Iain Dale's Dairy

L'envoi

2007-06-21T10:37:00.000Z

With the imminent departure of Tony Blair and the coronation of Gordon Brown, the fault lines in British political blogging will need to be redrawn. Just as a departing President may issue pardons, so this site is drawing inspiration from Blair's leaving office and issuing a pardon to Iain Dale.

To be honest, this micro-site has done about all that could have been expected of it. To prolong its active life would diminish its impact. Hopefully bloggers - Iain Dale included - have learned some positive lessons from this site. If not, well we all know what happens to those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past.

This site will close shortly

2007-06-19T08:22:00.000Z

We're waiting for an editor to check in.

:o)

Comments have been closed in the interim.

Gullible's Travails

2007-06-07T08:44:00.000Z

You shouldn’t laugh.

Then again... No. You should.

I’ve been laughing like a drain for days at Iain Dale’s attempts to wriggle out of admitting that his ‘Brown plays politics with terrorism’ spin story was all a load of… well, unsubstantiated spin.

Let's look at Dale's original write-up to begin with, and I'll show you exactly where the spin is:

Gordon Brown's spin team of Damian McBride and Michael Ellams spent most of Saturday phoning round the Sunday lobby giving them 'exclusive' insights into Gordon Brown's views on fighting terrorism.

Wow, what a staggering revelation, eh? Brown wants to get his face in the Sundays so what does he do? He only goes and gets his PR staff to ring the papers. What shocking behaviour! I'm completely aghast - how dare they ring the papers when they'd like them to run a story. The sheer nerve it all!

Confidentially (of course) my confidential 'sources' in the Tory Party (who must never ever be named as co-conspirators) have been telling me that Cameron never, ever, asks his own PR people to ring lobby journalists in order to place stories in the Sunday Papers...

...he just gets David 'Two Brains' Willetts (who's really the Mekon... Sshhh - not a word to anyone, its a secret) to telepathically implant stories directly into the brain of Patience Wheatcroft at the Telegraph. Oh Shit, I've started channelling Guido.

I believe there was even a document from which the journalists were able to craft their words. Indeed, so similar were the stories in the main broadsheets they had to have been given a document. Click on these stories if you don't believe me - Sunday Times, Observer, Independent, Telegraph. Now, nothing wrong with that until you know what the terms of this 'exclusive' story were.

A document, eh... The plot thickens...

What Iain's talking about is a press release.

That's the actual story here. Brown's senior PR staff rang a small number of journos at the main Sunday papers and then faxed/emailed them over what amounts to a press release - and there is indeed nothing wrong with that at all...

...so why go to all the trouble of waffling on about 'documents' from which the journos 'crafted' their words in order to make the whole mundane business sound ever so much more sinister and clandestine than it really is?

Because Dale's blatantly spinning the story himself for all he thinks he can get out of it by trying to convey the suggestion that these journalists are, themselves, being coerced into spinning stories for Brown.

But that's not all - now we get to the good bit...

Brown's spinners told these papers* that they would only get the story if they agreed not to carry any quotes from David Davis, Nick Clegg or any other opposition spokesman. Not only that, they weren't even allowed to tell the Tories or LibDems about the very existence of the story. Now, have a look a those links in the above para again. It's not difficult to spot that not a single one of the stories contains a quote from David Davis or Nick Clegg? Coincidence? No.

No, you're right Iain. Coincidence is not the operative word here... that word is 'Bullshit'.

Here's Patrick Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph, in Dale's own comments:

You make a great fuss when you think newspapers get things wrong but you are quite happy to make rubbish claims yourself.
I wrote the Sun Tel terror story and I can categorically assure you I received no instructions or threats from the Brown team not to contact the Opposition.
If I had, I would have told them to p1ss off.

And then there's Iain Kirby of the News of the World:

Iain - As Political Editor for the News of the World I also wrote up the Terror story and your version of events is completely wrong.
As Sunday journalists we do not follow a rolling agenda like the dailies and therefore keep policy speeches from both Conservative and Labour front benches to ourselves until deadline.
I notice you did not complain that Alan Johnson or Sarah Teather were not quoted in our story alongside Graham Brady's article on grammar schools.
Also, Michael Ellam has not taken up his post yet, so he was probably doing something far more enjoyable than ringing around the Sunday lobby.
Like Paddy Hennessy, I am more than capable of telling a special adviser to piss off

And Nick Watts of the Observer:

Your claims are not standing up to scrutiny Iain. I wrote the story in the Observer and would like to second the postings by my colleagues Patrick Hennessy and Ian Kirby. I received no instructions from the Brown camp not to contact the opposition.

Nick Watt, The Observer

So that's two of the four journos who's articles are linked to by Dale - plus one he neglected to mention - all calling him out for talking bollocks. And Dale's excuse is:

I pointed out that I know for a fact that at least one newspaper did receive such a briefing and it was entirely reasonable to assume, given that all four broadsheets wrote almost identical stories, that all of them agreed not to carry quotes from either of the opposition parties.

Ah.

So a 'fact' is actually an anecdote that someone told Iain - one that he couldn't be bothered to check out to see if it was really true...

