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”
The Parallax Brief
BS Detector said: “azeta Wyborcza, the left-leaning Polish newspaper wrote about NOP in 1989 and gave the party a clean bill of health. Why would the paper, no friend of Kaminski, have done this if the NOP had been fascist or far right at the time?”
Perhaps that’s the case, but what was said was “a Polish Catholic nationalist group… is likely to have be [sic] fairly right wing” now fascist or far right.
Having had experience with Eastern Europeans, it’s possible to say that right wing politics there is probably a treasure trove for muckrakers, if they can get beyond the language barrier. That’s not an awful stereotype, it’s simply to say that there is is a great deal of petty homophobia, racism, and anti-semitism in places like Russia, the Baltics, Poland and elsewhere.
Given that, it would probably be a surprise if Kaminski had NOT said or thought some of these things at some stage.
The Parallax Brief
Opps, meant to say “NOT fascist or far right”, not “now fascist…”
Billy the Kid
Hey BS – get used to censorship on this site – it’s a shame because it’s actually a lively blog.
I was censored for “supposedly” calling another commentator a liar – no removal of the line, just complete censorship. What a surprise that my comments were anti-Brown government (in keeping with the most other people according to the polls).
The “go elsewhere” bit is fine but this is one of the better left leaning blogs. Imagine if there was only LabourList out here….
Steve
As a reader of this blog I’d quite like to know what point Mr BSD made to Sunder.
Why not simply redact swear words instead of disrupting the flow of the argument and spoiling the thread by removing entire posts?
It’s particularly discreditable if the posts you remove *happen* to be from Tories, unless you only want readers who agree with you.
willstraw
BS Detector, FYI – I have no desire to censor you or anyone else – this blog would be incredibly tedious if everyone held the same views. But I do want this blog to be a space where people feel comfortable putting their point of view across. Comment is Free and blogs like Labour List can be an intimidating places to write or comment and I do not want the same to be true here. Please go ahead and make whatever points you like but “play the ball not the man.” Our comments policy is on the “About” page but I thought it might be useful to print it again here. You’re both very welcome on this blog but please keep it civil:
“We welcome discussion and debate but keep it nice. Comments should stick to the topic, any containing offensive language or personal attacks will be removed. And if we have to moderate a specific commenter three times, we’ll block them. We hope that’s clear.”
FYI – You’ve asked some good and fair questions so let me try and answer them – apologies for the brevity. I received an email from Aro Korol about his case. I asked for verification of the accusations he made and he sent me some links (see below). These were in Polish but I ran through Google translate to get a sens of the accuracy and, on that basis, said that I would be happy to run the piece and asked if he knew someone that would be willing to write the piece. I take full responsibility for initially describing Jurek as an ‘MP’ rather than a ‘politician’ but have amended that error (which I still regard as a minor point). I stand by the rest of the story and its substantive point that Jurek sought to censor a film about anti-semitism in Poland. I’d be happy to offer Jurek a right to reply if you want to suggest it to him. We are a blog not a newspaper and I have signed up to an ethic of progressive blogging and nothing else: http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/04/20/statement-our-ethic-of-progressive-blogging/#more-4172
Links:
http://orka2.sejm.gov.pl/IZ6.nsf/main/10269F78
http://prawicarzeczypospolitej.org/aktualnosci,pokaz,595
http://www.express.bydgoski.pl/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=17&IdPublication=2&NrIssue=1330&NrSection=10&NrArticle=151253&IdTag=70
http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80708,6866967,_Corka_Hitlera___Powstaje_film_o_Radiu_Maryja__WIDEO_.html
http://fakty.interia.pl/swiat/news/powstaje-bardzo-mocny-film-przeciw-radiu-maryja,1345652