Words Dept.

A minor rumpus is breaking out on Dave Hill’s London blog at the Guardian over claims by Tory Troll (aka Adam Bienkov) that journalist and beloved national treasure Andrew Gilligan has been “sockpuppeting”. For those unfamiliar with the term, sockpuppeting means creating a “fake online identity” to praise yourself or some other entity with which you are associated, without disclosing [...]

I see Andrew Gilligan is making the headlines again over a series of recent articles in the Evening Standard. I’ve spent the last hour reading his original claims in the Standard, numerous subsequent counter-claims and various blogs on the subject and it’s all rather complicated. Essentially, the key element of Gilligan’s latest investigation is that [...]

…will be resumed imminently. I’ve been on holiday (Lake District, since you ask), which is why I haven’t posted for a while. Glad to see the thing about the Dispatches programme is still attracting interest. The Liberal Democrat Voice says this blog hosts an “interesting online discussion” about the programme (ha!), while David Ottewell of [...]

I’ve just watched Andrew Gilligan on Channel 4′s Dispatches present a compelling story about a property developer who donated £5,000 to the Manchester Labour Party a few weeks before being chosen as preferred bidder for a casino in the city. None of the councillors involved declared an interest, although they were subsequently cleared of wrongdoing [...]