Meanwhile, over at Guido's, 'Sunday Times Insider' has rather a different take on the nature of this 'fact':

So what motivated failed Tory MP and still ambitious Dale's ejaculation on the subject? Answer: The Sunday Times was embarrassed the story was, er, not quite the exclusive it appeared to be and has tried to muddy the waters by claiming they had it exclusively before it was "briefed" all around. How embarrassing for their lamebrain lobby hacks. Just the usual nonsense from their dunderhead political editor David "crackers" Cracknell who persuaded a gullible Dale to run such guff.

In case anyone's at all interested, Dale's real beef in all this is that none of the papers who ran with the story could be arsed to ask his mate David Davis, for a quote - thereby preventing the Tories from spinning Brown's comments as an unwelcome intervention in a matter in which a couple of cosy little cross-party glee clubs had already come to some sort of unspecified consensus.

If one actually looks at Brown's comments and compared them with the 'trailer' for Reid's planned speech on proposals for yet more anti-terrorist legislation, most of which had already been extensively trailed in the press over the last few weeks, what is most obvious is that Brown was saying absolutely nothing that wasn't already in the public domain, having previously been trailed by either Reid or by the usual unnamed Home Office spokesman who crop up when politicians want to float an idea without the risk of taking flak if the public aren't keen.

Brown may have been 'playing politics' on Sunday, but only to a very limited extent in openly associating himself, as the incoming party leader and prime minister, with a raft of policy proposals he intends to support but which previously had been trailed exclusively by another minister - John Reid - who also happens to be leaving the government in about three weeks time...

...Dale's reaction (and his 'story') doesn't even make the grade as 'playground politics' - it more 'infant school politics' and Dale is just throwing a tantrum because the press gave Gordon first use of the sandbox without letting his mate, David Davis, play as well.

Dale's article, as it now stands, concludes with a typically self-serving and self-justifying acknowledgement of Hennessy's comments (although not those of Kirby or Watts - but then Dale does get the occasional payday from writing puff pieces for the Daily Telegraph), in which he still sticks to the line that its reasonable to infer things of which he has no direct knowledge on the basis of one entirely unverified and unsubstantiated comment from a journalist who, so it has been alleged elsewhere, may have fed Dale a pile of steaming bullshit in order to cover his own embarrassment at finding out that his big 'exclusive' wasn't quite so exclusive as he assumed it would be.

UPDATE * Patrick Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph has vehemently denied in the Comments that he received any such briefing along the lines I suggest. He describes this entire piece as "rubbish". I pointed out that I know for a fact that at least one newspaper did receive such a briefing and it was entirely reasonable to assume, given that all four broadsheets wrote almost identical stories, that all of them agreed not to carry quotes from either of the opposition parties. Hennessy further says: "I didn't think the story needed a Tory or Lib Dem reaction". That is of course for him to decide, but I have to say that I find it astonishing that on an issue where Blair and Cameron, together with Red, Davis and Clegg were trying to build a cross party consensus (soemthing Hennessy must have known about), he didn't think it worth ringing Davis or Clegg to see what they thought about Brown crashing in on the issue. Of course, PA carried Davis's fairly strong comments from 7.30pm, well before the Sunday Telegraph's deadline.

A better man would simply make the necessary corrections and offer up an apology for getting it wrong.

UPDATE.

It seems that Dale's capacity for shameless self-publicity and self-justification continues unabated on this one:

UPDATE: Michael Howard must read my blog. He just asked John Reid if it was appropriate for the Chancellor to give stories on terror legislation to Sunday papers with conditions that they did not carry quotes from Opposition politicians. Reid said he was at one with his very close friend the Chancellor and batted it away.

Remember, three journalists have, thus far, denied that any such conditions were even mentioned let alone imposed and it's been alleged that Dale's (also alleged) source for the story span him a complete yarn on this to cover his own arse.

As one anonymous commenter at Dale's blog notes, to continue to peddle this story is tantamount to an allegation that the three journalists in question - all political editors with their respective newspapers - are lying.

UPDATE - I've put the Times angle to Dale and got this response:

Unity,

An interesting theory, but I'm afraid that I haven't spoken to or had any other form of communication from David Cracknell for a couple of years. Sorry to blow that particular theory out of the water.

Fair enough, although in the interests of strict accuracy it should be noted that the Times article carries two names on the byline - Cracknell and David Leppard.

Having checked, it also appears than none of the main Sunday's who ran the story, including the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express bothered to contact David Davis for a quote and, even more amusingly given Dale's subsequent whinging, Reuters, who only covered the story second hand, did go out and get a couple of quotes...

... from Shami Chakrabati and Lord Carlile.

UPDATE - AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR

And another journo denies Dale's story:

Dear Iain,

It is unlike you to get stories squew whiff but on this occasion I am afraid your report about a supposed

Brown terror spinning opposition is not right. You are correct to say that we wrote a story about Brown's policy on terror, which I felt was of interest to our readers as we have long been following this issue. However, to my knowledge, neither Damian McBride or Michael Ellam were not frantically calling the Sundays last Saturday (I didn't speak to either of them) but it is not right and insulting to suggest that we were instructed not to contact any opposition spokesmen. Obviously such instructions if they had been given would have been ignored. So sorry Iain, your story is not up to your usual standards.

Marie Woolf
Independent on Sunday

Its own reward

2007-05-23T15:07:00.000Z

Congratulations to Iain and Dizzy Thingy for their nominations in Conservative Home's 'Best Tory Blog Run By A Tory Nominated By Tories Voted For By Tories And Awarded By Tories' Award. Well earned and well deserved.

