Monday 17 January 2011

Boris slams Coleman & Freer


In his weekly Daily Telegraph column, Mayor of London Boris Johnson supports the rights of bloggers, saying:
“There are some people who wonder whether we need to tame the blogs, to sandpaper them, moderate them – perhaps even to censor them. And as soon as you put it like that you can see what twaddle it is. What we are seeing on our websites, for all its exuberant roughness, is a uniquely healthy and democratic process.”
As regular readers know, former Barnet Council Leader and now MP for Finchley, Mike Freer, could barely disguise his disdain for bloggers whom he suggested masturbated whilst writing about him (he should be so lucky).

Brian Coleman’s contempt for blogging led him to become the first serving Mayor in Barnet Council’s history to be found guilty of breaching the Members Code of Conduct following his vitriolic attack on blogger Rog T.

In these continuing times of shame for the political classes, Messrs Freer and Coleman would do well to remember who is the servant and who the master.

6 comments:

Mrs Angry said...

... I see you are striking just the right tone in line with your new weekly blog for the 'The Lady', Mr Miller?

Amanda said...

David I think it is your own interpretation of what Mr Freer said...I don't recall seeing the word 'masturbation' in any comment. Just because that is how you read into something doesn't mean we all do!

Don't Call Me Dave said...

Amanda

Mike Freer said: “I have a group of followers what I call the ‘one handed bloggers’. I’ll leave it to your own imagination what the other hand is doing.”

What other interpretation of that phrase is there?

Mrs Angry said...

I have to say that I am very shocked by Amanda's language and unladylike reference, and in any case, I would imagine that the other hand was raised, with the middle finger facing upwards and outwards in the direction of any passing Conservative politians.

Anonymous said...

I think Amanda needs to be reminded of further comments on what the Telegraph (http://ukpolitics.telegraph.co.uk/Finchley+%26+Golders+Green/Mike+Freer) calls Mr Freer's official blog.

http://friendsoffreer.blogspot.com/2010/05/barnets-huge-debt-of-gratitude-to-mike.html

"Mike had to put up with a vicious campaign by a team of malcontents and bloggers. The friends of Freer believe that much of this was homophobically motivated."

So for full accuracy shouldn't DCMD have really attributed to Mr Freer that Barnet bloggers -

Vicious gay-bashing wankers ?

Don't Call Me Dave said...

DCMD is delighted to hear from Amanda again. It is good to know that her Google Alert settings are working properly.

The serious point here is that politicians must learn to live in the real world where their every activity and utterance can now be scrutinised by the people who elect them. Twenty years ago, we didn’t moan or complain because we had no idea what our elected representatives were up to. Now we do know, and we don’t like what we see.

Mike Freer is not alone amongst the political classes in throwing a tantrum when anyone dares to challenge him, but it is not healthy for democracy when dinosaurs like Brian Coleman respond to criticism by trying to ban even elected Members from questioning his decisions at LFEPA.

We hear so much from the Conservative Party leadership about the need for sunlight. Unfortunately, news of this does not appear to have trickled down to the rank and file.