A Leaky Chanter: SNP Attempt to Tartanise Smeargate Failure

Well The Times is running a story today about A Leaky Chanter being the Red Rag of Scotland. it even quotes a week old post by Iain Dale which calls them attack blogs.



But the Times is showing a bit off sloppy journalism when it says, "The respected Labour blogger Tom Harris MP has a link to A Leaky Chanter on his site" as if that was damning evidence that it was Labour run. But hang on a second thinks I the Scottish blogosphere is very incestuous when it comes to links so I checked out some of last years top Scottish Blogs in the Iain Dale love in. Well Jeff as top ranked SNP blog links there is his blogroll as do I. The Scottish Roundup will refer to it including this snigger at the Scottish Tories. So hang on if Leaky Chanter is meant only to be an attack blog against the Nats what is that story doing there. Admittedly most of the posts are anti-SNP but they are in Government.



But hang on Angus MacNeil, the SNP’s Scotland Office spokesman, said:

"With a senior blogger linking Leaky Chanter to Scottish Labour, and Welsh Labour finding themselves red-faced over the Aneurin Glyndwr blog, Labour must reveal who is running Leaky Chanter and what its relationship is to Labour’s blogging operations.

"There is a place for humour but we have Labour-linked blogs in Scotland branding neutral civil servants as SNP staff, making inaccurate allegations claiming ‘phantom houses’ and running fake sites as the First Minister — this is a dangerous path for any organisation to take."

Pardon? How does having a link to another blog link that to your own party. Tom Harris also links to Iain Dale, Guido and ConservativeHome does that make them Labour. Personally I agree with Tom's tweet that this is a pathetic attempt by the Nats to tartanise Smeargate.





There are a number of addition reasons that this rant from MacNeil is ill judged, first it comes so late in the day it cries out of attempting to steal some of the thunder. Although if he'd seen some of the polls at the weekend he may have seen that staying clear of the issue was the best course of action. Also Leaky Chanter does not fit into the modus operandi of a Labour backed attack blog, it is on blogspot not a purchased domain. It could be any manner of types that run it.

• A disillusioned floating voter not necessarily pro-independence that voted SNP in 2007 and is sick of seeing broken promise after broken promise


• It may be a disillusioned former Nat (there are a few of these one even sits in Holyrood)


• Of course it may be a Labour sympathiser doing it off their own bat. Particular seeing the number of Nat propagating blogs out there.

So as well as being ill informed MacNeil's comments are also terribly blinkered as a Labour spokesperson correctly points out at least 12 anonymous pro-Nationalist and anti-Labour websites operating (some of them will also be found on my blogroll). "Angus MacNeil and the SNP need to take a long hard look at the actions of people associated with their own party . . . before making baseless allegations against others."

One thing that MacNeil's misunderstanding of the blogoshere does do in linking him to smeargate is that like Draper and McBride he doesn't get the concept, thinks he can just jump in and make statements without full understanding, grasp of the facts or checking his own house first.

In Cyberspce Everyone Can Hear Gordon Scream

Oh dear. As if Alice Mahon's resignation from the Labour and the opinion polls in the Sundays wasn't enough smeargate hits a third strike courtesy of the News of the World (hat tip to Iain Dale).

The latest revelation that nobody in the Labour knew nothing about the emails, the line that has been peddled by Gordon Brown and all the ministers all week appears to not be true. It appears that Labour’s General Secretary Ray Collins chaired a meeting that was to set up the Red Rag website for which McBride prepared the smearing emails he sent to Derek Draper. In a new email that has surfaced written to the then head of Labour's Internet campaign Draper allegedly shows the who, when, where and what was on the the agenda of that meeting.

Who was there:

• Ray Collins
• Derek Draper
• Charlie Whelan (Political Director of Unite, Labour's largest donor, and former Brown spin doctor)
• Damian McBride
• Andrew Dodgshon (Unite Press Officer)
• Kevin Maguire (journalist and friend of Brown) although only in a private capacity

When: 1 December 2008 (7 weeks before McBride's emails)

Where: Charlie Whelan's Office, Unite London HQ, King’s Street, Westminster,

What: How to set up, run and work out how to finance the Red Rag site, which had been registered 4 weeks before on 4 November, from the Houses of Parliament.

Collins has stated that McBride and Draper were acting alone. Amazing how that was done in a minuted meeting with 6 attendees.

A shocked Labour party insider has finally spoken some truth on this issue

"It is devastating that Collins was there. It was a meeting called to set up, run and work out how to finance the Red Rag site.

"It’s no coincidence either that it wasn’t held at Labour Party HQ, or that it was at
Charlie Whelan’s offices in Unite.

"Whelan is back as Gordon Brown's unofficial Mr Fix-it, and he’s now so powerful that he’s effectively running the party.

"If anyone in the party was still daft enough to believe the Downing Street line about this being minor, this email finally exposes that lie."

Going to be another long week in politics for Labour I expect.