Also, congratulations to them for their nominations in the Fistful of Euros' Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards 'celebrating the best of the European blogosphere'.

Oh. My mistake. As you were.

Anyway, let me tell you about the dominance of right-wing bloggers...

Massacres can be fun!

2007-05-22T17:21:00.000Z

More hilarious gossip from Iain:

The Member's Tea Room in the House of Commons hasn't done very good business today. It seems the unmistakeable tangy smell of death is in the air. Some are blaming a dead rodent. My mole, however, reckons that the culprit may be more human. He says it reminds him of Auschwitz and thinks that the Brown Death Squads may have prematurely started their cull of Blairites. Anyone seen Ruth Kelly this afternoon?

Maybe somebody killed her like a Jew.

Actually he did say Auschwitz. What he actually said:

The Member's Tea Room in the House of Commons hasn't done very good business today. It seems the unmistakeable tangy smell of death is in the air. Some are blaming a dead rodent. My mole, however, reckons that the culprit may be more human. He says it reminds him of the Katyn massacre and thinks that the Brown Death Squads may have prematurely started their cull of Blairites. Anyone seen Ruth Kelly this afternoon?

Maybe somebody killed her like a Pole.

Katyn was a massacre of Poles by the Red Army in 1940. Very few Jews were involved and so it's funnier. Do you see?

(Thanks and apologies to the anonymous commenter on that thread.)

Cheap Shot #8947

2007-05-22T11:31:00.000Z

Iain bans the potty mouths:

I want this to be a civilised site where people can read the comments without fearing what their eleven year old child might discover were they to have a quick peep too.

I think he's pitched it about right, eh readers? Those eleven year olds should feel right at home in Iain's comments. Even younger readers, in fact, should feel confident of being able to punch their weight.

A sadder economics

2007-05-22T09:16:00.000Z

Iain's done it again. The urge took him and out came another fundamentally flawed post. Ignoring yet another "I am not your researcher" outburst, Dale decides to base his argument attacking the New Deal on unsubstantiated figures from a third party. After all, not only is he not your researcher, he doesn't even appear to be his researcher.

Over at the Ministry of Truth, Unity has taken Dale to task on the matter, pointing out that Frank Field required a 29 page report with which to make a flawed attack on the New Deal, making Dale's measly 43 words on the subject appear extremely inadequate.

Iain Dale, not your researcher, not his researcher; in fact not prone to doing much research at all.

Double bubble

2007-05-16T15:08:00.000Z

A two-edged victory for Iain today.

First, he takes at face value an unsubstantiated rumour from a political rival (and business associate) with a penchant for being screamingly inaccurate. Those rotters at the Home Office 'ban' civil servants from getting their daily fix of unsubstantiated gossip - they didn't go to all that tedious hassle of installing javascript to block linking.

Then, upon finding out that the unsubstantiated rumour he had passed on was cobblers, Iain got to gloat that the unsubstantiated rumour he had passed on was yet another cock-up from a political rival (and business associate) with a penchant for being screamingly inaccurate. Brilliant.

Iain Dale is a very nice person

2007-05-14T10:50:00.000Z

Well, first of all, we (finally) have a (partial) answer (of sorts) to this series of questions for Iain Dale:

Iain Dale's Dairy - Iain Dale: some questions about John Hirst

The answer is documented here, in the following post from John Hirst:

prisonlawinsideout - John Hirst 3 Iain Dale 0: This is the explanation offered by Iain Dale[;] "When you first started emailing 18DS I was genuinely interested in what you had to say on prisoners votes and went out of my way to give your views time on the channel. This resulted in me saying I would invite you onto the channel. I said that on air before I was aware of your past. I discussed the issue with colleagues and it was felt that as you hadn’t been upfront about this it would not be a good idea to invite you. I saw no point in entering into lengthy correspondence about this. At about the same time you started saying some fairly inflammatory things on your blog and on mine. This tended to confirm the view that we had made the right decision. In terms of being 'got at', I’m not sure what you mean. The only people I have discussed it with are within 18 Doughty Street. No one 'got at' me. We made a joint decision".

Today, we invite you into the mind of Iain Dale so you may better understand the truth behind this answer. The thinking appears to run as follows:

What this deeply poisonous post at Iain Dale's Dairy blew out of all proportion was that Iain received a number of private emails from his valued contributors urging him not to allow John Hirst onto 18DoughtyStreet. During the course of this innocent and heartfelt intervention, it suddenly became clear to Iain that a blogger going by the name jailhouselawyer at a blog named 'prisonersvoice' had a criminal past (but the matter was only discussed with the team at 18DS, so therefore those contributors played no part in the debate). How dare John Hirst keep this from Iain? And how dare he suggest that Iain had been 'got at'?! No doubt this conspiracy theorist is part of the Tim Ireland conspiracy.... and so on and so forth.

Strap in, folks... we go deeper into Iain's mind when we further investigate correspondence published by John Hirst here and here:

"You have had a detailed explanation. And I have no intention of continuing correspondence with you when you have publically [sic] called me a hypocrite and a liar". - Iain Dale

This may seem a bit of a stretch, but do reach for it, folks... yep, almost there... *ding*

Iain thinks he's already in the House of Commons!

