14 Comments

• Iain Dale 8th Aug '07 - 3:39pm

  Er, I should be very careful Mark. Let me say this quite categorically. I have never posted a comment on my blog or on anyone else’s in a name other than my own, nor have I encouraged anyone else to do so on my blog in support of anything I write.

  The post is a perfectly legitimate attempt to establish what Livingstone has been up to. Jonathan Calder on Liberal England agrees with my take on the Doreen Lawrence attack on Boris. Why don’t you?

• Mark Pack 8th Aug '07 - 3:45pm

  You’ve let pass without much comment (other than to pass on Grant Shapp’s 1234 excuse for one particular incident) the sustained campaign by your fellow Conservative Party members attempting to pass themselves off as Liberal Democrat members online.

  But when someone (who doesn’t seem to be pretending to be anyone they aren’t) criticises Boris, that’s a cause of complaint and worthy of a blog posting from you.

  So perhpas you should be careful about appearing to apply double standards to online morality 🙂

• Letterman 8th Aug '07 - 4:49pm

  Is there such a thing as online morality?

• expriest 8th Aug '07 - 4:52pm

  mark and Iain – kiss and make up purlease

• Laurence Boyce 8th Aug '07 - 5:16pm

  Is there such a thing as online morality?

  Yes.

• Iain Dale 8th Aug '07 - 5:31pm

  Let me make it quite clear – as I have done repeatedly elsewhere – I condemn any attempt at impersonation on the internet no matter who does it. As for any sustained campaign, it’s the first I have heard of it.

• ColinW 8th Aug '07 - 5:35pm

  Iain Dale = Iain Dull

  Boring little Toryboy wannabe. Yawn.

• Laurence Boyce 8th Aug '07 - 5:37pm

  Iain, once again please ignore us and enjoy the summer evening.

• tony hill 8th Aug '07 - 5:55pm

  Obviously partisan feelings tend to run high during election campaigns so perhaps I shouldn’t have been reading the blogs of people I don’t agree with politically during the recent by-elections. I’m not keen on dirty tricks or mindless partisanship even in support of the Liberal Democrats, and I had been reading Iain Dale for some time because I felt that he largely eschewed these vices (even if many of the people who respond to his posts are Class A pillocks). But I don’t feel he showed much integrity during the recent by elections and he has lost my respect, and he has lost me as a reader of his blog

• Stuart 8th Aug '07 - 8:31pm

  I agree with Tony (9). I was a keen Iain Dale reader (sorry everyone if that’s not the done thing), but his Conservative leanings have become more and more apparent, and it’s just a turn-off, politically speaking.

  But then again he may have lost one reader, but he’s got 11.5m more.

• Laurence Boyce 8th Aug '07 - 8:42pm

  I was a keen Iain Dale reader, but his Conservative leanings have become more and more apparent.

  I can’t honestly recall a time when they were ever hidden from view.

• Matthew Scott 8th Aug '07 - 8:49pm

  Laurence is right.

  I think the “former Conservative candidate” or “right of centre commentator” parts of his About section might be a hint about his political views.

• Cheltenham Robin 8th Aug '07 - 9:58pm

  Plese let us stop all this tit for tat stuff.

  There is a need in today’s political world of spin and soundbites for blogs like this one and the one over at Conservative Home.

  Both blogs provide a forum for debate for members, supporters and also for people from a different party.

  There will always be idiots who abuse the internet in all parties.

  Let those of us who enjoy our online forums show some respect to people like Iain Dale and the many other political bloggers of every colour who give us a platform for our political rants.

  Yes, it will get tribal during elections and yes there may be a few tricks pulled here and there but at the end of the day (god I hate that phrase) we are all in this game because we have ideals that we believe in, let’s carry on debating those in a healthy and grown up way.

• Duncan Borrowman 8th Aug '07 - 10:21pm

  I don’t know I find Iain Dale very good. This is one of his recent best, amd the heading sums the Tories up brilliantly http://tinyurl.com/ysmlp5