An Conservative party employee used a fake name and email to comment on an article on this blog about anti-semitism in Poland. The Tory party was not mentioned.
An employee of the Conservative party has used a fake name and email address to comment on a Left Foot Forward guest post about anti-semitism in Poland.
The Guest blog post, published last Wednesday, examined the case of a Polish politician, Marek Jurek, calling for the Polish Government to take legal action against London-based Polish Film Director, Aro Korol, for his planned film – “Hitler’s Daughter” – which exposes anti-Semitism in Poland. The article made no mention of either the British Conservative party or the European Conservatives and Reformists.
The commenter, who uses the name “Gordon” wrote:
“So Jurek is a FORMER member of Law and Justice. And Law and Justice sit with the Tories in the European Parliament. So what?
“That’s as tenuous as expecting the Polish Socialists to be embarrassed bcause George Galloway, a former member of the British Labour Party, made an outrageous statement in the House of Commons.
“Is that the sound of barrels being scraped?”
The IP address is registered to host97.conservative-party.org.uk. Although http://www.conservative-party.org.uk is a different URL to the Conservative party’s main website (http://www.conservatives.com) and shows only a Daniel Hannan video and a picture of a pile of cash, an IPBlock query reveals that the IP address is registered to Anne Nunan, Director of IT at Conservative Central Office, 25 Victoria St and Vince Cooper of the same address.
Left Foot Forward contacted the Conservative Party to ask if they would ask their staff member, and other staff, to desist from attacking challenges to anti-semitism in this way.
A Conservative spokesman declined to do so while describing the comments as “innocuous” and “odd.” He outlined that CCHQ did not have “a team of people commenting on websites such as yours” and reiterated that the Conservative party opposed all forms of anti-semitism.
46 Responses to “Conservative party paranoia on Poland”
Sunder Katwala
CCHQ role here intriguing > RT @leftfootfwd: Conservative party paranoia on Poland:- http://bit.ly/1qgEnZ
Soho Politico
RT @nextleft: CCHQ role here intriguing > RT @leftfootfwd: Conservative party paranoia on Poland:- http://bit.ly/1qgEnZ
Sunder Katwala
What (via @leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/1qgEnZ) is this CCHQ domain for? http://www.conservative-party.org.uk/ v.odd page; sockpuppet haven?
Jessica Asato
Why are CCO staffers leaving anonymous comments on @leftfootfwd? Don't they have enough to do following Kaminski around? http://is.gd/4Sr2X
Unity
FYI:
1. You’re protests just that bit too much to be kosher – perhaps you’d like to give an account of your own political affiliations. You’re not a British Tory, for sure, but you do come over as an astroturfer.
2. As for web ethics, the general non-outing rule does not apply to astroturfing, which is itself a breach of trust, so get over it and quit whining.