This being the case, if you ever dare to call Iain Dale a liar or a hypocrite, he will feel quite within his rights to refuse to discuss the issue with you until (maybe) after you withdraw the accusation and apologise... to everybody.

But it gets so much better...

"I am not prepared to have 'diplomatic relations' with anyone who links to the Iain Dale's Dairy site, so I would ask you to remove it from your bloglinks" - Iain Dale

This bullying approach bears out a lot of what we've been saying about Iain Dale's selfish and cack-handed approach to networking and linky-love... and on the subject of bullying you will want to:

a) Note that nowhere does Iain Dale address the matter of John Hirst being bullied at his website.

b) Have a look this charming comment in response to John's flawed but earnest YouTube effort: "Get help. Or top yourself. Either or."

Nice.

PS - Be warned that if you decide to blog this item, it could result in your removal from Iain Dale's blogroll.

No punchline required

2007-05-03T10:31:00.000Z

Anyway, get this. It's World Press Freedom Day today. Guess, for reasons known only to themselves, who the Guardian's Comment is Free team thought was the best person to pontificate on the freedom of information and exchange of ideas afforded by blogs and other online communities?

You'll never guess.

Who? Tim Ireland? Try again.

Tim Worstall? Nope.

Tom Steinberg? Sorry.

I'm going to have to tell you. The person the Guardian's Comment is Free team thought was best suited to pontificate on the freedom of information and exchange of ideas afforded by blogs and other online communities?

Iain Dale.

No, really.

Allow yourself a short, hollow laugh.

"He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post."

2007-05-02T10:59:00.000Z

Ugh! He got me!

Vision fading... flesh... chilling... find myself... unable to blog...

[reset]

Iain was taken to task about the censorship of his stat-porn and this redirection stunt yesterday.

Without me having to do anything about it, several people (including Unity) flagged his partial and infuriatingly misleading response as proof that the man has nothing to offer but clumsy misdirection.

The relevant exchange is repeated below. (Do treat that hyperlink with care.)

I could add ~~notes~~ poison along the way, but it speaks for itself:

Scott Matthewman said...

So one referrer manages to reach no. 8 in your list, even though all clicks come from a single source (as Laurence's comment suggests).

And yet Bloggerheads, which was at no. 6 in your similar chart a month ago, has disappeared completely.

You're not being honest at all, are you?

And does it have anything to do with the fact that you're (badly) attempting to ruin the user experience of visitors to your site if they've come from a site you don't happen to agree with -- regardless of whether or not they would agree with the opinions voiced on that site?

If you want to portray yourself as a professional blogger, I would have thought a degree of professionalism would be in order. Acts such as wilfully distorting your chart figures and preventing people from linking to specific blog entries are highly unbecoming.

May 01, 2007 3:52 PM

-

Laurence Boyce said...

Interesting. I’m very much inclined to think that Iain is a good egg, but there does undeniably appear to be some “dodgy code” at the start of his template. But you’d have to say that it’s not exactly very well hidden, which would be easy to do. And it’s probably not his handiwork either. Still, no need to let that stand in the way of a good story.

Iain Dale in dodgy template shocker!!!

May 01, 2007 6:14 PM

-

Iain Dale said...

Scott, I have made no secret of the fact that since the March figures I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him. Simple as that. If you have followed what he has said about me you wouldn't be at all surprised. I make no apology for it. I'm simply not having him polluting this blog with his poison. He has plenty of his own sites to do that on.

It's nothing to do with not agreeing with him. It's about abuse. Watch him. He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post. See if I'm not right.

May 01, 2007 6:28 PM

-

Scott Matthewman said...

Scott, I have made no secret of the fact that since the March figures I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him. Simple as that.

But you could reference where he comes in your chart without linking to him. That would be the honest thing to do, even if you don't want to link to him.

As it is, you've omitted figures and covered up that you've done so. If a Labour politician did that, you'd quite rightly be all over them. Should you not hold yourself up to a higher standard?

If you have followed what he has said about me you wouldn't be at all surprised. I make no apology for it.

You're right, I'm not at all surprised that you're not completely consistent. I've followed what he's said about you, which basically consists of pointing out things you've said, and how at times, you're not completely honest.

I'm simply not having him polluting this blog with his poison.

I've been reading this blog for a while. If any of the posts Tim has made could possibly be construed as poisonous, then there are far more noxious fumes coming from some of your regular -- and tolerated -- commenters.

It's nothing to do with not agreeing with him. It's about abuse. Watch him. He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post. See if I'm not right.

I do believe he's criticised distortion of that sort in the past. Good to know you're being consistent with your misdirection, if nothing else.

Now, can you answer this -- if Laurence's blog is private and used only by him, how can it have referred "at least 100 people"?

May 01, 2007 6:54 PM

-

Iain Dale said...

Scott, I haven't the faintest idea. If it is only him clicking on it, it should be a maximum of 31. Seeing as you obviously think I have lied I would be happy to email you a screenshot from my statcounter if you let me have your email address.

May 01, 2007 7:06 PM

-

Scott Matthewman said...

Fine - my email's scott [at] matthewman [dot] net.

FWIW, I suspect that whatever stats package you're using would be reporting the number of visits -- possibly even clicks -- coming from each referrer. Either of those are very different from 'visitor', which implies discrete individuals.

