Bloggerheads

During the recent Bit Of Necessary, Jackie Danicki busied herself making false claims that I had stolen an image from her.

She did this to bully me into removing an image of Paul Staines from my website (Paul has, of course, ‘borrowed’ many images in the past, and under the pseudonym ‘Guido Fawkes’ he even objected to being bullied in this way by News Of The World).

The way the entries were phrased and placed would suggest that this accusation was also designed to undermine my credibility (after I had dared to – *gasp* – question the credibility of Paul Staines).

She responded to my last email with the single word ‘unsubscribe’, so I’m assuming that I am now unable to email Jackie without her screaming “Spammer!”

Instead, I have twice submitted comments to her weblog – in an entirely polite and relevant fashion – requesting that she correct or delete the offending entries (that she was ‘courteous’ enough to leave on other people’s weblogs).

She did not publish the comments I submitted; I’m assuming she has chucked both of them into the virtual bin. (In other words, she’s been censoring her comments, too.)

And she has not responded to this or any other request that she remove/retract her entirely false claims about image theft.

Guido’s corner is simply chock-full of charmers, isn’t it?

(Psst! I can’t wait to see what Ellee Seymour is going to bounce back with…. but if I were a gambling man, I’d place an each-way bet on her ignoring the matter or copying Iain Dale and playing the victim. Surely she’s too nice to go for that other all-too-common New Tory Blogger defence technique… character assassination.)

UPDATE – On that subject… look at what everyone’s favourite ‘anti-establishment’ channel is up to now.

Do you remember Paul ‘Guido’ Staines equating his dumbfounding level of comment censorship with my deletion of duplicate comments?

Some cheek, huh?

You ain’t seen nothing yet…

This morning (on Guido 2.0) I blogged about Ellee Seymour and what appeared to be blind devotion to dishonest bloggers like Paul Staines and Iain Dale and/or a deliberate attempt to reinforce their mud-washed version of reality.

The trackback ping generated by that post did not generate the usual link on Ellee’s weblog, but the guts of that post started life as a draft of a comment on her site anyway… so I simply left a short message under this post with a link back to my post by way of response (see screengrab to your right).

Ellee Seymour promptly deleted that comment.

That’s the same Ellee Seymour who once said ; “I do always try and respond to comments, that’s the fun of blogging.”

That’s the same Ellee Seymour who has studied ethics as part of her PR diploma.

And yes, that’s the same Ellee Seymour who has appeared on 18ToryStreet more than once to discuss issues such as ‘fake blogs’, ‘ethics’ and ‘trust’.

On her most recent appearance (right at the end) she actually used my challenge of ‘Guido’ as a prime example of how blogs are self-regulating, because (and this was the thrust of her argument) ‘any blogger could be challenged’… but she appears to be blissfully unaware of the dirty tricks ‘Guido’ uses to make himself immune to such challenges, which just happen to be very similar to the dirty tricks Iain Dale relies on to dodge and bury challenges on his website. (The only key difference between the two is in the use of deletion as a censorship tool. Staines burns, Dale buries.)

Oh, and do I really need to mention that Ellee has not only played a role in these dirty tricks in her latest post, but also bypassed the mechanism of ‘self-regulation’ by deleting my response to it under comments on her website?

Further, Ellee Seymour has recently voiced opinions on her weblog on the importance of declaring an interest when publishing a view on one thing or another; “As Robert Scoble says, if you disclosed it, you have ethics; if you didn’t, you don’t, it’s as simple as that.”

But it’s *not* as simple as that for Ellee… she obviously thinks that exceptions can be made:

As was reported here, Iain Dale published an ‘investigative’ report on one think-thank that operates as a charity (and may or may not have undue political leanings toward the Labour Party) when he is a trustee for another think-thank that operates as a charity (and may or may not have undue political leanings toward the Conservative Party).

Iain Dale did not declare an interest, and when questioned on the matter he pulled out every trick in the book to avoid the issue. When he finally delivered an answer on the matter, Iain Dale said that he thought his relationship Policy Exchange was ‘irrelevant’.

At the same time, ‘Guido’ was busy deleting any mention of the words ‘Policy Exchange’ in the comments on his website.

How did Ellee Seymour react to this?

By praising their “relentless pursuit of the Smith Institute” and grouping those who raised pertinent questions with “New Labour trolls”.

And how did Ellee Seymour react when I called her on this?

She deleted my comment.

Why?

– It can’t be because of the inclusion of a link (‘Guido’ often uses this as an excuse for deletion) because there are plenty of other links in this same thread.

– It can’t be because she classified it as personal abuse, as she allowed this comment abusing me (also from the same thread) to stand without question or qualification.

– And it I’m pretty sure that it can’t be because of a ban on my leaving comments… as this would be just a tad pre-emptive (I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve left a comment on her website).

Tell you what… I’m feeling generous… let’s allow for the possibility that the deletion was a glitch or an accident.

I won’t stop me from calling her a hypocrite, because there is a still the small matter of her rather unique views on who should and should not declare an interest when they publish information… and she deserves to be challenged on that.

(It’s called self-regulation, Ellee… I believe you support this notion, yes?)

Bugger bird flu… we have our own infection to deal with. Most of the action will be over here today.

Manic’s Tips for Becoming a Successful Political Blogger #2: Defending Yourself

Somebody has already submitted an excellent report before the lesson, and they would have received top marks had they not made this point anonymously: Methinks Iain Dale doth protest too much. His blog is good, and there is a free exchange of ideas here, which is refreshing. But sometimes, and I hate to say this because I admire what he does, he is prone to either spinning very small or irrelevant stories as if they were big stories always (surprise, surprise) against Labour. He also sometimes “gets things wrong” but I have very rarely seen him either make a correction or agree his facts were wrong, and I have followed this blog closely for over a year. My overall impression is of a good, effective tory politician, kicking over the stones and getting very good results but also prone to finding his own truths and acting defensively when challenged. He also adopts the pretense of being equitable, professing to like various leftish people, but this appears to be a front, as it nearly always wraps with nasty attacks at some point. A good piece of work for Tory propaganda but hardly a samizdat breakthrough in the battle for freedom! Minor stuff.

(emphasis is mine)

I’ve said my piece under comments. I encourage you to do the same.

UPDATE (2 Feb) – Oh, I’m loving this: Some Conservatives do wish to comment. One has done so right here while simultaneously proclaiming that “the Conservatives do not wish to comment”. That might be a tiny bit ill-advised.

Guido 2.0 – Manic’s Tips for Becoming a Successful Political Blogger #1: Spamming for Links

Political Penguin – Fox News Lite, Guido AKA Paul Staine[s] and Iain Dale: The state of play is a bit uneven at the moment, with all honesty I agree with Unity that the Tories are ahead of the game on this, but lets just qualify that statement. The Tories are ahead not because they are technically better, nor more organised, nor more intelligent, they are simply more unprincipled and happy to break long held netiquette valued by those of us who have a sense of fair play and honour.

*applause*

The only modification I would make would be to change ‘the Tories’ to ‘these Tories’.

On the point of fair play and honour, and the very real need to preserve same, please check this post for an important update.