Dizzy confirms TB's speculation...

Yesterday Tory Bear asked whether Derek Draper and the Labour party blog rebuttal unit were anything to do with the anonymous Conservative and Unionist hate blog. This morning Dizzy has done what he does best and confirmed what turned out to be a rather good hunch...

Over to

Dizzy

:
"Tory Bear has been pondering whether the so-called Derek Draper

right-wing blog rebuttal operation

is under way now that an anonymously created site called

toryparty.net

has appeared. The site initially appeared in September around the same time that Draper was being brought back.

I can reveal that this site has indeed been set-up by someone heavily linked with Derek Draper. Adrian McMenamin, a former Downing Street advisor and the man that headed up Labour's rapid rebuttal Excalibur system prior to 1997 appears to be behind the site. What's more, his attempts to hide it were not quite good enough.

You see, they've managed to use a privacy provider for the Whois record to hide the ownership of the toryparty.net domain, unlike when

hatemytory.com

was set up, but a fundamental mistake has then been made you see.

dizzy@dizzy-laptop:~$ host toryparty.net
toryparty.net has address 88.198.44.150
dizzy@dizzy-laptop:~$ host 88.198.44.150
150.44.198.88.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer transpero.net.

dizzy@dizzy-laptop:~$ host www.hatemytory.com
www.hatemytory.com has address 88.198.44.150
dizzy@dizzy-laptop:~$ host 88.198.44.150
150.44.198.88.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer transpero.net.

Yes, that's right, instead of getting it its own IP, the site has simply been pointed to the same named addressed for his other, main Labour site, "

transpero.net

". This is the same as the the set up for "hatemytory.com". Transpero.net, for those who don't know, is a site "devoted to developing internet based resources for Labour Party members and supporters."

Nice try, but they got caught out. I do wonder if those bloggers on the Left who are obsessed and outraged by fake anonymous sites will pass comment on this. Here's the bottom line though, it has been well reported that Derek Draper is heading up some kind of online rebuttal strategy for Brown.

Suddenly an attack blog appears that uses the name "toryparty" around the same time, and it's set-up, hosted, and pointed to the site of one of Draper's former rapid rebuttal colleagues from Millbank. You do the maths. If I was in CCHQ I would be starting domain dispute proceedings with Adrian McMenamin.

If Derek Draper, Adrian McMenamin, and the Labour Party really want to have a war online then they're going to have learn some better tricks about concealing their tracks. Alternatively don't bother concealing your tracks, none of the high traffic right wing blogs that you fear so much are anonymous, why not just be proud of your own arguments and go for it?"


This is hugely embarrassing for the Labour Party especially just days after Hazel Blears went on

the attack

against the right-wing blogsphere. At the same time as a minister is attacking blogging for being cynical and nasty another arm of this morally bankrupt and deceitful government is embodying the very thing being attacked. The toryparty.net site was pathetic and really represents just how low this government is stooping.

So will Hazel Blears apologise?

TB isn't holding his breath.