Don't sweat it -- I have to explain these concepts at work all the time, so I know they're often tricky for people to get their heads round. But accuracy wherever possible can, I'm sure you agree, prevent honest mistake becoming indistinguishable from dishonest distortion :)

May 01, 2007 7:54 PM

UPDATE - The following has just been added to the exchange. I await Iain's reply with interest.

Barney said...

"I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him."

But this isn't about links to him, is it? It's links from him. You're just trying to make it difficult for anyone to look at your blog, if they're coming from something Tim Ireland has said.

You're being really childish. It's the kind of behaviour you'd expect from a teenager who's just discovered the Internet. From a 44 year old who still seems to harbour ambitions in political journalism, it's incredible.

May 02, 2007 1:20 PM

Not that he has anything to hide...

2007-05-01T14:45:00.000Z

Iain Dale must have got a bit of a shock when he last looked at his referral statistics... perhaps this is why he though this measure necessary:

Bloggerheads - This is a first... 'bloggers' objecting to deeplinks

This is not how bloggers behave... even a wannabe expert should know that.

Iain Dale censors his stat-porn (and more)

2007-05-01T11:24:00.000Z

Iain Dale's Diary - April Figures Show Slight Dip

Heh. That headline is truer than Iain would care to admit.

My site (Bloggerheads) featured as a major referrer of traffic to Iain Dale's 'weblog' in January (22nd), February (5th) and March (6th) of this year, despite this traffic being made up of individual permalinks in occasional posts, as opposed to a prominent blogroll link that appears on every page. (Meantime, Iain saw fit to accuse me of using his site to drive traffic to mine... a useful deceit in that it helps him and others of his ilk to justify why they never once hyperlinked to any case I made against them, even on those rare occasions when they saw fit to respond under their own damn name.)

During April, focus on Iain Dale switched from Bloggerheads to Iain Dale's Dairy. Even if one doesn't take the referrals from archived posts and/or Guido 2.0 into account, Bloggerheads should appear somewhere in the Top 40 referrers on a downward trend, along with Iain Dale's Dairy as a new entry.

But neither site appears in the list of referrers published today. Why?

Does Iain Dale really have so little respect for his readers that he feels the need to 'protect' them from 'undesirable information'?

Hell, even if Iain had followed his past pattern of selectively grouping traffic under domains, he would have come out of the exercise with some credibility. (In the past, Iain has grouped traffic from Guido 2.0 with traffic from my main site at bloggerheads.com - this allowed him to include those referrals without actually mentioning a microsite that is heavily critical of him, his allies and his bullies. He could have used a similar approach today to list the traffic from Iain Dale's Dairy under 'TheUKToday'.)

But no... it would appear that Iain has decided that I am an un-person.

Still, at least I'm not the only one sipping saccharine/clove-flavoured gin in the Chestnut Tree cafe today...

Justin's website (Chicken Yoghurt) has been listed on Iain's incredibly-long blogroll for quite some time. In fact, if you pop back to May 2006, you can even see one of Iain's shining moments of expertise, where he classifies Justin as a Conservative.

The link to Chicken Yoghurt eventually found its way to the 'miscellaneous' category, but was mysteriously dropped from Iain's incredibly-long blogroll sometime in early April of this year. Then reinstated. Then dropped again. Then reinstated. Then - finally, one would think - dropped again the day Iain Dale's Dairy went live listing Justin as a contributor.

Also, Justin reports that he has made several attempts to comment on Iain's website since Iain Dale's Dairy went live.

The pattern of approval is as follows; when Iain has pre-vetting/moderation turned off, these comments see the light of day and are not deleted... but when Iain has pre-vetting/moderation turned on, Justin's comments go straight down the memory hole, and - given Iain's past history - it's a fair bet that this emerging pattern will continue.

Again, Iain appears to be 'protecting' his readers... not only from 'undesirable information', but any indication that he is censoring 'undesirable information'.

But his Orwellian antics don't stop there...

Iain Dale has been a major part of the ongoing Conservative attempt to rewrite blogging history (it is dominated by the right, and has always been dominated by the right dontchaknow) and he has also played host to those who would have you think that the desire to limit the anonymous bullying that interrupts and undermines the free flow of information/debate amounts to some form of censorship.

Caroline Hunt appeared on 18DoughtyStreet with Iain and later bragged that; I also got to rant at length about a certan [sic] blogspat that I don't like to talk about because I don't like to give airtime to that blogging fascist who wants us all to conform to what he considers a "real" political blog.

I asked for a copy of that broadcast, but was told that no copy existed.

There's that pesky memory hole again... but before you send this example to Alanis Morissette in the dim hope that she will one day understand irony, I have another example for you...

Below is a copy of the comment from Justin (submitted under the entry that is the primary subject of this post) that Iain decided to delete without giving his readers any indication that he had done so:

"A lie of omission is still a lie, Iain."

Interesting, no? Sure beats the hell out of ra-he-haaain on your wedding day.

Here's a little something to keep in mind when reading Iain Dale's ~~weblog~~ information-control server:

You are only seeing what he wants you to see,
The truth is what he declares it to be;
He will never admit failure of a major degree,
He's a joke as a blogger... but an ideal MP.

Iain Dale suckered by urban legend

2007-04-30T09:31:00.000Z

Iain Dale - The Best Comeback Line Ever: This is one of the best comeback lines of all time. It is a portion of anABC interview between a female broadcaster and GeneralCosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military headquarters.

