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”
willstraw
Thanks for the comments today. I’ve been at meetings so haven’t had a chance to reply. A few points if I may:
1. The initial story that we highlighted (the suppression by a politician of a film about anti-semitism) was disgraceful. I stand by the original piece and we weren’t the news source to run it:
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/21634/polish-filmmaker-death-threat-claim
http://www.eutimes.net/2009/11/leave-poland-alone-you-jew-or-well-cut-your-hands-off/
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256799083683&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2. We have an open comments policy and respect commenter’s anonymity but we draw the line at astroturfing. If you’re a Conservative (or Labour) employee have the courage of your convictions please.
3. FYI – credit where it is due. You pointed out that Lidia had mistakenly described Marek Jurek as a sitting MP but he is still leader of a political party so that makes him a politician in my view (which is what the story now says). I was then mistaken in describing Anna Sobecka as a sitting MP. We aim to correct all mistakes.
4. Anon – I really hope you still regard this blog as being a bit different. We posted 7 stories today (in addition to the politics summary). 1 on the employment stats, 1 promoting a new report which outlines what Labour needs to do to help the forgotten 15 million, 1 attacking Labour’s nuclear policy, 2 attacking Tory policy (on FSA & Cameron’s speech), 1 attacking The Spectator, and this story. I don’t think that’s a bad balance for a progressive blog.
All the best,
Will
FYI
I would like to see where the original story was derived from. Was it a press release? If so, can we see the press release please? If so, have LFF checked it for accuracy? Can we please rule out that the author of the piece is connected to the film-makers or whether there may be any other conflict of interest, political or financial?
The Parallax Brief
One thing that has struck the Parallax Brief about the whole Kaminski affair is the extent that the two sides of the debate disagree not just interpretation of matters, but the actual raw facts — it’s astonishing.
Having some experience of Eastern Europe, it really wouldn’t be a surprise if Kaminski had made anti-semitic, racist and homophobic comments, by western standards, at some stage in his career. There is a huge amount of what might be called petty homophobia/racism/anti-semitism in that part of the world — by which it is meant that Eastern Europeans don’t want to go down the Nazi route, but they don’t particularly care for lots of blacks in the country, believe a great many of the Jewish stereotypes as fact, and think of homosexuality as morally wrong and something to be kept well away from public view.
But literally nobody can agree on any of the facts. Why is that? It’s been a while since two completely different accounts of the same events can be garnered from two different publications. But reading Left Food Forward and the New Statesman and comparing accounts there to, say, CentreRight and the Speccie, and one wonders if they’re covering the same story at all.
Again, why?
Finally, the fake commenter seems like a case of trying to generate scandal for the sake of scandal.
Gordon's dad
Will – the amusing thing is that your serious stories get almost no comments whereas this very silly one has got loads.
The moral is: be more like Guido and confect imaginary ‘scandals’ to provide what he calls ‘infotainment’
FYI
Second unresolved issue:
Are you saying Jurek thinks the allegations in the film are unprofessional and sensationalist journalism, inaccurate or unrepresentative of the facts, and that he wants to protest that? Or are you saying that he is in denial that anti-Semitism exists and he wants to whitewash antisemitism?
Have you given Jurek the opportunity to respond to your allegations? In accordance with professional journalistic ethics, and according to the guidance around European libel laws, you still need to give the individual you name the opportunity to reply to the allegations in your article. And you need to tell us whether or not you have done that, whether Jurek declined to comment or whether he was unavailable. This will make the article both more compelling and it will also protect you from the threat of litigation.