Monday, 14 May 2007
Iain Dale is a very nice person
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.
Labels: 18doughtystreet, iain dale and his sock-puppets, jailhouselawyer, john hirst
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Thursday, 26 April 2007
Explain yourself, Iain
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.
Labels: iain dale and his sock-puppets, jailhouselawyer, john hirst
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Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Iain Dale: some questions about John Hirst
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.
Labels: 18doughtystreet, jailhouselawyer, john hirst, verity
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