Monday, February 12, 2007

"Blog Wars"

"Guido" has agreed to give an interview to Sunny at Pickled Politics. He wants a "fair hearing" apparently. Now there's an irony of genuinely monumental proportions. Fair play to Sunny for offering Paul something which Paul himself never considers offering to others. Likewise Tim and Justin and others.

Given his own attitude towards such things, it will be interesting to hear Paul explain why he threw a hissy fit and threatened to take everyone to court yesterday. Whatever happened to "If you don't like it, don't read it"?

Meanwhile, Iain has decided that playing the victim card is the way to go after all. How very noble...

I didn't highlight this before, but here's a further titbit about Iain which might explain a little more about the reason why he's become involved in the "blog war". After my post on his refusal to answer my questions on Nicholas Boles, Policy Exchange and a certain party political issue - a genuine attempt to ask questions on matters of fact - Iain turned up in the comments to my post to say this:
nice to see you have deleted my comment I left last night.
I've checked and the comment was definitely left by someone signed in using Iain's blogger account. I think it's reasonably safe to assume that it was Iain. As I said at the time, I did no such thing. Iain did not respond again however; he was happy to just leave his allegation hanging there.

Now, it seems to me that there are two possibilities here. The first is that Iain made a spurious accusation against me in an attempt to deflect attention and/or make me look bad.

The second is that Blogger somehow lost Iain's comment. Since I switched from Haloscan to Blogger comments, no-one has ever made a complaint about a missing comment before and I'm not aware of this being a problem for Blogger users. Nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out completely.

Iain, however, certainly did rule out that possibility. He made a specific and unqualified allegation against me which was entirely false. When challenged, he didn't withdraw it or offer an apology; he let it stand. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect from someone who says they like blogging because it enables conversation. At best, Iain has made an ill-advised claim in the heat of the moment which he now ought to withdraw. At worst, he has deliberately attempted to smear me.

I'm not really a fan of the victim card myself but I'd ask you to consider what chance I'd have of getting Iain to retract his spurious accusation.

Again, I must stress that for me, this whole issue is only coincidentally related to left and right. What I'm currently attempting to do is point out the ways in which two of the U.K.'s most prominent bloggers behave.

It'd be nice to think that these two people, underneath it all, are human beings who might now be reflecting on the way they treat other people on the interwebs. At this stage, however, and particularly in light of Iain's post today, I have to say that that doesn't look likely.

Update

More reactions to Iain's latest post.

Bloggerheads: Iain Dale plays the victim... again

Ministry of Truth: Open Letter to Iain Dale

Obsolete: Ceasefire?

Tygerland: Iain's Wet Rebuttal

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Iain says he has an idea of what it must be like being stalked. That would be your fault then Garry!

Interestingly, he didn't answer any of the points re Boles in his posting attempting to clarify the issues that have been raised in the "blog wars".

Garry said...

Yes, and I'm apparently also an obsessive New Labour troll. Almost tempted to put that in my profile.

I can accept that he's never heard of me so doesn't know any better on that score but when he tried to deflect attention from Tim Ireland's questions with that sort of suggestion, he was really revealing something about himself.

And it's true; he's still not provided any answers on Boles.

I've emailed Nicholas directly twice now but to no avail. And my request for a list of nominees from Tory HQ was answered with a line saying "We are still receiving applications for the post".

There's nothing like a good bit of openness and transparency...

Iain Dale said...

Strangely enough I am not a regular vistor to your blog. I left a comment on it when I visted and it hadn't appeared. I could only assume that you had deleted it. If you didn't and it got lost, then I'm very happy to accept that.

Garry said...

Iain, I'm well aware of my own position in the blo**phere (see my previous comment above) but thanks for reminding me all the same.

"I left a comment on it when I visted and it hadn't appeared. I could only assume that you had deleted it."

I don't have comment moderation on, never have. Are you saying that it appeared when you submitted it but it subsequently disappeared?

Also, I don't suppose there's any point in asking you to answer the question that Samuel didn't answer, is there?

Quinn said...

Perhaps it is my suspicious nature, but I wonder if it is significant that Iain Dale has managed to accuse you of deleting his original comment, then has accepted that it may not have been deleted, but has not seen fit to repeat the original comment itself?