Meanwhile, I think the real story is this: When you say that staff at Latimer House and at GCHQ “misidentified” Nadine Dorries’ Ladyshave, it could be that these people are a little bit more wordly-wise than you make out.

GCHQ? How did our national signals-intelligence and information security agency get involved? Did they mistake it for a bug? Is Nadine Dorris’s Ladyshave – even if it isn’t dual-use technology – suspected of being remotely controlled by Dutch intelligence (Philips, you see…)?

There is a form of widespread form of prejudice and oppression missing from this list. Coincidently, every May 1st bloggers throughout the world get together and write about it, so you may be interested in Blogging Against Disablism Day
http://tinyurl.com/disablism

Disablism is not a great word, there are other terms you could employ for the purposes of the comment policy. In the meantime, please do come have a read on May 1st. Thanks.

“But the degree to which the press treats Glenn Beck with kid gloves is pretty infuriating, especially given how “crazy” liberals like Michael Moore and dirty fucking hippie bloggers have been treated. It’s almost as if there’s a bit of an asymmetry here. Nah, couldn’t be…”

Same is true here, the MSM is Conservative.

Well said Sunny. The hypocrisy of the Right knows no bounds. They smear and feign outrage in equal measure.

Of course they are going to say that the Liberal wing of the blogsphere is crap because they always say that about the media. Before the internet was invented they would claim that only right wing newspapers were good and Liberal ones were poor. Different media same bullshit message. But what do you expect from people who deep down believe that they have a divine right to govern, all the time.

As for the MSM, they are just showing their true bias, which is pro Conservative. Same as it always

There is a marked difference between making/repeating slurs and noting their origins in what would otherwise have proven to be nothing more than a mildly amusing anecdote, which is what I’ve actually done here.

*makes gun-shape with hand and shoots self*

And either way, that doesn’t excuse behaving exactly like Staines and repeating allegations about Tories’ private lives. This is an extremely unpleasant post for a number of reasons, and should never have been published.

I have no trouble with posts castigating what Derek Draper and McBride did – in fact I’ve already loudly explained my position on the issue.

But many on the right are using the scandal to re-invent themselves as something new, which is just that bit galling. So, Paul Staines is pretending that he is just anti-smears. Iain Dale is trying to paint New Labour as the only vehicle for sleaze. Nadine Dorries is pretending she’s never smeared anyone or published any rubbish (especially on the abortion debate) and Daniell Hannan is now trying to convince everyone that the internet inherently favours the right.

Sure – these people are known for their hypocrisy so why spend all our time pointing this out. It’s a good point. And I doubt that we’ll be returning to this story with as much gusto by tomorrow.

But this hypocrisy then develops into memes that are then pushed by the MSM (‘Gordon Brown is autistic’, the internet is right-wing, ‘the left-liberal blogosphere sucks’ etc etc) – which are just factually untrue.

We are part of the blogosphere conversation – so why shouldn’t we point out the hypocrisy? I fully expect Iain Dale to do the same when we make mistakes. That’s part of the whole conversation isn’t it?

Those clever people at Philips manufacture an extensive line of beauty products, some of which are nothing if not, ahem, versatile. For instance, this smooth, ergonomically shaped sonic massage dildo also doubles up as an epilator.
http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/gb/consumer/cc/_productid_HP6503_00_GB_CONSUMER/Epilator+HP6503-00

Ugh. I pretty much read this site for your posts, Unity, but this particular bit is seriously unattractive. Blogging isn’t a club and you don’t have to establish your right to be involved in it on the basis of longevity or acceptance from self-defined “established political bloggers”. By all means ignore Draper’s call to arms on the basis that he’s a tit, but I’d personally rather see less of the “do you know who we ARE?” attitude.

Is this really the best that the Labour supporters can come up with ?

Careful Unity! You might find it hard to run when you’ve been caught with your trousers around your ankles, as Labour have been.

LOL

No, its the absurd implausibility of the scenario that’s funny.

Charlotte:

You seem to be a little confused as to the meaning of ‘smear’.

There’s nothing whatsoever in this article that cannot be substantiated. least of all the charge of hypocrisy against Dorries.

Shatterface:

That’s because hypocrisy is the real story here – to simply lay into Draper and McBride is to miss the broader point, which is that that this kind of thing is endemic within Westminster.