Just When Gordo Thought It Was Safe to Go Back into Cyperspace

"Unless there is a dramatic change in what [Labour] are proposing to the
electorate then [losing the General Election] could be the case."

Not the words of a right leaning blogger. Nor of a Tory shadow cabinet minister. These are the words of someone who'd been in the Labour party for over 50 years and served as Labour MP for Halifax for 18 years from 1987-2005 these are the words of Alice Mahon who has quit the party.

She said "I can no longer be a member of a party that at the leadership level has betrayed many of the values and principles that inspired me as a teenager to join." She opposed the leadership on the war with Iraq. Was unhappy with the direction Tony Blair had taken the party. Hoped that would change under Brown but said "I couldn’t have been more wrong". But as for the recent attempt to smear leading Tories, the straw that broke this particular camel's back, she added she was "shocked and absolutely scandalised".

So oops. Just when Gordon was hoping to but the genie back in the bottle we have another weekend of the fallout of smeargate. Only a maximum of 54 more weekends before a General Election though Gordon.

Surely they can't all be filled with Labour sleaze and its fallout?

Can they? 2009/10 can't be a deja vu of 1996/7 can it?

Hung By His Own Petard: RIP Derek Draper's Blogging Career

Oh dear, oh dear.

You'd have thought that having that what with brandishing the racist tag at all an sundry one would be more careful oneself. Even if such comments came from commenters (Guido), or where made in attacks against hypocrisy of one rule for one not applying to a star name (Iain Dale), that Derek Draper would be careful in his own use of language. Not so.

Over the weekend while some of us had more pressing engagements he used a derogatory term for the mentally challenged. This has forced an editor's apology on LabourList. But hang on a second isn't Draper the editor of LabourList? Isn't this the man who demanded a personal apology from Iain Dale?

Now there is a personal apology on his own site, but that was not where he made the statement. Now surely not knowing the entomology is not an excuse for using a term you are not familiar with especially if you are blogging about pretending to be holier than though. It took me all of 2 seconds to look up the term in question.

Now let's look at what Derek Draper has stipulated should be done in such cases of what he has branded "vicious sites".

1. They should apologise personally on the site.
2. Progressive political bloggers should delete their link to them (as I already don't link to LabourList how do I do that?)
3. We should disassociate from all who associate with them* (even allegedly making threatening phone calls [at least inciting others to do so] to any who do get along)

I trust that Derek Draper would expect the same discretion of the Blogophere to be used against vicious slurs against the disabled or other disadvantaged and targeted groups. To do anything else would be "doublespeak" surely.

*Link to Guido's advertisers and LabourList black list strangely missing (more bad blogiquette) Sorry my err0r just couldn't find it amongst all the dross.

If Will Shakespeare were a Blogger

Extract from 'As You Blog It' a Vlog reply to Derek Draper by WillyShakespeare1564

All the blogosphere's a stage,
And all the Twits and Bloggers merely players:
They have their rants and their excentricities;
And one Blog in its time plays many parts,
Its acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Uncertain and reeling in the writers's mind.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining cheeky face, creeping with malice
Unwillingly to the game. And then the lover,
Commenting with earnest, with a mutual blogroll
Made of his friendships built. Then a soldier,
Full of strange thoughts and bearded like the pard,
Defended with honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking a mutual respect of ideas
Even cross the political divide. And then the justice,
In fair round readers list and passing trolls,
With eyes mischeivious and Blog of history long,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the fat and northern former buffoon,
Who not long ago didn't get the t'internet,
His youthful rebirth, well recevieved, a world web wide
For his elderstatesman grin; and his manly blog voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans readers, sans friends, sans reputation, sans everything.

Possible how recent event would have been covered on WillsShakeySpear.blogspot.com

Blogiquette 101: FAO Derek Draper

A couple of days ago I was irritated at Derek Draper's misuse of Web 2.0 in all it's various forms, particularly in the way he was treating Iain Dale. So much so that I tweeted this:

Over the years, and yes Mr Draper many of us Mr Dale and myself included have been at this for years have come up with a way to co-exist. We follow some simple rules that newbie Draper in his rush for the top spot seems adamant to barge straight over. This is a lesson in some of the ways of the Blogosphere to help him with his blogiquette.

Now I don't brown nose Mr Dale as our recent spat over his use of language shows but I'd like to think there is a certain respect that goes on there despite of ideological differences. In fact even during that little spat I was conversing in private with Mr Dale and was having a good laugh, but it was our ideological clash that was in the public domain and created a little bit of a debate.

Yes it started as comment on his blog. I then felt the need to blog about it. That is fine that is debate that is what the blogosphere is good at. You can respond almost instantaneously to the posting of another. You use your blog, your social networking, your YouTube or whatever means you want in the plethora of Web 2.0 options to get your reply across. You engage in debate.

That is something that Draper has singularly failed to do over the past three weeks. He thinks he can walk into the room and not so much engage in the debate but set it.

Lesson point 1: you cannot control the debate the Interwebby is too big a vehicle for that.

