Another blogging witch-hunt - 1 comment

That the Mail on Sunday is happy to smear and victimise an individual (blogger) on the basis of their perceived political stance shouldn't surprise; what is depressing is to see other bloggers wading in to score the same political points.

It's not so much the Conservative-Labour aspect that bothers me - after all, I'm not at all sure that Owen Barder, the victim here, is indeed a Labour supporter - no, it's the crassness of the attack, the lack of thought for the individual concerned, for the reputation of bloggers, for the possibility of meaningful civil-servant blogging, as well as the resemblance of the perpetrator to something that shoots out from under a rarely-moved rug during a spring-clean.

Tim Worstall and Ministry of Truth have also posted about this.

Perhaps an alternative to the blogging "code of conduct" is some kind of "blacklist", that moves the burden of proof from the majority of bloggers who - for want of a better criterion - treat other bloggers as they would be treated, to the tiny majority who we only encounter when they sink their fangs into us, or someone we know. It shouldn't be too difficult to convince an independent panel of this, surely. How they could operate such a blacklist, once sentence has been passed, I leave as an exercise to readers. Just a thought.

I might make a full return to blogging this week...

Update: "Simon Walters is a Lying Scumbag" - the Mail on Sunday journalist, that is. I know, there's more going on in the world than this.