My apologies to anyone who really couldn’t care less, but I want to set this down. This is a small blog, so this will be of little note to anyone, but I am removing my links to Guido Fawkes aka Paul Staines and to Iain Dale.
Paul Staines is dishonest. He has also allowed or encouraged a group of sock puppets to develop around him that are really very offensive to people who question ‘Guido’. It is this sort of activity that leads to calls for standards in the blogosphere. Staines seems to like to think of himself as some sort of anarcho-capitalist type. He must be the first anarchist with no sense of personal responsibility. You probably know all the objections – if not, take a look at Tim Ireland’s website. I’ve not been quite as sure about Iain Dale until the deep linking thing. I’ve emailed Iain to ask what’s happening. What confirmed it my mind was that Dale and Staines seem to have the same webmaster. If you go to Iain’s profile, you will see that one of the team members for Iain Dale’s Diary is Jag Singh. Clicking on Jag Singh’s profile will show that he is a team member for Guido Fawkes.
I’m going to do a general post about blogging which will mention Messrs. Staines and Dale. I’ll keep reading Iain’s blog – it is often rather fun and quite informative – but he’s been intellectually dishonest by stopping deep links to his blog. I’m not, though, going to bother with any more posts about what they’re up to. Iain Dale’s Dairy and Guido Fawkes 2.0 do it better than I do.
Update: Iain has been in touch to give his side of the story. Watch this space!
xD.
I thought the deep linking gag was funny and effective. It’s got Tim Ireland (who craves attention)reeling.
Maybe, but it shows Staines’ own obsessions. He has made a name for the Guido Fawkes blog as a political commentary and news site. I think any level of probity in those areas means you should open yourself to criticism. His actions are to deliberately make it harder for people to use the largest, critical resource to pick up the other side of the story. In that action, he implicitly acknowledges that Tim Ireland has a valid point. Several valid points, in fact.
I agree – some of what Staines and Dale do is rather dodgy. Especially the bit about making it hard to link to individual posts.
I also find it odd that Staines publishes libellous articles about others – while hiding behind servers located outside the UK – and then threatens people with legal writs when they point out somewhat dubious aspects of his past – when those people are subject to then UK libel law that he refuses to subject himself to.
1. I find it odd that Iain Dale won’t discuss ‘his side of the story’ directly with me. Like Staines, he now runs away whenever or wherever I show up.
2. Again, Praguetory seems to be mistaking transparency with publicity.
Its interesting to note that this Singh chap is also the brains behind Labourhome and MessageSpace, and a bunch of other Labour-related projects… and he’s good friends with the biggest ultimate wankers in British politics – Staines, Dale and (not forgetting) Alex Hilton.
I’m curious to know what kind of relationship these guys have with each other.
I have a wonderful little thing on my blog called Tracksy. It lets me see, amongst other things, what search terms led people to my site. It also allows me to see where they are, in some cases. Now, I know that PragueTory visits my blog from that, but Tracksy tells me that PragueTory posted in response to my last article on Guido shortly after someone based in “PRAGUE, PRAHA, HLAVNI MESTO” found my blog using Google’s blogsearch with this string:
blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&
ie=UTF-8&x=15&y=5&scoring=d&ui=blg&q=%22
tim+ireland%22
Now, I can’t be sure that PragueTory is Googling Tim Ireland, but it looks distinctly like it.
Sean Jacobs –
I am also curious as to that relationship, but to say that Staines, Dale and Alex Hilton are the biggest ultimate wankers in British politics credits them with far too much importance.
Heh. Am I allowed to scream “Stalker!” now?
Yes, yes, you are.
Thanks.
Praguetory is a stalker!
PS – Have some unrelated link-spam and a warning… If you keep this up, Iain Dale will declare you to be an un-person.
Hi guys,
Interesting thread here. I’m not Iain or Guido’s webmaster, fyi.
I have access to their templates for MessageSpace related work. My interest in their work has nothing to do with their personalities or politics – but rather ‘blogging’ itself.
Yes, I’m affiliated with Hilton, Dale et al, but I frankly think what they do with their blogging careers is their own business. This whole guilty-by-association thing is a bit passé, no?
Incidentally, Dizzy claimed responsibility for the script which checked the browser header’s referrer here.
As for these hypocritical intellectual reach-arounds using javascript, does it all really matter at the end of the day?
Cheers,
jag
Jag,
Thanks for posting. Yes, those reach-arounds do matter – it is a group of people trying to avoid criticism. Aside from being hypocritical, it is intellctually dishonest and damaging to political blogging.
As to guilt by association, I find the MessageSpace explanation a little strange. Why would you need to access their templates? Why would they allow you that level of access? It is an odd advertising company indeed that requires such access.
I have not accused you of anything – merely said that you are a link between Messrs Dale and Fawkes that adds to the perception that they are really rather close. Your business concerns are of no particular interest to me; I do, though, find your MessageSpace argument unconvincing.