Tuesday, 22 May 2007
A sadder economics
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.
Labels: economics, iain dale the expert, propaganda, research
Posted by Clive @ | Permalink | | Links to this post
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
"He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post."
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
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
Labels: iain dale the expert, propaganda
Posted by Tim @ | Permalink | | Links to this post
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Iain Dale censors his stat-porn (and more)
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
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.
Labels: 18doughtystreet, fascists, propaganda
Posted by Tim @ | Permalink | | Links to this post
Friday, 13 April 2007
A quick question for Iain
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.
Labels: BNP, iain dale, local elections, propaganda, UKIP
Posted by Justin @ | Permalink | | Links to this post
