Iain Dale continues his decline to cheap partisan gossip broker – to think the man once had Parliamentary pretensions.
His latest broadside on the Lib Dems to backfire spectacularly is his decision to attack Lib Dem News for publishing a pro-Hamas letter, conveniently ignoring the fact that the same page included 2 pro-Israel and 2 relatively balanced letters. His defence is that he didn’t read the original source, which is essentially the same thing as saying he couldn’t be arsed to check his sources.
He also claims that “I don’t actually see LibDem News each week as I gather only LibDem members can subscribe”. Dale remember is a bookseller. In his old Westminster bookshop (the one that was “forced” to shut down due to the Congestion Charge only to mysteriously reopen six months later under a different name, and remains open to this day), I regularly remember seeing copies of LDN for sale. He thus knows that it is available to anyone to subscribe to – indeed until relatively recently you could order it from your newsagent. To plead ignorance on a matter that it is business to know, stretches credibility.
He also reads – and occasionally comments – on this blog. That being the case he will be aware of my own outspoken criticisms of Chris Davies. Specifically, he should be aware of the letter I wrote Lib Dem News some weeks ago. They didn’t publish it, but as I said at the time I didn’t mind because they published several that made similar points.
What annoys me most about all this is that Dale thinks it is appropriate to make cheap points like this on an issue as serious as the current situation in the Middle East, and yet seeks to claim the moral highground each and every time. It is tawdry, nasty little politics and should be singled out as such.
Both Dale and Guido get phenomenally high hitcounts for their websites and are keen to go on about how important this makes them. If the limit of your ambition is to spread political gossip then that is indeed a real achievement. But aiming to become the blogosphere’s answer to Marina Snyde is a little, well, hollow isn’t it?
At least Guido is aware of what he is and doesn’t have pretensions to be something more. Dale is right on one thing though: Paul Corney is a berk.
What a load of old bollocks…
You wrote: He also claims that “I don’t actually see LibDem News each week as I gather only LibDem members can subscribeâ€. Dale remember is a bookseller. In his old Westminster bookshop (the one that was “forced†to shut down due to the Congestion Charge only to mysteriously reopen six months later under a different name, and remains open to this day), I regularly remember seeing copies of LDN for sale. He thus knows that it is available to anyone to subscribe to – indeed until relatively recently you could order it from your newsagent. To plead ignorance on a matter that it is business to know, stretches credibility.
1. When I trie dto subscribe to LibDem News on the form you had to write your membership number. Obviously I do not have one so I assumed you had to be a member to subscribe. If I am wrong, do let me know.
2. Yes we did used to flog about 1 copy a week at Politico’s. That was not a subscription.
3. it was not only due to the congestion charge, but that played a part in the decision. The shop which is there now is not a specialist political bookshop like we were, and has a bigger company behind it to subsidise any losses. We did not.
Glad you agree with my assessment of Paul Corney though. We must be glad for small mercies.
The whole problem with the Lib Dem position is that they are criticising Jews for such things as bombings which kill civilians & targeting electricity supplies as being war crimes when nobody was more enthusiastic for doing precisely these & worse in support of the Nazi founded KLA.
This leaves a very ugly taste.
Iain, if you actually bothered to look at the subscription page for Lib Dem News, you’d see that membership number is not a required field. They need membership numbers for members for administrative purposes, but nowhere does it say you have to be a member to subscribe, as the fact that you used to be able to order it in your bookshop confirms. The fact that it was an “order” and not a “subscription” is desperate, desperate semantics.
Neil, your KLA/Tudjman/Bosnian war schtick has always been grossly disproportionate and is getting old. You really need to start letting go now – apart from when you bang on about nuclear power, you you actually have anything else to say?