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”
Billy the Kid
Will can’t you set up a filter on certain words.
If a commentator was to say “Gordon Brown is a C*%T” – which would of course be popular with the majority of people in this country and fully understandable – why can’t you set up a filter on the word C*%T and not allow the message to be sent?
Instead of the offending word C*%T being used other words would then be necessary, for example “Gordon Brown is a useless, dishonest, thieving, lying delusional, dithering, unelected prat” which would keep the whole tenure of the blog just more civilised.
Just a thought Will and then you won’t be accused of being a suck up New Labour censoring control freak – it’s about politeness.
willstraw
Thanks, Billy – it’s a good idea and not hard to do using wordpress so I’ll get onto it. But I also want to rule out commenters insulting others without swearing so some discretion will be necessary. Ultimately if people remain polite while making the points, there’ll be no need for any censorship at all.
FYI
So Aro Korol contacted you to place his commercial interest on your web site, and also chose the author who wrote about his commercial interest on your web site? The author filed you copy with howling mistakes, and sensationalist claims that a man who opposes the film’s journalistic standards is in fact trying to suppress an expose of anti-Semitism?
This is an unforgivable breach of professional ethics and I now have zero confidence in your web site. How much more PR, product placement and advertorial dressed up as evidence-based journalism is there on your site? Moreover, Aro Korol has also lost credibility in this incident, particularly as he is seeking funding and has an interest in causing a stir about his film.
It is nice of you to be so honest now after questioning, but this seems rather late, particularly as you were so quick to accuse others of subterfuge. I have nothing to do with Jurek and its not my place to track him down and offer him the right to reply to your allegations.
willstraw
FYI – I have no idea why you are so incredulous about this. The only “howling mistake” was describing Jurek as a politican rather than an MP. We get press releases all the time and have to decide whether they are accurate or not. I read through the links and decided that it was a story that deserved a wider audience (as did a number of other publications which I have listed above).
You’ve also obviously not read the link I posted of the letter from Jurek, which makes no mention of journalistic standards and every mention of the film being “anti-Polish” and “legal steps, to prevent unpunished insults”. I happen to think that this is outrageous and you disagree. If you have other substantive points to make about the content of the original article then I’d love to hear them. But at the moment I think you’re being a little obsessive about this.
FYI
Indeed I am obsessive about accurate journalism.
I’m incredulous that you would offer Aro Korol the choice of who is going to write about Aro Korol’s film, and allow that person to pose as an independent guest columnist on your “evidence based” web site. Worse, you tool Korol’s friend’s information at face value and seemingly without much healthy scepticism.
Sorry, but this case makes you look both gullible and hypocritical. I don’t doubt your good intentions and I hope you will learn from this mistake. You will restore public trust if you don’t let it happen again.