Now there are two arguments that were going on regarding Carol Thatcher's remarks one was the use of language, the other was the whole issue of privacy and indeed double standards from the BBC. The privacy issue was one thing that Will Young did some up on Question Time last night, but yes it was also a grey area. The green room of a television studio is technically still in a workplace, and it also the equivalent of a staff rest room (with the added issue that alcohol may be present).

So therefore that in this complex issue the fact that Draper published private correspondence received as well as merely what was sent as Dale did. Now every blogger will from time to time publicise their outgoing correspondence. That's natural it is the Web 2.0 version of the open letter to the press. But that does not give you the right to publicise the whole correspondence from both sides to score cheap political points. Heaven forbid if all my correspondence in confidence to other bloggers over the years ever became public. It is often the behind the scenes stuff that does the firefighting, especially if others are getting overly worked up about something which starts to distract from the main point.

Lesson point 2: What comes in private stays in private. What you write back you can publicise.

Mr Draper it may surprise you to learn that by in large the political blogosphere is a pretty amiable group. I mean every day we sit at our keyboards putting out our opinions for the world to see, and those of us who accept by in large all comments know that we are going to be slated, but we raise to the challenge of debate.

Now I don't feature that often on the Lib Dem Voice weekly Golden Dozen possibly for a number of reasons firstly I'm not one of the Westminster/London centric based blogs but also more importantly I think because the majority of my referrals come from the opposition blogs rather than the Lib Dem Blogs aggregator (which accounts for the top seven positions).

Lesson point 3: Engagement in debate with others will get others to read you far better that a soliloquy stage left.

Now it depends very much what Derek Draper's raison d'etre is for LabourList. If it is to stir up the Labour activist core into action then he is going the right way about it, because I read very few of the rest of the party's bloggers (or for that matter some of the moderate Labour ones) that pay much lip service to LabourList. If it is to get his message and point across to the other streams of ideology and those of now he has to be more than an attack blog.

I still love the quote that Nich Starling lifted off my blog for the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging 2008-9.

Maybe Mr Draper concentrate a bit on the balance of that statement. He's clearly found something in what Iain Dale's stance could be perceived to be attack worth, whereas Iain was attacking a different angle from the one Draper has been running with.

Now as Caron says time to grow up boys.

Update 8 February: Derek Draper has actually been here and left a comment below. It refers to a posting on his website however you cannot post without registering. But of course to register there as well as asking for my email details it asks for my name, postcode and whether I am a Labour party member. The only reason that these three details could be required to allow me (or anyone else) to pass comment on Mr Draper's baby would be for the purposes of electioneering, therefore I refuse to comply. On that issue I posted the following response.

The fact that LabourList requires postcode details before allowing them to post shows the overzealous nature of control of people's personal data. So while I am fully aware that the Local Labour party know full well where I live (indeed both the MP and MSP are aware that I live close to their office) I will not be submitting it to your site to have the priviledge of commenting there.

Doing so is another lack of understanding of the inclusiveness of the blogopshere.

Lesson point 4: Either you are a party site and campaign tool or a blog. Don't expect bloggers as individual units to divulge personal data for your dark purposes to have the priviledge to comment. They will do it elsewhere without this hassle which does make it harder for you to actually keep track on what they think.

Labour's Bitch

I've been sort of watching Derek Draper's Twit Bitch at Iain Dale this morning starting here. It doesn't surprise me too much as Draper seem woefully unable to remain civil in the blogosphere and his blogiquette is atrocious.

It started with the statement:

LabourList has suspended Iain Dale from our blogroll until he clears up
remarks he has made about "Golliwog" being an acceptable term.

Actually if you Iain's original post you find that he was actually pointing out inconsistencies in the BBC's policy over racist comments. He cited Chris Moyles as an example who got away with it not once but twice. While the daughter of the former Prime Minister, Carol Thatcher upset Brummie man of the people Adrian Chiles, Moyles upset Oscar royalty in the form of Halle Berry. Iain was under the assumption until earlier this morning that the hair in question belonged to Andrew Murray, as white as the snow that is cover so much of the UK south of Dunblane.

Now in past with Mr. Dale and other bloggers that I read I will point out an error, asking them to correct it, if after giving adequate time for a correction to be made nothing is forthcoming I may consider other action. Not so with Mr Draper ignorer of Blogiquette extraordinaire. His hissy fit a suspending of Iain's blog came after Dale had struck through his comments thus

And the tennis player concerned is allegedly the hideously white Andy
Murray.

See Derek Iain know that if a blogger is found to be in error transparency of that error is what counts. It's what the audience expects. You see another example last night where Iain posted John Prescott's video response to his own error of assumption.

Sadly LabourList like so many of the Labour blogs seems to think that political blogging can exist without referring to the rest of the rainbow of Political opinion. One thing Iain Dale despite his own right wing leanings can never be accused of. Labour need to lighten up in the Blogosphere and engage with others constructively, sadly as the approach of Mr Draper seems to so they seem to think they can control it. Tough that got out of the bag too long ago.