rational geekery

A couple of things...

I suppose someone was always going to come out calling for calm and reflection, with a faux-piety about the ‘damage’ done to the UK blogosphere. And I would have had put my money on Iain Dale too. But if he thinks that a blogger pioneer-spirit should transcend the political divisions, he’s wrong. As far as I remember this ‘Blogwar’ (shit-name, I know, it’s not mine) was about Guido and hypocrisy. In fact if anyone has a stalker, it’s Guido, not Iain – but I guess we’re all characters in Iain Dale: The Movie.

The rightwing slights against the left-wing blogosphere have been carefully engineered, as Tim Ireland has outlined on numerous occasions. Astro-turfing and more direct attacks are de rigueur, yet up until now the left-wing blogs have rolled over and took it like the supine bitches the right always expected them to be. I have been blogging for 3-years now, and I have always done the rounds both on the left and the right, and I have watched myself, the left-wing blogs capitulate to an increasing aggression from a few right-wingers – most of whom congregate around and venerate Guido and Iain.

This is why Tim is right to show some teeth and lead a retaliation of sorts. I’m not going to speak for Tim, I’m simply explaining why I think what he’s doing is necessary (for the record I do not know Tim personally). If the right had any measure of self-awareness, they would see how a relatively satirical message criticising Guido and his acolytes, became nasty when Tim was dismissed – without a reasoned counter argument – as a fascist, having gender issues, and as an obsessive loon among other things. Who really raised the temperature on this ‘Blogwar?”

You only have to see a few of the responses (and here) on Iain Dale’s papal decree, to see exactly the attitudes of some on the right, disproving Iain’s protestations that he has the moral high ground. Grow-up Iain. It’s politics, simple as that. We can be civil, and we can have mutual regard and respect (as I do for you, if we’re honest), but while the Astro-turfers who inhabit your blog (and that of Guido) continue to use it as a launch pad for their campaign of abuse against the left, don’t expect us to lie down and take it.

As for the Smith Institute: a lazy attempt to dismiss us as Brownites. You know damn well this is about hypocrisy in regard to the goings on with Policy Exchange. Anyone with even a passing interest in this blog would know that I am not a Brownite, and remain deeply sceptical about any future government led by the dour Scot. It’s lazy Iain – and a poor device to ignore awkward and embarrassing questions.

Anyway, let’s see how all this turns out..