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”
Gordon's dad
I think we also need to be clear about the original point made by my son, Gordon. This blog was not set up to collate and report examples of Polish anti-semitism, horrible though such incidents undoubtedly are. Left Foot Forward exists to attack David Cameron and the Conservatives. It was the tenuous connection to the Law and Justice party that led Will Straw to deem the story worthy of inclusion on his blog.
When you try to make simplistic propaganda out of the complex and morally ambivalent world of Eastern European politics, you risk looking foolish (and cheap).
Liberal Conspiracy » Revealed: How Tory staffers are astro-turfing leftwing blogs
[…] astro-turfing leftwing blogs by Sunny H November 13, 2009 at 10:00 am Will Straw at Left Foot Forward published an astonishing story the other day. He said: An employee of the Conservative party has […]
willstraw
Gordon’s Dad – before you start making assumptions about the purpose of this blog, perhaps worth reading the About section which explains our values. Anti-semitism (in Poland or elsewhere) clearly falls under our ‘racism and extremism’ category.
And for those still following this chain, there is further evidence this morning of Tory astroturfing from the same IP address over on Liberal Conspiracy: http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/11/13/revealed-how-tory-staffers-are-astro-turfing-leftwing-blogs/
YMT
IP Address – Check
Attempt at Identification and development of profile – Check
Here’s the intresting part
That linking of an IP address with a name creates, you guessed it! Personal data!
Publication of said personal data – Check
Yay you’ve broken the data protection act. Oh dear. Naughty naughty.
Ala
WOW I just stumbled upon this site while looking for something else. I am Polish. I never voted for the Law and Justice party or any rightist parties. I don’t go to church, and I don’t like Rydzyk. I hope then that my opinion won’t be treated as coming from an Eastern European “morally ambivalent” rightist here (aren’t you guys a bit too full of yourselves?).
That said, it’s the first time I read about the issue, so it’s rather absurd to say that “The promo reel created a media frenzy in Poland”.
From the links to Polish sites provided above it seems that Aro Korol is a happener, who creates provocative videos. It seems that he sent that one to some Polish newspapers with the information that a film is being produced in which Rydzyk is portrayed as Goebbels and Poland is likened to a concentration camp. The protests from Jurek and Sobecka (I never heard of her before) were about that: a prejudiced, Polonophobic comparison, and not “attempts to suppress film exposing country’s anti-Semitic issues” as this blog claims.
If someone portrayed a Polish rabbi as a Nazi the reaction would be the same. There is a line between combating anti-Semitism or any other prejudices, and creating a hateful image of a nation. One of the comments in Gazeta Wyborcza said it all: “Rydzyk might be the devil that he is, but so is Aro Korol”. Both men use the same kind of rhetoric.
Jurek’s protest was sent to Sikorski, Poland’s Foreign Affairs Minister, who, I hope, cannot be accused of anti-Semitism (he’s married to Anne Applebaum). He said that he looked into the issue and that it’s just a silly provocation, but he assured that if a film made such a portrayal of Poland he’d react. That closed the matter.
I am sorry that this blog fell a victim of the provocation as well.
However, some comments made here are far from fair:
“Anti-Semitism is rife in Poland as you concede.”
Anti-Semitism in Poland is nowhere as rife as it is in the UK (just check about any report on global anti-Semitism). There IS anti-Semitism in Poland, but it’s not fair to create such a picture as it seems some people here feel justified to believe in.
Also, I’m not a Kaminski’s admirer, but this is simply not true:
“his opposition to the Jewadbne apology included calls for an apology from the Jewish side”
Kaminski said that the Polish nation should not bear responsibility for hateful actions of several thugs, just as the Jewish nation e.g. Israel or Jewish international institutions, should not bear responsibility for similar actions of some Jewish thugs. Perhaps it’s not clear, but there were some Jews (mostly communists) who tortured and murdered civilians. Any nation should bear responsibility for what its representatives do, the democratic government for example, but if tomorrow several British neo-Nazis burn down a synagogue or attack a Polish community, chances are that you won’t be able to prevent it. Kaminski clearly said that this attitude is true for both Poles and Jews, and that demanding any such apology from the Jewish side would be absurd.
It is very noble that you try to combat anti-Semitism, but please don’t do it by blackening other people. I understand that Poland’s history is complex, perhaps too complex for you to see it as anything else than ambiguous because it doesn’t conform to the stereotypes you use. My advice would be to either self-educate or leave the issue. As it is now it just looks as if you were looking for a handy scapegoat.