Meet the Left-wing blogger who says "we have no alternative" but to support the right of Islam4UK to march through Wootton Bassett

Here's an extract from a post from Dave Osler which was also cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy this afternoon:

"...This move is an obvious provocation from what is effectively a front organisation for banned Islamist faction Al Muhajiroun, who are manifestly not peaceniks of any description.

"It has been suggested that the announcement is simply a stunt on the part of the publicity-savvy Mr Choudary, and I very much hope that is the case. If it goes ahead, it will inevitably generate a huge counter-mobilisation likely to boost the fortunes of the fascist British National Party ahead of an impending general election. Choudary either does not care about this, or positively relishes the prospect.

"All of this leaves the principled humanist secular left with a huge headache. After all, if we do not uphold the elementary argument for freedom of speech, who will? So here we are, forced to extend our efforts in support of a manifestation of execrable religious bigotry. It is an obvious sucker punch, and we can even see it coming, but we have no alternative but to walk straight into it."

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling made clear his opposition to the march earlier today.

Sunny Hundal celebrates Rush Limbaugh's hospitalisation

The above Tweet from Sunny Hundal is typical of the ugliness of his Liberal Conspiracy website. It's not the first time it has celebrated something bad happening to a centre right personality.

Responding to the recent very brutal attack on the Silvio Berlusconi their blogger Unity posted a YouTube clip of the attack. The full text of the post was: "Obviously one should never condone the use of violence against anyone, least of all man in his seventies... But – be honest – given a clear shot, you would… wouldn’t you?"

'Sunny H' himself commented:

There follows a long discussion about whether it is appropriate and tasteful to respond in this way, of whether celebrating Thatcher's death is a good idea and the like. We are going to see the very worst of the Left when (and I hope it's some time away) Lady Thatcher dies.

Blogs cannot always be responsible for their comments but they can be responsible for their approved authors like Unity.

Here's another of Unity's posts:

"In 1983, 62% said that they thought that sexual relations between adults of the same sex were wrong. Today that figure has fallen to 34% and if, as the evidence for religious belief suggests, difference in attitudes between generations account for most of the change then, even though its not as good as it might be, there ís probably nothing much that couldn't be quickly sorted out with a decent flu pandemic."

Such hymns of hate speak for themselves.

Tim Montgomerie

The British Left is developing better and better online products

There is more evidence today that the Left is getting its online effort together.

LeftFootForward is a notably different offering to, for example, the nasty immaturity of Sunny Hundal's Liberal Conspiracy.  It is an intelligent blog that examines all Tory policy.  We are also seeing Alex Smith build a more credible LabourList after the disaster of Derek Draper's stewardship.

Yesterday Hillary Benn MP launched the 'BackTheBan' website to harvest the email addresses of the many supporters of the foxhunting ban. It's not a complicated product but it will probably gather a few thousand email addresses in the months to come for party fundraising efforts.

Today a Labour MP, Jon Cruddas, and a Labour candidate, Chuka Umunna, have launched 'Tory Stories' - a blog dedicated to highlighting alleged failures of Tory councils and councillors.  The Times' Sam Coates describes the blog as "carefully researched".

Time will tell if ToryStories can translate its initial offering into regular analyses that win local and national media attention but there are clearer and clearer signs that the Right's dominance of the internet is being challenged as never before. The 38 Degrees website is also one to watch.

Should the Tories win the General Election we can expect the Left to rebuild on the web. They will fight every 'Tory cut' online and on a local and national basis. The trade unions have a £25m war chest to fund such campaigns.  The danger for the Labour Party is that all this online activism will create an energised left-wing that will be difficult to manage.

Whatever the truth about the Left's latest online offerings it is absolutely the case that we on the Right must raise our game in 2010.

Tim Montgomerie

New Statesman political correspondent's account of Tory bloggers lunch is "work of fiction"

James Macintyre is a political correspondent for the New Statesman.

In the recent past he accused the Tories of being "institutionally racist". The article had to be removed from the New Statesman website. He has a history of writing very partisan pieces that have been subsequently rubbished.

Yesterday he wrote a piece about a private lunch that CCHQ's Samuel Coates hosted for Tory bloggers, on Tuesday of last week. Macintyre reported that the Tory bloggers used the meeting to attack CCHQ web strategy and he listed some specific criticisms.

I wasn't at the lunch. Jonathan Isaby represented ConHome and he describes Macintyre's piece as an "utter work of fiction".

Graeme Archer, from CentreRight.com, was at the lunch and emailed me this morning to say that "the biggest two lies in his piece are that bloggers were complaining about access and that we were told to "back off"." Graeme concludes: "The *precise reverse* is the truth."

Shane Greer and ToryBear have already written their own rebuttals. Below James Macintyre's thread other attendees at the lunch also attack the piece. Sam Coates himself writes:

"Not a single thing you say was said at the lunch was actually said - ask anyone who was actually there. Saying Eric Pickles was there is wrong. The number of attendees is wildly wrong. Even the pudding is wrong! In fact, the only things that are right are a few basic snippets that were posted online by centre-right blogs on the day: 1) that it happened on Tuesday, 2) that Hunt, Macrory and the new media team were there, and 3) that there was some boar in the main course). Cracking journalism."

It is very difficult to respect the New Statesman as long as they employ someone willing to write such nonsense.

Tim Montgomerie