Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Gordon No Mates

Four times Gordon Brown has invited me be his friend on Facebook, and four times I have rejected his advances. Does he not get the message? I don't want to be his friend! Go away!

19 comments:

fairdealphil said...

Since you seem short of a story Iain, how about a few lines on the Tory PPC who was yesterday ordered by the High Court to pay thousands of pounds and make a grovelling apology to a Labour MP after she libelled him on her blog...?

http://fairdealphil.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-tory-parliamentary-candidate.html#links

Anonymous said...

I thought we were the "Nice" party now. Go on, throw him a bone.

Noelinho said...

Come on Iain, you don't seriously believ that Gordon has even heard of Facebook, do you - let alone know he's on it or have any control over who in Number 10 they want him to make friends with!

Anonymous said...

The phrase "Scat, Gordon!" raises the question of, does he have any pets? The Blairs actively dislike animals. I find this mean-spiritedness about our fellow creatures is confined, except in the case of genuine allergies to cat dander, to Trots.

I don't know any Tories who don't share their space with an animal or two.

On the other hand, Tony Blair, Tessa Jowell's husband and Jacqui Smith's husband do live with dogs, so I may have been unfair.

Anonymous said...

fairdeal

Have you heard of a site tinyurl.com?

Anonymous said...

Fair Deal Phil - Obviously, you're a jerk, but are you really so jerky that you can't do links? Or do you know it wouldn't be worth the trouble given that no one would go to a link recommended in a comment by you?

Anonymous said...

Nice little fib there Phil - she settled before the case was actually heard. Admittedly it was a close thing, but she wasn't ordered by a court.

And why didn't Stephen Hesford try to sue the Mail, when all Esther McVey did was republish the article on her blog? You'd think someone wanting to clear their name, rather than just wanting to embarrass their political opponent, would do that.

There is absolutely no way Gordon Brown actually knows what Facebook is, by the way. No doubt someone is employed by the taxpayer to maintain Gordy's online presence.

fairdealphil said...

richard:

no, but have now...

is this better?

http://tinyurl.com/22xydy

fairdealphil said...

richard:

forgot to say thank you!

K S Rees said...

You've got to give it to the man - after numerous rejections he just doesn't give up! Much like his political career really.

A Swansea Blog

Ben Stevenson said...

Fair Deal Phil,

You can do links like this:

<a href="http://iaindale.blogspot.com/">Iain Dale's website</a>

Replace the address - "http://" -with some other website.
Replace the description - "Iain Dale's website" - with something else.

Anonymous said...

"Does he not get the message?"

Don't knock it ...it's the only thing he's good at!

Anonymous said...

So David Cameron has regularly been attending church?
Lets hope he has Iain.

Anonymous said...

Sehr geEhrter Iain

Is there not merit gernally in following the advice of the Narn ambassador G'Kar :

"Keep your Friends close

Keep your Enemies closer"

Yr obedient servant etc

G E

Ben Stevenson said...

"When last week David Cameron revealed that he hopes his daughter will go to a Church of England school, his aides rushed to say that he attends Sunday worship in Kensington not as a ploy to help her chances but out of genuine religious conviction." -- The Times, 25th Februrary 2007

Anonymous said...

The Grumbler said...
"Nice little fib there Phil - she settled before the case was actually heard. Admittedly it was a close thing, but she wasn't ordered by a court."

She had to sign a Consent Order to avoid appearing in the High Court, where she would undoubtedly have lost the libel case.

Anonymous said...

Any time, Phil.

Especially when I then get to say that you need to correct your post ;). The case was settled out of court, so there was no order in the high court. So technically you also libelled her, as a settlement is cannot be assumed to be an admission of liability! (Tongue firmly in cheek. Although I think it is a valuable point, I am not trying to argue that she had a good chance of defending her case)

We must all be aware of the what we write, but repeating a misleading newspaper article is hardly an unusual occurrence on blogs of all political persuasions. I think you should accept that this is a cautionary tale with no real party-political relevance.

I don't mean this in a Gordon Brown/party funding way, where the Labour party are caught out in widespread illegality and try to say that it is a general problem not a Labour problem. I have seen many Left and "Liberal" sites repeating misleading comments about people of other political views.

Anonymous said...

Iain, this made me laugh out loud!

John M Ward said...

g eagle esq wrote: "Is there not merit generally in following the advice of the Narn ambassador G'Kar :

'Keep your Friends close

Keep your Enemies closer'"

...And of course offer them Breen and fresh Spoo.

This Facebook business - which also seems to be annoying Mike Rouse -- looks like being a real pain. One of the problems I have noticed is that one cannot even view anything without first registering and logging-in.

Other facilities of this general nature do not, by and large, require that, and I would not deal with any that did. So there!