UPDATE: Wightman still denies being the author of the questions; see new blog entry here.
Yesterday, Dominic Wightman left a comment about the bizarre list of questions which Tim Ireland was sent at the weekend, and which I suggested made Wightman look foolish for sending them. Wightman has responded on that point (and on various others):
Rabid interview questions. Certainly not written by me or sent by me and you know it. Low trick on Ireland’s part.
This is remarkable. Tim’s issue with Wightman is that Wightman put on-line a hoax interview and pretended to us that someone else had done it. He has admitted to that, although not the reason why, which was obviously because he wished to manipute Tim and me into attacking that other person in our blogs. Why would Tim undermine his case by adding a bogus document of his own? On the other hand, Wightman has shown that he tends to over-reach and has an inflated belief in his ability to avoid detection.
The questions anticipate Wightman’s attack piece in some very obvious ways. Sure, Wightman had told us he planned to write something, and we could imagine some of the topics that he would probably raise: Tim’s disputes with Iain Dale and Paul Staines, the Usmanov affair and Craig Murray, the supposed link to Islamic extremists. But other points of comparison come astonishingly close, even if – to anticipate the only possible line of defence – other private emails from Wightman or public statements might have hinted at further lines of attack and preferred turns of phrase.
Here are the most obvious parallels; questions in red, extracts from attack piece in green:
After a life of failure you have realised that even in the Blogosphere you are a failure…Why did you attend Paul Staines drink driving hearing in May 2008? Do you not think that this makes you look like a stalker and a sad, embittered loser who enjoys any negatives affecting your more successful competitors?
…Ireland is said to hate Paul Staines to such a degree that in May last year, when Staines attended court on a drink-driving charge, Tim Ireland was in the public gallery to watch…It is difficult to follow the thread of what he’s trying to say compared to his blogging superiors…Staines’ and Dale’s user figures (their blogs are ranked #2 and #1 respectively in the UK on politics) are way out in front of Ireland’s (ranked #24 by the ranking system most favourable to him)… While Ireland’s competitors have been busy typing away, he has rapidly been losing visitors. Why?
Would you plead guilty for manslaughter if you pushed one of your victims to suicide?
Pushing blog victims often into a suicidal state is nothing to be proud of and something the Internet could really do without
Is not your success in overcoming the addiction to alcohol a success you should celebrate publicly and share with others who might be going through the same kind of addictions?
In 2003 I went out with a well-known alcoholic for some time and she will be happy to tell anyone, including Ireland, how I attended the AA classes with her and did my utmost to help her and those friends of hers who were alcoholic along.
What is your opinion on people who plant spybots on other people’s computers?…Have you ever blagged or sock-puppeted?
Ireland has a particular declared hatred of sock-puppeting… but has been known to blag and abuse comment areas on other bloggers’ blogs using “supporters” (who are often using fake IDs) as a standard procedure in his attempt, thus far in vain, to dominate the British blogosphere…He should…stop the faking of emails, stop the smears, stop the spybots and the key-loggers.
Would you agree that behind every bully is a coward?
…behind every bully is one of the biggest cowards you will ever face.
You are linked by association with the violent anti fascist groups who have been fighting the EDL on the streets of England. Do you condone violence?
Some of the people Ireland is in contact with link straight through to the violent anti-fascist crowd. I’m not suggesting for one minute that Ireland is guilty of violence by association…
Would you agree that the far left in England is allied with the Islamist extreme in what is called the Black Red Alliance and that in some ways you are the personification of this?
I was learning a lot about the far left and finding that the Black Red alliance…
What is your retort to the accusation that “you can dish it but you can’t take it”?
How could someone be so thin-skinned and yet dish out so much bile
You live in a Tory heartland. Apart from once in the last 50 years your area has returned a Conservative politician as its member of parliament. Since you attack Tory MPs on an almost permanent basis, how does it make you feel, as it were, living amongst the enemy?
Every time he steps out of his road and into the streets of fat Tory Surrey…he comes face to face with people just like me wherever he looks…In the next village Branson was born, Thatcher spent her Christmases in his village. Everywhere he looks there are living, breathing examples of Tory-years success…
In the choir photo in Westminster you look overweight.
[Choir photo re-published by Wightman]
Your self-given nickname is manic. You also post notices about yourself being a twisted genius? How apt to you feel these labels are? What evidence is there that you are a genius? (sorry, I’ve not been able to find any).
Ireland posts self-congratulatory pieces about himself around the web describing himself as a ‘twisted genius’ – ‘twisted’ yes, but I’ve met genii and, though he can be quite creative, I assure you he’s hardly closing in on Rolf Harris and is multiple leagues behind Da Vinci.
Etc. Readers can judge for themselves – here and here.
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