Libdem activist resigns; hacks site with rant


by Sunny Hundal    
January 19, 2011 at 8:40 am

A Libdem activist for the Keighley and Ilkley Libdems has resigned, taking their entire website with him.

Yesterday evening he posted a long rant at the Libdems on the front page of their site, explaining why he left the party in disgust.

I created this web site in the days that the Liberal Democrats had principles. I think many local ones, Judith Brooksbank as a shining example, still have them.

However, the issue of fees for university students made me fall out of love with Nick Clegg and other ‘Economic Liberals’. In consequence, I resigned from the Party.

The Party doesn’t seem to have noticed, and sent me (and my wife) a Member’s mailing. That includes a summarry of an interview with Nick Clegg about the issue of student fees. His responses, reported there, enraged me so much that I decided that it was just to call him to question here. Let me explain why…

via Political Scrapbook.

You can view the page here. Presumably he has taken the site details with him, making it very difficult for them to change it!

He ends by saying:

With Christmas so recently past, we should remember the words of the carol, Good King Wenceslas. He went out to help someone more in need than he was. That’s what I thought the Liberal Democrats were about. Nick Clegg seems to have a different inspiration!

On an entirely unrelated note, a Sun/YouGov poll today reports that Conservative voters prefer Nick Clegg to all of their own cabinet ministers except William Hague.

The Sun Twitter feed added, “…proving more and more Tories are agreeing with Nick, even if nobody else does any longer.”

Update: They’ve taken down the page now


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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. dizzy

I was rather looking forward to the details of the hack and then I discovered a web designer who had full access to the website logged in legitimately and changed some words. I’m gutted.

2. Andy Vale

A bit rich from The Sun considering all these policies were on the table when they feverishly encouraged their readers to vote for them.

3. Bourgeois

The silly bugger can’t spell:

“Insureances”

“garaduates”

The party of Phil Woolas is welcome to this illiterate buffoon.

Meanwhile, what is Labour’s alternative to fees, having introduced them, then trebled them, then ensured 40% of people go to university, making HE funding unsustainable?

4. James

Typos, not illiteracy. Big difference.

5. JSlayerUK

There was no hacking involved. When you create a website and then change it, that’s just editing.

Can we stop doing this please and have some accuracy? Similarly, crashing a website via a DDoS attack is not hacking. Frequent misuse of language bugs me.

6. Andy Mayer

It would seem the activist’s principle disagreement with “economic liberals” is an understanding of economics… and liberalism.

7. pagar

Hope he’s not looking for work as a web designer…………..

8. bluepillnation

Still, it emphasises Rule Number 1* yet again.

* – Rule Number 1; *Never* piss off your programmer(s) .

9. Ted

There is something distinctly odd about this ? A high profile Liberal-Democrat PPC, County Councillor, Borough Councillor and ex Mayor has also just resigned in Worthing.

Someone tell me this is just coincidence please as this Councillor is also highly skilled and respected in the world of computers and IT in general.

http://www.worthingherald.co.uk/news/local/worthing_councillor_quits_liberal_democrats_1_2317816

10. JWyatt

They’ve changed the website back (or at least taken his comments off). It’s still archived at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KtH0EbhjCzcJ:www.keighleylibdems.org.uk/, but probably not for very long.

11. sally

I am amazed more Lib Dems have not done the same. Power Vs principles. It seems most Lib Seems have no principles.

Simon Hughes and Charles Kennedy are still searching for their conscience. They better hurry up.

12. Joe Otten

I’d rather not lose the EMA, but I don’t have anything better to cut. Do you?

For pure point-scoring though, Cameron had one of the best ever at PMQs today when he reminded us that when EMAs were brought in, the government said that it could afford to do this because of the work it had done to reduce the deficit. Clearly then EMA affordability relies on a low deficit.

13. Alison

12. Joe. You’d rather spend the money on a married person’s allowance then, than EMA? I guess the extra cash would help the Goves out with their cleaner troubles.

14. Joe Otten

Yeah fair point on the married persons’ allowance. I would cut that, but I have already spent the proceeds in some other argument on another topic. Probably transport or green energy or something.

15. Sunny Hundal

I’d rather not lose the EMA, but I don’t have anything better to cut. Do you?

As the IFS has pointed out, the EMA spend is self-funding

16. esme

Alternative to cutting EMA? How about the £500 million contract with ATOS healthcare, a company whose policy of lying about the health of benefits claimants is estimated to save us a mere £8 million a year (the majority of their decisions being successfully overturned on appeal). By my maths that’s just spending £492 million on torturing the sick and disabled.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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  19. DenisCampbell

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  20. Danielle Blake

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  21. Mike Forester

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  24. Pucci Dellanno

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  25. Ed Hobson

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  26. Peter J Barnes

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  28. ABC

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  29. Ma

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  30. Gary

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  31. No 2 Cuts

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  • Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy.

 
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