irritant

Jesus...

snooo — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:38:35 GMT

Its rediculous. They'd never get away with anything that size.....

suspense

quarkdoll — Sat, 28 May 2005 17:54:11 GMT

ok, the wait and the suspense - your baader-meinhof story?

irritant — Mon, 23 May 2005 15:42:27 GMT

To the person who left the comment saying I'm too negative, please repost the comment. I deleted it by accident when I was doing some bits n' bobs last night.

It's unfortunate that you feel I'm too negative about the current Labour leadership but that's the nature of democracy. Democracy is about creating an atmosphere where the broadest possible spectrum of views can be expressed without censure -and that includes your comments. Mind you I would much prefer people to leave thier moniker when doing so, but that's no big deal.

If you look at most of the stuff that is critical in this blog, it usually links to specific items that back up my views. Those that don't are done with good conscience and a fair degree of analysis. If the Government or opposition parties (even if it was the Tories) does something really good I will be happy to give it an honourable mensh on the blog. You can't say any fairer than that.

Please repost.

irritant — Mon, 23 May 2005 14:50:03 GMT

Damn, I lost someone's post that was originally here. If the person places the comment here I would be grateful.

Yes, and...

irritant — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 20:29:52 GMT

...actually I was musing on calling myself typophile as a pun but there is a design agency of that name (lovely desktop wallpapers, free here) .
What's more I not only see your point, I even agree with you. I don't want another Thatcher and have no desire to end up being categorised as one of those unreconstructed lefties either. Yet in the long run many of the practices that have or are about to be put in place are going to have consequences that haven't been factored in. I swear to god, the medium to long-term financial health is being put
into serious jeopardy. Which in turn will destroy the remains of the welfare state.

Meaningless

bloggers4labour — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 09:24:41 GMT

Not words I'd use, and I don't even believe it's correct to laud their economic competence, but as long as we're not introducing deflationary, anti-union policies or pursuing privatisation for ideological reasons or to feather our own tests, I couldn't care less what the headline/soundbite says. See what happens when you read the Telegraph - you've got all riled now.

If asked, "were we wrong to say 'If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary; I warn you not to be young; I warn you not to fall ill; and I warn you not to grow old.'", of course neither Brown nor Blair would say Yes.

I won't mention the deliberate typo.

actually not personal

philg — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:48:39 GMT

As the author of don'tvotemilburn I would not say it's personal in the sense that my dislike does not extend one fraction of a millimetre into his private or family life about which I know nothing. But I certainly do think he is one of the most unpleasant politicians around. It is purely his political record I attack. Within that sphere of life he is pretty lightweight.

Not my cup of tea.

irritant — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:07:34 GMT

Trashing others is something that runs completely against the grain. Here's an attempt at an explanation of my actions:

The purpose of challenging Paul is to encourage him to put forward a better case than the weak assertions that he has produced so far. For the record he is a bright bloke who really knows how to put forward a political arguement. In fact I have been an admirer of his writing for almost a couple of decades. In this case however, he has put his brain into neutral by denying the possibility that Bliar lied vis Iraq and refers to BackingBlair participants as 'chumps', 'mugs', 'dickheads' and -wait for it- 'cretino-leftists'. Not exactly an approach to convert people to your cause.

Most bloggers write about things that matter to them and they will back up thier item by:

adding pertinent links,
pasting in relevant text,
present a body of reasoned arguement.

Have a look at Paul's entries on Bliar, almost bugger all.

Here's another way of looking at it. A Journalism lecturer who has also been a deputy editor of two political magazines, says:

"I have read all the reports and loads of books and articles on governmental decision-making before the war, and there is nothing that suggests other than that Bliar believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction..."

After reading almost everything on the decision about Britain's recent involvement vis Iraq, he asserts that mainstream opinion is mistaken (ie Bliar isn't a liar). Yet he doesn't make a case for this view. Not even a single link. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

He then switches tack by claiming:

"...it's his [Tony Bliar's] judgment, not his veracity, that is at issue".

Two surveys that I know of have said his veracity is an issue. The highest was in Sept 2003 where 59% thought Bliar lied whereas 29% didn't. Bizarrely Paul seems to wish us to consider TB's ability to make critical judgements is at fault. If I didn't suspect ulterior motives (throwing us off the scent by implying "the lesser of two evils") I would be inclined to say Paul is implying that our glorious leader after roughly (pre-Iraq) 5 year's experience was an incompetent.

