And when you’re right, it seems you’re right…

Via Tim in the comments, I find myself strangely drawn to an article from The Register from late December… Comment The internet has always offered a stage for dramatic reinvention. Corporate lobbyists have found it a suitable theatre for AstroTurfing, given the willingness of a net audience to […]

Fox News Lite on the Smith Institute

Well, I’ve now had to chance to review Iain Dale’s Fox News Lite smear story, sorry, report on the Smith Institute and my immediate reaction is… …is that it? Okay, I will say the video is worth watching just for the section on Bob Shrum’s comments about David […]

Now its Wingnut TV…

Christ, the more you dig around in places like Fox News Lite, the more seriously scary wing-nuttery you uncover. Michael Ehioze-Ediae is a bit of new one on me, although a quick Google search adds membership of the Conservative Christian Fellowship (quelle surprise) and a recent debut on […]

A quick PR pointer…

Look, I really do have to say this… On a day that news of Lord Levy being arrested and questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice in relation to the ‘loans for peerages’ allegations just in time for the early evening news, and with the Tories […]

TONIGHT… On Fox News Lite…

News reaches me via Tim at Bloggerheads that Thatcherite ex-union basher (and proud of it) and astroturfer-in-chief, Paul Staines, is trailing an appearance on Fox News Lite by the ever-so-impartial and anti-establishment Iain Dale, Tory A-lister and trustee of the completely ‘independent’ charitable think-tank, Policy Exchange – that’s […]

Taxi for Tony and a few other thoughts…

Luke Akehurst seems a tad incredulous today: What readers seem to want … is second hand leaked documents already stuck on Tory blogs… Yesterday’s Hain leak post is now the second most recommended post ever on bloggers for Labour: http://www.bloggers4labour.org/recommended.jsp and got 556 hits, which I think is […]

Is this the earliest recorded piece of Astroturfing?

Was mucking around with Google over lunchtime when I came across a very old (October 1999) BBC ‘Talking Point’ that contains a couple of rather familiar names. The question is ‘How will history view John Major?’ – this predates public knowledge of the whole business of shagging Edwina […]

Legislation Watch

Over the weekend I thought I’d take a little time to leaf through the upcoming Private Members’ Bills to see what the backbenches are up to, and turned up a few interesting snippets of possible legislation which need to watched closely. First, and most important of all, we […]

Guido, The Smith Institute and the Think Tank he’s not writing about.

This is going to be a long post, even by my standards, but I’d ask you to bear with me as the information it contains is most illuminating. Paul Staines, who blogs under the psedonym ‘Guido Fawkes’ has recently run a series of typically snide posts about a […]

Ah-ah-ah. Don’t mention the ‘J’ word.

Oh well, today sees the release of the Ajegbo report on Diversity and Citizenship in the national curriculum, which means yet more harping on about ‘Britishness’ as is obvious from the Beeb’s opening gambit… Schools in England should teach “core British values” alongside cultural diversity, a report says. […]