John Hirst 3 Iain Dale 0

On 26th of April 2007, Tim Ireland posted this on his blog Iain Dale's Dairy. I must admit that when I first saw it I misread it as Iain Dale's Diary, and whilst I found the header amusing of Iain Dale's head stuck on a cow, and the sub heading "Let's see if we can't coax some answers out of the old cow", I missed the Dairy/Diary connection but as I saw that the site had linked to me I included a link to the site in my blogroll. Initially, I described it as Iain Dale's Diary (Not), until I noticed the difference in spelling between Dairy and Diary and then corrected my link to reflect this. I thought nothing more about this reciprocal link until I received Iain Dale's email complaining to me that I had linked to this blog and he demanded that I remove the link from my blogroll.

When I began blogging, I noted that Iain Dale offered other bloggers a link from his blog if they linked to him. There was no hidden clause in the terms or conditions, it was a straight forward reciprocal link. I linked to Iain Dale's Diary and then informed him of this and in due course he reciprocated by linking back to my blog. Today, I noticed that Iain Dale has removed the link to my blog from his blog without offering an explanation. Now, bloggers and readers of blogs may be aware that there has been a disagreement going on for sometime between Tim Ireland and Guido and Iain Dale. I first became aware of it when Guido started to delete my comments from his blog when I posted under jailhouselawyer. To get around this childish behaviour, I posted a few comments under various aliases. To my surprise, these were met by comments such as "Fuck off Tim Ireland". Somebody else posted "Who is Tim Ireland?", I thought that that was a good question, so I Googled him to find out about this character. That is when I discovered the spat between, on the one hand Tim Ireland, and on the other Guido and Iain dale. I did think at the time that two on to one was a bit unfair. But, as Tim Ireland points out, its not just two onto one, because there are the swarm of wasps who have also decided to join in. I decided to keep clear of this hornets nest. It wasn't my fight and had nothing to do with me. Or so I thought, until Iain Dale tried to drag me into it by choosing sides. Very school playground type behaviour from a supposedly respectable adult!

In defence of Tim Ireland, he has never asked me to join the fight on his side. So, I was quite surprised when Iain Dale emailed me and accused me of "your new alliance with Tim Ireland". Respectable bloggers in the know refer to my blog in their blogrolls under the heading "Non-aligned". All Tim Ireland has done is to blog about the bullying I suffered from both Guido and Iain Dale's blogs. This was also picked up by Unity and Notsaussure.

Iain Dale in an email to me makes this accusation: "Ireland believes he should play the role of policeman of the blogosphere and if people don't jump to his rules he then attacks them in an almost stalker like manner". Whatever the right and wrongs of this accusation. I can truthfully state that Tim Ireland has never attempted to police me in the blogosphere. On the other hand, I have evidence that Iain Dale has tried to police me. From Iain Dale's email to me: "I am not prepared to have 'diplomatic relations' with anyone who links to the Iain Dale's Dairy site, so I would ask you to remove it from your bloglinks". The cheek of the man, who the fuck does he think he is to make such a suggestion? This is hypocrisy of the worst order to accuse Tim Ireland of a conduct which he finds objectionable, and he practices the self same conduct himself. I hasten to add, that I personally am not suggesting that Tim Ireland has done what Iain Dale accuses, only pointing out that Iain Dale has actually been caught out trying to police the blogosphere. It was jolly decent of Iain Dale to add: "I won't ask you to ask Ireland to take the link to you off the Iain Dale's Dairy site. That is up to you". How magnanimous. It is up to whosoever to link to me, and up to me to whom I link to. I don't like dictators or bullies laying down terms to me.

Tim Ireland highlighted the fact that Iain dale had announced on 18DS and on his blog that he intended inviting me on to 18DS with a panel of guests to debate the issue of prisoners right to vote. However, politics for adults is seemingly governed by antics more associated with a primary school playground. In my email to Iain dale, I echoed Tim Ireland's call "Let's see if we can't coax some answers out of the old cow" and asked "Why won't you come clean about the offer to appear on 18DS over the prisoners votes case? This is the only thing I feel strongly about not for myself but for the human right of prisoners. Nobody has yet debated it seriously, and you said you was going to and then it went silent. Does this silence speak volumes? By that I mean were you got at behind the scenes as Verity claims or have you another explanation?".

This is the explanation offered by Iain Dale "When you first started emailing 18DS I was genuinely interested in what you had to say on prisoners votes and went out of my way to give your views time on the channel. This resulted in me saying I would invite you onto the channel. I said that on air before I was aware of your past. I discussed the issue with colleagues and it was felt that as you hadn’t been upfront about this it would not be a good idea to invite you. I saw no point in entering into lengthy correspondence about this. At about the same time you started saying some fairly inflammatory things on your blog and on mine. This tended to confirm the view that we had made the right decision. In terms of being “got at”, I’m not sure what you mean. The only people I have discussed it with are within 18 Doughty Street. No one ‘got at’ me. We made a joint decision".

It doesn't ring true does it? The offer was made, and then, shock, horror, "I said that on air before I was aware of your past". Duh! The term jailhouselawyer is used to describe a prisoner who uses the law to buck the system. My blog explains all about this had Iain Dale taken the trouble to read it. He then decides, along with colleagues, to use their ignorance against me. And, turn it into the accusation that I have not been upfront with my past. The truth of the matter is that Iain Dale has not been upfront with me. Therefore, I score it 3-0 to me. Firstly, Iain Dale scores an own goal by missing the opportunity to have a exclusive politics for adults debate on 18DS. I score the second goal, by calling him and proving him to be a hypocrite. The third goal I score when I call him and prove him to be a liar.

If Iain Dale wishes a replay I am more than happy to oblige.

UPDATE: See RonsKneesRantsandRaves take on this post here.

Further update: See Tim Ireland's post on Iain Dale's Dairy here.