Dizzy Thinks has the story and evidence:
I can reveal that this site has indeed been set-up by someone heavily linked with Derek Draper. Adrian McMenamin, a former Downing Street advisor and the man that headed up Labour’s rapid rebuttal Excalibur system prior to 1997 appears to be behind the site. What’s more, his attempts to hide it were not quite good enough.
Full story on his blog here.
As for the blog in question, it’s worth noting the, er…, interesting choice of some attack material. For example, under the headline David Cameron’s cynical abuse of Parliament, we get the news that Cameron sometimes refers to Gordon Brown as “you” during PMQs rather than saying “the Prime Minister”. ‘Cynical abuse’? Umm, well…
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4 Comments
Dizzy misses the fundamental point, which is: does the world really need another party attack blog? I’ve lost count of the ones which have sprung up over the years. Very few last longer than a year and although they elicit some excitement at first, they tend to die a death after a while.
Draper would be better off setting himself up as some kind of Labour alternative to Iain Dale instead of skulking around the shadows. Thanks to his fragrant wife, he already has the media’s attention – he should press home that advantage.
Lol…a ‘leftish’ Iain Dale is almost a mythological figure…I remember being at a Lib Conspiricy meeting and it being mentioned numerous times….they say imitation is the best form of flattery but i think it’s time to stop trying for this…Iain is Iain and there will never be another….we should try and succeed in our own terms…
One of the problems I find, and its a trap ive fallen into with my own blog, is that I find the only way to get readers is to be a smidge too introverted sometimes (ive given up the ghost on reviews totally…)…so maybe we can kick off a discussion on that…
McMenamin is a nasty corrupt little Labour toad who specialises in dirty tricks: the ‘spontaneous demonstrations of the people’ of Labour activists that have caused disorder and often police attention, etc.
The thug should be dealt with by the police but of course this won’t happen. Well done LDV for exposing this parasite.
He certainly has form…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/30/new_labours_internet_dirty_tricks/
New Labour’s Internet dirty tricks campaign exposed
Party employee peddles anonymous propaganda on political newsgroups
By Kieren McCarthy
Posted in Music and Media, 30th January 2001 14:10 GMT
The Labour Party has been heavily implicated in a political dirty tricks campaign carried out over the Internet. Thousands of anti-Plaid Cymru messages posted to various political newsgroups have been traced back to the Labour Party’s communications headquarters in Millbank, London.
The messages, which attack Plaid Cymru (the Welsh nationalist party) councils and policies, were posted mainly on the wales.politics.assembly newsgroup and purported to be from members of the public. However, users of the newsgroup grew suspicious of “David Currie” and “Hairy Melon Jones” – a reference to Plaid Cymru assembly member Helen Mary Jones – and accused them of working for the Labour party, a charge that was denied online.
However, newsgroup members traced the messages over the Internet and found they had come from Millbank. Welsh national paper Wales on Sunday, ran its own investigation into the claims and came to the same conclusion. Confronted by evidence, Labour admitted the postings had come from its machines but said it was the work of a “volunteer” working in his own time.
Considering that David Currie has so far managed to post 2,971 messages* on 27 different newsgroups, since the middle of November – an average of 37 messages a day – you could be forgiven for thinking that Millbank knew exactly what was going on. Hairy Melon Jones has posted far fewer with only 38 messages since July last year, but they tend to be far more provocative.
Among the postings were accusations that Plaid Cymru was racist, wanted to put controls on English immigrants, was propping up Tory administrations, was responsible for future industrial action and was full of hypocrites.
Plaid Cymru representatives are furious and have filed a motion in the Welsh National Assembly asking the first minister to distance himself from the messages. The party has also called for the resignation of Adrian McMenamin, a “special advisor” to Welsh secretary Paul Murphy. McMenamin – a protégé of fallen Labour spin supremo Peter Mandelson – has been heavily implicated in ongoing investigations.
McMenamin also posted heavily to the same political newsgroups under his own name. His first posting came within days of David Currie’s and since then he has written 358 messages on Deja newsgroups. Since November, McMenamin and “David Currie” have frequently supported one another’s views. One posting, titled “English immigrants must be controlled – Plaid Cymru”, was started by one Hairy Melon Jones and of the 51 responses, 22 were from David Currie and 2 from Adrian McMenamin – all critical of Plaid Cymru. Wales on Sunday is currently investigating whether Adrian has breached any political rules by posting his political views at all. The newsgroup itself bans party representatives from entering the discussion.
The whole issue raises the spectre of a co-ordinated propaganda campaign over the Internet by New Labour from Millbank as the election draws near. The position in Wales makes Labour particularly sensitive to Plaid Cymru. Of the 60 elected assembly members, 28 are Labour, 17 Plaid Cymru, 9 Conservative and 6 Liberal Democrat. Despite a coalition between Labour and the Lib Dems, the nationalist Plaid Cymru poses a significant threat to Labour’s power in Wales.
The other question is: if in Wales, then why not in other parts of the UK? If Labour has embarked on an anonymous dirty tricks campaign, it won’t do its image any good to have this widely touted just before an election. ®