No it's not... it's a recent incarnation of a well-known urban legend.

Judging by the lack of link-credit and the nature of the intermittent appearances of this new version before Iain picked it up (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) it's a fair bet that Iain was infected with this nonsense via email before doing his bit to propagate it.

(Psst! Iain! We have a fantastic money-making opportunity for you. Discretion is required and details are available via our banking office in Nigeria.)

The misinformation quickly spread from Iain's site to Tim Worstall's site, Sinclair's Musings, the MotorcycleAddicts.org forum and - via Andrew Falloon - to Silent Running.

Iain didn't even bother to correct or withdraw the entry when it was rumbled as nonsense under comments less than an hour after it was posted and all of the people linked in the above paragraph swallowed it whole, despite there being a prominent entry under comments at Iain's site that showed it to be an urban legend. Bless them all... they just so want it to be true.

And while Iain busies himself with this nonsense, these questions remain unanswered, there's been no reply regarding this charming exchange on his website and this post has yet to draw a response.

Way to boost the credibility of British political blogging, Iain.

*applause*

UPDATE - Take a look at Iain's post and the words in the intro that are mashed together roughly 70-75 characters apart (the standard word-wrapping default for most email programmes). You can also try putting any section of this text into Google, and it will come up with hundreds of word-for-word matches involving both the old and new versions of this urban legend (an example can be seen here). I think we can take it as a given that Iain did receive this via email... and then posted it verbatim, intro and all, with a little formatting but no fact-checking. How often does this happen, I wonder?

Eat my shirts

2007-04-30T08:47:00.000Z

Iain Dale is bitching over Blears again... this time about the provider of her promotional t-shirts.

But before you get worked up about this 'story', you need to be aware that many online publishers use Spreadshirt as a supplier of t-shirts and other promotional items.

Even Iain's blog-chum Paul Staines has a Spreadshirt shop that is quietly gathering dust.

Singling out the ginger meatbag in this way smacks of opportunism (of the cheap and rather desperate variety) and, as ContraTory notes under comments; "It would be interesting to learn who she was "grassed up" by, though. It was probably a supporter of one of the other deputy leader candidates. Clearly the deputy leadership contest is going to be a good, clean fight."

If there's a Blears-related story in this, that's where it is... but Iain missed it, because he was too busy being a useful idiot.

(PS - I was mildly curious see if the t-shirts used to promote David Davis during the Conservative leadership contest were supplied by Spreadshirt, and so had a peek at an archived version of modernconservatives.com via The Wayback Machine. No obvious shopping links presented themselves, but I did discover that the related weblog at http://daviddavismp.blogspot.com/ has - like so many other abandoned weblogs - been hijacked by a porn merchant... hopefully of the ethical variety.)

A Polly pocket pop quiz

2007-04-27T15:19:00.000Z

Iain's got a piece in the Telegraph today expounding on how women only vote for politicians they fancy. A bit like why they watch football. Or something.

Here’s something for Polly Toynbee to ponder on. It’s a startling fact that if women had never had the vote, Britain would have had a continuous Labour government since 1945.

For ten points then, dear reader, who said the following?

It is women who have kept Conservatives in power for most of the time since the suffragettes first won the vote.

Any ideas?

It was Polly Toynbee in November last year. I think we can take it that Polly has already pondered the conundrum Iain presents her with today.

Unity has the full story.

Explain yourself, Iain

2007-04-26T12:02:00.000Z

Take a look at this comment that was published on Iain Dale's website 4 hours ago:

Anonymous said...

Jailhouselawyer:

Can you kill someone again please?

I'm sure they'd willingly sacrifice themselves to save the rest of us from being bored by you.

Try Tim Ireland, he's up for it.

April 26, 2007 8:47 AM

By sheer coincidence, this comment was made just a few minutes after I sent this email to Iain:

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Ireland
To: iain@iaindale.com
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 8:39 AM
Subject: Re: some questions for you

> Come on, Iain... your recent deletion of "Axe murderer!" comments make it
> obvious that you're aware of the questions, so why aren't you answering
> them? Why are you forcing me to chase you?
>
> [link]
>
> Tim

Did Iain leave this charming comment himself?

Well, let me put it this way...

Guido 2.0 - Paul Staines is a fact-murderer!: When you rely heavily on sock-puppets to do your dirty work for you and they appear at just the right time with startling regularity, you only have yourself to blame when people suspect that you're a sock-puppeting loser who spends a great deal of time anonymously shouting down opponents and/or patting yourself on the back.

UPDATE (3:25pm) - Iain has ignored every email about this, but has just deleted the offending comment.

Dealing with leaks 101

2007-04-24T14:08:00.000Z

When are 'leaked' documents not leaked documents? When they are (or were) publicly available. Iain Dale has more.

Dealing with exclusives 101

2007-04-24T14:16:00.000Z

When is an 'exclusive' not an exclusive? When The Sunday Times reported the story a month ago. Iain Dale has more.

Iain Dale: some questions about John Hirst

2007-04-24T10:38:00.000Z

I do not personally agree with all of the views expressed by John Hirst; some of them are as hard and as harsh as his life has been. But he does have the right to express those views. Here, Iain Dale would seem to agree (to a point):

"I remain of the view that if society judges your offence to be so serious that you should lose your liberty you should also lose your freedom to elect the government. In the new year I'm going to invite John Hirst and a range of guests onto 18 Doughty Street to discuss the issue at length." - Iain Dale (14 December 2006)

But John Hirst has not appeared on 18 Doughty Street since that invitation was made, and Iain Dale has not explained why... and, as Hirst points out here, Iain seems unusually tight-lipped about it.

