper).]

Staines, Hendren and Dale like to scream ‘”Obsession!” (or have a sock-puppet do it for them) if anyone presses them for an answer a third or fourth time or takes any effective steps around their comment control-freakery… but they themselves seem obsessed with taking down any bloggers on the left who are more senior to them. Perhaps it has something to do with sustaining Iain Dale’s slowly-coagulating ‘the Tories were here first’ narrative.

It bears mentioning at this point that these three have yet to out-grow Blogspot, and it’s been less than a year since two of them decided to make more than minimal use of a domain name. Dale, the so-called blogging ‘expert’, has yet to make the move.

[For the record: Webcameron was a sham and remains a sham. And very few videos on Webcameron out-perform this single video that shows what a sham it is…. even after a year and a shipload of cash and effort.]

UPDATE – How silly of me… I almost forgot to mention that David Cameron is *still* pretending to operate without the aid of a script and, like most frauds, he’s getting bolder over time.

Gordon, you’re a fool and an arsehole. What made you think that we’d be in a mood to hold our breath over your election plans after months of holding our breath over Blair’s departure? Dickhead.

Via Tom:

Kevin Maguire – Cam’s big speech con: If David Cameron’s audition to be a cable TV daytime host was unscripted, a line swallowed by many newspapers and broadcasters, can anyone explain why the “speech writer” was last night having his hand shaken by fellow Tories? A lawyer acquaintance waiting in a Euston station taxi queue at about 7.45 watched as a well spoken man enjoyed the plaudits of fellow Cons fresh off the train from Blackpool. Anyone know him? He looked in his 30s, fairish hair, dark suit. chequed shirt and a tie with an emblem or motif from a university or club. Reading a London Evening Standard headline hailing “1 hour 10 mins without a script”, he laughed and claimed he wrote the address before boasting “they believe he extemporised!” Another Tory laughed too then grabbed his hand before saying: “Seriously though, great speech. Congratulations.” That Cameron somehow made it up as he went along, apart from a few notes, is the best piece of spin for years.

Oh, yes please… let’s find/identify this man. We should at least give him the opportunity to deny it.

:o)

(Psst! Use this general link if the permalink is borking for you.)

A big job goes begging….

A few Tories are up in arms over at Chicken Yoghurt, claiming that they’ve been misrepresented by Justin quoting them verbatim and linking to each and every source.

The following thought occurred to me during the early part of that exchange:

… isn’t it about time someone did a fresh study of MPs, showing how many of them live in their own constituency (perhaps with a party-by-party % summary at the end)?

I’m sure I’ve seen studies like this featured in print media in the past… I just haven’t seen one recently.

So, that big job that goes begging is as follows:

1. Locate and collate previous studies of how many MPs actually live in their constituencies (yes, even if it’s only at weekends while Parliament is in session).

2. If no recent study exists, start with this list and draw up a fresh study of how many MPs actually live in their constituencies (yes, even if it’s only at weekends while Parliament is in session). The data should include individual entries for each MP/constituency and the final table should allow users to compare data at least on a party-by-party basis. If you have the capacity, handy extra data-sets to have would include (a) the distance from each constituency to Westminster and (b) the distance the out-of-towners have to travel to get to their constituency and Westminster.

Some detective work and bullshit-dodging will be required; during the 2005 election the then-candidate Anne Milton did not live in Guildford and, as it turns out, had no intention of moving to Guildford. Despite this, the official record (the ballot paper) suggested otherwise at the time, as she had taken out a single-bedroom flat in the area; additionally, her campaign literature made much of the fact that the then-serving MP who *did* live in Guildford had the temerity to be born elsewhere.

Which brings us to…

3. When an election is called (now or later) the data will need to be expanded to take primary candidates into account and, ideally, a central blog/category will need to be created/managed to document campaign literature that disregards and/or plays games with the facts you have in your possession.

This focused project would be an excellent vehicle for an up-and-coming journalist and/or blogger wishing to make their mark. It would also be a valuable tool for the electorate, as the “Are you local?” issue is always a big one and is often a centre of deception in resulting campaign literature.