Over at Order Order, Guido Fawkes has accused Left Foot Forward of being a "fully signed on" member of some Labour Party rebuttal network, and "regularly taking stories" from Ed Miliband's online communications specialist, Alex Smith. Let's look at the evidence.
Over at Order Order, Guido Fawkes has accused Left Foot Forward of being a “fully signed up” member of some Labour Party rebuttal network, and “regularly taking Smith’s copy”, refering to Ed Miliband’s online communications specialist, Alex Smith. Let’s look at the evidence:
1) Has Left Foot Forward ever run an article written by Alex Smith?
No we have not. Readers are welcome to search for “Alex Smith” in the search box in the top right hand corner.
2) Has Left Foot Forward ever taken a story idea from Alex Smith?
Having spoken to all current and former paid employees of Left Foot Forward, that include myself as managing director, Shamik Das as acting editor, and Will Straw as former editor, we have no knowledge of ever taking a story idea from Alex Smith.
3) Would it be wrong to carry an article written by Alex Smith, or investigate a story idea suggested to Left Foot Forward by Alex Smith?
Left Foot Forward is very clear about its article criteria – we endeavour to ensure that all posts are evidence-based and in-keeping with progressive values, as explained in the contact section of the website. That means that as long as a post meets those requirements we will consider running it from anyone, as long they do not belong to the dangerous fringes of British politics such as the BNP. As such, we would be happy to run a story written by David Cameron, Guido Fawkes, or even Alex Smith.
11 Responses to “Left Foot Forward: Progressive, independent, evidence-based”
Dr Ian McCormick
RT @leftfootfwd: Left Foot Forward: Progressive, independent, evidence-based: http://bit.ly/gb4xda reports @DanielElton
Éoin Clarke
My mother once taught me that if people are giving you a hard time, it is only because the are jealous. Jealousy is a fine thing indeed. I have some training in discourse analysis and would venture to say, that of all the politics sites in the UK this along with UK polling report are two of the most rigorous in terms of the veracity of the data they put forward. I could, but wont, make a direct comparison with the said accuser’s site. If I were to do such a thing, it would give the impression that the said forum is in any way comparable. It is not.
Ron Broxted
Given the trolls that infest Guido he should be the last to talk about running a site!
Frank Spring
RT @leftfootfwd: Left Foot Forward: Progressive, independent, evidence-based http://bit.ly/hbMj0k < LFF comes back swinging, as it should
matthew fox
Why are we giving Paul the ” Oxygen of Publicity ”
Don’t expect an apology, Staines never did over the so called secret No10 server.