So what's going on? I can only conclude is that he is merely doing a milder version of the narrow-minded guff championed by babbling right-wing fuckwits on the opposite side of the Atlantic for thier own glorious leader:

Claiming superior knowledge.
"Belgium does not exist", ie, deny your opponent's claims. Especially if the truth is staring you in the face.
The Goebbels option: Repeat your untruth/flaky views till your opponents eyes bleed.
Denigrate your opponents.
Act on your own but on behalf of your cause. That way if you become a liability, your leader doesn't acquire collateral damage. Some may even call it a hegemony.

At the end of the Panorama item questioning Bliar's veracity I emailed Paul to ask if it altered his opinion. It didn't. All he did was make a more flaky reiteration of his previous assertions. Consequently my mentioning of Paul's blog was to:

Alert others to what seems to be going on, and,
Sending a shot across Paul's bow to let him know he's close to being called to put up or shut up.

If he had a case (one that would hold water) he would have presented it by now. Or knocked me for six. Or both.
Currently the best strategy for any party-political blogger should adopt is to feed low-level disinformation/propaganda/rebuttals on a regular basis. That way they would neither be laughed off the face of the planet, nor called upon to justify some of the worst fuckups committed by thier own leaders. For some reason better known to Paul he has chosen to plough his own furrow.

Just consider two recent entries from this blog:

Someone in a senior position must have sanctioned sharing intelligence with the USA to kidnap and transfer suspects to ghost prisons to be tortured. Presumably this would have been mentioned at a JIC meeting which (according to the Hutton Report and the Belgrano Affair) the PM regularly attends.
Tony Bliar wanted to welch out on thier Manifesto promise of a minimum wage. However Mandelson and Brown stopped him.
- Incidentally, guess what Sunday's Labour election campaign theme was? "A Tory government would leave low-paid workers stranded by letting the national minimum wage "wither away"". You couldn't make howlers like this if you tried.

Never mind Michael Howard, this is on par with Margaret Thatcher and actions such as those mentioned above are made by the party of which Paul is a member. I can't recall him criticising any of TB's worst excesses.
When Labour was in opposition, people like Paul were utterly hostile to any of Thatcher's policies. All of a sudden, now his party is in power, these things have became acceptable. In some cases the PM has carried out even more extreme acts than Thatcher (invading other countries under false pretences, pushing ID cards...) yet Paul slags us off (you included).

My aim has been to call Paul to account and in the context of the situation it is far from being disproportionate. Apart from the remarks about extremists such as Anne Coulter and TCS (above), I can't recall a single time when I have slagged anyone unprovoked. In saying that I will hold people to account, especially when they have one standard for themselves and another for others. Taking everything into consideration, I don't see how your claim of trash-talking holds.

Of course, if Paul makes a decent case, I will retract these views publicly and without reservation. Like he demands of others, this time I will be expecting him to provide "clear evidence".

BTW: I'm a big admirer of your blog. Keep it up.

robin grant — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:25:40 GMT

irry - only true for .co.uk - on .com we've got a few places to go. Hold steady until then...

cheeks — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 15:58:02 GMT

Are you trying to start a flame war with Paul Anderson? He doesn't have comments on his site, so you'll have to do your trash-talking here.

By the way, I think I know why you don't get more comments here: registration is a pain in the arse.

anneg — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:15:25 GMT

Thanks! And so I see this is where you have moved...

Backing Blair admits lying so protest cancelled

jimdoyle — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:55:12 GMT

With a heavy heart, I have to share with you an e-mail from Clive Summerfield, who is one of the Backing Blair webmasters. It makes it clear Backing Blair lied
defendbackingblair.blogspot.com

Hello Zack

melissacw — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 18:35:18 GMT

Zack

You sound pretty notorious to me...!! nevermind how cute anyone might be (see your Boris Johnson comment) we're jolly worried and will keep an eye on you!

Melissa

drop me an email

robin grant — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 12:53:24 GMT

robin{at}perfect{dot}co{dot}uk and we'll take it from there...

Cheers Rob.

irritant — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 11:27:34 GMT

Thanks Rob. Yes that would be nice. And congratulations on your award. Well-deserved!

Hey there

robin grant — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:43:13 GMT

irritant

I used to read your blog on your old dircon site. Glad to have you back!

If you feel like you need a platofrm for your political thoughts, then I offer you a log-in for perfect.co.uk to do with as you will...

mull it over

:)