Political Penguin

Right, first off, I’m coming to this one a bit late as it’s been clunking around for a few weeks but this whole thing over Guido AKA Paul Staines astroturfer and general all round pisspot of the political blogging world and his little school boy antics is starting to annoy me. Till now I’ve left it in the capable hands of Tim Ireland and Unity but I think it’s about time I got involved.
I’m old fashioned, I’m of a generation who were there with computers at the start, learned the basics before Windows came out and suddenly any idiot could be let loose. Accessibility is a noble thing and the internet is one of the most enabling phenomena probably to this point in the development of our species.
I don’t advocate the position of exclusivity, every principle I believe in is against exclusion. However there was a time when there were certain codes, netiquette, terms of engagement, mutual respect. The problem we now face, particularly if we consider the culture of blogging in the UK, in particular political blogging is that with the advent of blogging tools for children (Blogger/Blogspot.com) (that’s not aimed at you Paul) is that any fuckwit with a gob that doesn’t match either their intelligence nor technical nouse is out there trying to make a name for themselves and stroke their own ego.
This poses a particular problem for someone such as myself. Given my background and personal beliefs about the principles of what blogging should be about and indeed this seems to be a common belief among Labour Bloggers that what is online stays online. However the last few months have shown the complete disrespect for which these principles are held by the Tories and they’re strategy is clearly to drag what’s online into the mainstream media environment with the constant drip drip of dodgy biased and downright wrong information about the Labour Party and various staff/politicians. It’s not a new approach, it’s one that’s been used by the LibDems for years although through more traditional campaigning methods.
It’s one that I’ve even used myself to blow the scummy bastard LibDems out of the water with from time to time, not to mention the BNP as well. This is simply a new variant of an old strategy played out in a different medium. So on that basis, if the gloves are truly coming off then I’m going to be one of the Labour Bloggers who ain’t going to put up with it.
The state of play is a bit uneven at the moment, with all honesty I agree with Unity that the Tories are ahead of the game on this, but lets just qualify that statement. The Tories are ahead not because they are technically better, nor more organised, nor more intelligent, they are simply more unprincipled and happy to break long held netiquette valued by those of us who have a sense of fair play and honour.
It is especially guileful to see the antics of Guido when it comes to his attempt to smear the Smith Institute which was set up in the memory of a truly great man of which none of his little ilk of fuckwits have a hope in hell of ever emulating. It’s also bleeding hypocritical of the Tories to try and infer that it is some kind of secret Labour organisation when they aren’t grown up to even acknowledge the work of their so-called independent Policy Institute which is stacked with Tories including none other than self proclaimed uber blogger Iain Dale. Fucking glass houses, fucking glass houses and if they really wish to go down this line through Fox News Lite then they might find that a few people on our side have a nice little stock of rocks to throw back, anyone remember the Midlands Industrial Council?
So there you go, I’m up for a bit of a rumble, my principles stand as they always have done, I’ll only post what I can prove, I never delete or edit stuff (apart from the odd typo I spot later) but I think it’s about time I started being a bit more partisan and ripping a few Tories (and the odd LibDem) to shreads.
A final congratulations to the likes of Iain Dale, Guido and PragueTory, you have dragged a noble medium into the gutter that you inhabit and it about time some of us got down and did a bit of cleaning up of the rubbish. Oh, and a final note, as it’s likely that Guido et al will release their little attack puppies, astroturfers and trolls on me to try and shout me down. A little warning, I’m a very nice guy, but a bunch of amateur techie wannabies of your ilk should really consider their position before picking a fight with someone who’s techincal ability you have no idea about.