I think I know the reason why... but first, some background:

As you probably already know, Iain Dale relies on a gang of (mostly anonymous) bullies to keep any 'debate' on his site free of material that undermines any specific case he makes or his integrity in general.

One of these anonymongrels goes by the name of 'Verity', who appears to be a ringleader of a gang of right-wing bullies and sock-puppeteers who will respond to any valid point John Hirst raises by shouting "Axe murderer!" at him. They will often follow him around from blog to blog to do this and scream "Axe-murdering stalker!" as they do so.

John Hirst was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 1980, and he himself picks up on the technical difference between manslaughter and murder here.... but it doesn't really matter if you somehow interpret his stated lack of remorse as an admission of murder (as some people seem to be doing) and it doesn't even matter if you think citizens abandon all rights to hold opinions and/or have them heard after they have taken a life, as neither position changes the logical fallacy at the heart of the ongoing smear campaign against Hirst:

If you actually thought it likely that someone would come after you with an axe, you would not goad them... and you would certainly not goad them specifically about the likelihood of their coming after you with an axe. Even doing so 'anonymously' makes no sense, as many past outings have proved.

To put it bluntly, the only thing that allows Verity and his gang of thugs to call John Hirst an axe-murderer is the fact that he is not an axe-murderer... and they know that.

On January 7 (2007), Iain Dale can be seen singling Verity out and promising that all such future attacks on the site would be deleted... but as you've probably already guessed, Iain didn't really mean it:

Jan 7, Jan 8, Jan 12... of course, all of these comments were made anonymously, and not under the name of 'Verity', which makes it OK.

But let's proceed to March... Mar 7, Mar 14, Mar 17, Mar 26... *ding*... Mar 29, and Verity returns to shout "Axe murderer!" using his usual handle.

(Psst! Nice moderation there, Iain. Way to promote 'politics for grown-ups'.)

Moving right along to what might at first appear to be a change of subject...

Here's Paul Staines helpfully promoting a press release from 18DoughtyStreet claiming that the semi-departure of Tim Montgomerie will allow for a less partisan approach to coverage... as if that were ever likely.

Even if you ignore the source of funding, Iain Dale's continuing role as primary host rules out any possibility of the 18DoughtyStreet being fairly described as non-partisan... not least because his conduct as host isn't that different from his conduct as a 'blogger'.

Iain will often undermine guests he does not agree with by interrupting them with demands for on-the-spot proof of this or that, when he himself regularly counters these same guests with flawed arguments or unsubstantiated claims. If he ever gets called on the latter or a debate simply isn't going his way, he will abuse his status as host and utter the magical phrase 'moving right along'... which, amusingly, also serves as the unspoken mission statement for 18DoughtyStreet.

But Iain is also subject to influences that further his own right-wing bias... and I'm not talking purely about the exchanges featured above.

Take a look at this exchange hosted by 'Croydonian' (dated December 20, 2007), where he, Verity, and a number of other bullies from the Dale/Staines stable are openly bragging about scuttling Hirst's planned appearance on 18DoughtyStreet.

Verity is loud and proud about it, but not all of these individuals are visibly active in the relevant thread over at Dale's blog, so it's safe to assume that some objections were raised anonymously and/or via email. Regardless, Iain Dale has not responded publicly to the objections raised (in the relevant thread or elsewhere); he has simply withdrawn the invitation and refused to be drawn on the reasons why.

So... here come the questions for Iain Dale:

1. Does the invitation for John Hirst to appear on 18DoughtyStreet stand?

2. If not, why was the invitation withdrawn?

3. Further, if the invitation was withdrawn, why was it withdrawn without explanation?

4. Do you really believe that John Hirst can be accurately and legally described as an 'axe murderer'?

5. If not, why do you continually allow publication of this description on your website?

6. Are you really afraid of your own bullies?

Note - Iain should be aware that his answer(s) to any or all of these questions may raise further questions about the claimed 'non-partisan' status of 18DoughtyStreet.

A spokesman for Nick Boles said...

2007-04-19T12:19:00.000Z

Corpses and killers are lining up for attention this week, but yesterday the MSM got terribly excited about a minor party-political back-and-forth that didn't appear to get past the hypothetical stage.

Iain began by castigating the BBC for running with gossip, then ran with an anonymous lead about the angle they were chasing (oh, and slapped the word 'exclusive' on it). In other words, he was lucky enough to fall upon some scraps from their table and immediately started screaming; "Look, everyone! MEAT!!"...

Iain then went on to show the world his ~~shocking discovery of a plan~~ ability to run with poorly-sourced gossip about an idea, which he and almost every other bystander took to be a 'plan':

Iain Dale - EXCLUSIVE: Tories Want Dyke to Fight as a Joint LibDem/Tory Candidate

Because, let's face it, the idea of someone like Dyke running on a Tory ticket is enough to make any true-blue supporter clench his/her brain.

It's a plan, I tells ya! A wicked and evil plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Fucking hell... and they call *us* conspiracy theorists.

Speaking of which...

