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Political attacks and spin by Labour bloggers have backfired today as research by AlanWCollins revealed the truth behind the claims.
Medway blogger Tristan Osborne claimed that “leaked” documents showed a Conservative fundraising deficit of up to ?5,000 in two Medway constituencies.
Osborne also claimed more spitefully that the Conservatives mis-spelt the name of his local constituency Rochester and Strood, as being “Rochester & Stroud”.
Thanks to a tip-off from a trusted source, together with background information, AlanWCollins was able to piece together the source of the “leaked” documents.
In a recently-established blog, entitled #gen2010, an anonymous Labour blogger (revealed to be Tom Callow at the click of just one link) reveals some statistics about the Conservatives’ campaign site My Conservatives.
In fairness to the bloggers, the campaigns are raising little funds on the website. However to claim that there is a “deficit”, or to imply that the documents refer to all forms of campaigning, was dismissed by another source as being complete rubbish.
Furthermore, AlanWCollins can reveal that the My Conservatives website correctly names Rochester and Strood.
In truth, with minimal research it is clear that the “leaked” documents were produced by none other than Labour blogger Tom Callow.
The poisonous attack aimed at Conservatives for mis-spelling (ironic in itself) should have been aimed at one of Osborne’s fellow Labour bloggers!
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Although this section aims to be independent, it is envisaged that, over the course of the campaign, editorial bias will be highly evident, in a bid to rubbish lies and half-truths throughout the campaign.
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Alan,
A few points by way of reply…
1) I have never claimed to be anonymous. All links to the blog were posted from my personal twitter account. Therefore any attempts you make to sound like you have uncovered this fact make you look, to say the least, foolish.
2) All names, constitutencies and monetary amounts were copied VERBATIM from MyConservatives at the time of research (8th January). I did this for this very reason, knowing someone would rebuke the research.
3) The documents were produced by me, but only in a sense of data collation. The data is freely available to the public and there is no made-up data here.
4) I don’t quite know how you or your ’source’ suggest that saying there are deficits is “rubbish”. There are target amounts. They have not been met. Ergo, there is a deficit. Would you like a dictionary?
Regards,
Tom
The odious Osborne is a proven liar. That is why he is not taken seriously either by the Conservative Party or, indeed, his fellow Labour activists. One senior Labour Party staffer even described him to me as a “a useful idiot” when we met at the Medway Fresher’s Fair.
Osborne posted on various websites that he had attended the Cameron Direct event at Princes Park last year, however when it was pointed out to him that attendees all had to be on a police security checklist and his name was not on the list, he suddenly went very quiet on the issue.
Osborne is a living example of why people are tired of Labour. He is trite, insignificant and morally corrupt.
I did wonder who would be first to reply, Tom, but thank you for your comment, anyway.
1. Posting on a blog under a pseudonym generally implies that you wish to remain anonymous. No intention was made on my part to make it seem as though I had uncovered this fact through hard work – I was merely saying to my readers that at first glance it appeared as though the author was anonymous, but that it quickly became obvious that they were not.
2. It is hard to disprove someone who makes such a claim about how a web page appeared in the past, which makes it difficult to be able to rebuke that point, but I would offer up one question: if the webpage appeared to say “Rochester and Strood” when I checked last night (and again today), and it said “Rochester and Strood” on 22 November last year (Google cache, screenshot), why would it have said anything else, particularly anything that was incorrect, between those dates?
3 & 4. In terms of these issues, my post was primarily aimed at Mr Osborne. No claim was made that any of the data itself was made up by you or anyone else. As stated in the post, you revealed statistics freely available from My Conservatives. However, Mr Osborne, in citing his “online source”, claimed that the documents were leaked (on his blog, and on twitter) and tried to use them to claim that there was an overall fundraising deficit.
I am well aware of the definition of deficit, and with regards to the targets on My Conservatives, which you referenced, there are indeed “deficits”. The rebuke was with regards to Osborne’s spin of the facts, claiming that there is an overall fundraising deficit – which, to my knowledge, there is not.
Peter – thank you for your comment, but please do be careful on how far you stray into the realms of personal insults. True or not, I cannot approve any comment which becomes too insulting towards an individual.
That said, I had not heard about the Cameron Direct incident.
After the debacle that was the Luton and Wayfield by-election one would have thought Labour, and particularly Mr Osborne would have learnt their lesson. It appears not.
FYI. I believe this is one such post concerning the Cameron Direct event http://bit.ly/7iIJ2J See comments. Perhaps Mr Osborne would care to give us a definitive answer on whether he did or did not attend the event as he states?
Perhaps Mr Osborne would like to phone a friend?