Dale cites "two separate sources who I trust implicitly" and then goes on to quote "a spokesman for Nick Boles".

1. Gosh! I wonder who one of those sources could be.

2. Gosh! Is the Dale/Boles relationship really so damaged that they now only speak to each other via their spokespersons?

Later, the snowballing was noted and reported, and the 'plan' was revealed to be a rejected idea.

Iain's reaction: "So he confirms the story was true."

Nice one.

For those who might have missed them, the highlights of this affair included this charming comment from Mr Moderation and a textbook 'rejected lover' reaction from Praguetory, who emerged from Cameron's heart-wrenching betrayal convinced that; "With the right policies we believe we can win anywhere on a Conservative platform."

I'd have a bloody good laugh about that, but I'm too shagged-out after seeing Iain Dale's online advertisement for his advertisements.

Making the linky-love with fascists

2007-04-17T12:50:00.000Z

The BNP's webmonkeys must be cock-a-hoop. One of Britain's most popular bloggers gave them a big fat link this afternoon.

L'esprit de l'escalier: The title of this post should, of course, have been 'Further Links Between BNP & TORIES to be Revealed'. You know, for that heightened sense of empty hype.

Please accept our apologies. Regular service will resume shortly.

Doctor Dale's Facebook

2007-04-15T09:48:00.000Z

I'm beginning to wonder whether or not Iain Dale is a bit of a size queen when it comes to blogging. The exceptionally long blogroll (better measured in number of screens rather than links) and the belief that comment volume is indicative of both popularity and quality are two obvious indications of this near obsession. Now we can add another, the number of Facebook friends.

In this post Iain gloats about the number of friends he has on Facebook.

Hazel sadly has fewer friends on Facebook than I do - a mere 272. With your help we can show that she has so many more friends in the Conservative Party than she does in her own. Oh yes. We all want her to win, don't we?

The first point to note is that a Facebook friend isn't necessarily a proper friend in the Real World meaning of the word. A better term would be loose aquaintance, though that doesn't sound as cool. If Iain is using number of Facebook friends as a measure of his popularity, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Iain and his chums could do with getting out more.

What this really reveals is Iain's fascination with volume over quality. And that misses a crucial point regarding blogging; that the quality of inbound links is just as important (if not moreso) than the volume. If you want to improve the pagerank of your blog, don't simply follow Iain's lead and push for a large volume of inbound links (and don't spam other bloggers as part of this effort), but instead aim for quality inbound links from blogs and sites with a good pagerank. A few thousand links from site with an average pagerank between 6 and 7 is preferable to ten thousand links or more from sites with an average pagerank of 3 or 4.

In blogging quality counts just as highly as quantity, a lesson you probably wouldn't learn from the Iain Dale School of Blogging.

A quick question for Iain

2007-04-13T13:53:00.000Z

Hello there.

In this post, Iain gives us quite a useful and detailed breakdown of the runners and riders in the upcoming local elections.

However (tinfoil hats on), in his breakdown of the parties, he lumps UKIP and the BNP together:

BNP and UKIP
BNP are contesting 717, or 6.8 per cent of the seats and UKIP are contesting 805 seats, 7.7 per cent. UKIP’s nominations are below the “more than 1,000” they pledged to run earlier this week. Conservatives have sought to ensure we are running candidates against the BNP; there are just 24 seats with a BNP candidate but no Conservative candidate; this compared to 47 Labour and 129 Liberal Democrat seats.

Why would a potential Conservative Party parliamentary candidate seek to do that? Just asking.

(I've also asked this question in the comments of Iain's post).

Update: On a second reading, I see that Iain has merely cut and pasted the figures from a Tory Party press release. He's parroting the lumping of UKIP with fascists rather than making the association himself.

Comment permalinks: spelling it out for Iain Dale the blogging 'expert'

2007-04-13T10:31:00.000Z

"Now if you tell me how to add these Comment permalink things that you keep referring to I will happily do so." - Iain Dale

Whoops! Did you see what I did there? Here, let me show you again.

Now why does this link work and not this one?

Well, it all comes down to a single missing letter in a single line of code, which becomes obvious when you see the two URLs side-by-side.

Here I have to admit to being just a little bit mean to Iain; his actual ignorance of blogging really gets up my nose, as does his feigning of ignorance when he's put on the spot... so I've been feigning ignorance to highlight his genuine ignorance.

Clear so far? Good.

Twice now, in direct emails to Iain (on 14 February and 1 April) I've waved correct versions of the relevant code under his nose and suggested that he consult his designer (who "should understand what this all means").

Iain didn't pick up on the obvious difference between this code and what was in his design template, and neither did his designer (assuming, of course, that his designer was consulted).

Of course, the manual workaround used above could have been used at any stage, but that would have made it far too easy for everyone's favourite blogging 'expert'.

However, an important upcoming post is going to rely heavily on the extended use of comment permalinks, so the time has finally come to spell it out for Iain Dale and deliver the fix in a hand-holding gesture that I'm sure will be appreciated...

Iain has this as the guts of his comment permalink code:

But what he needs is this:

All that's missing is the letter 'c' after the '#' and before the comment number (which is also the Awfully Big Secret of the manual workaround should anyone wish to use comment permalinks between now and when Iain finally gets around to fixing this).

Job done. Over to you, Iain.

(PS - Where should I send the invoice?)