Not sure of this at all. The BNP are untouchables because they are widely seen as a) being in favour of policies that the majority of the electorate regards as abhorrent and b) not being very honest about a).

They certainly benefited from the CIA/UK coup in 1963 which took out Qasim – their future leader even helped draw up lists of communist, academic and other opponents for his CIA paymasters so they could be hung from lamposts in Baghdad. Not that it stopped the Iraqi Ba’athist’s and Communists jumping into bed with each later on when it suited them.

As for Respect, it’s always seemed to me that if the SWP or groups like them did not exist the UK security services would have to invent them – and they probably did. Alan Bleasdale even wrote a play on the theme.

I think you’ve confused Baathists with Islamists. The Baathists were Arab Socialists who later morphed into Iraqi and Syrian nationalists who attacked Shia Islamist politics of post-Shah Iran and the Egyptian Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood alike.

The RESPECT party are sympathetic to Islamist ideologies of Hasan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood and NOT pan-Arab Socialism – which in any case is a dead dodo. RESPECT are very different from and very converse to Baathists and as far as I know, there is no such tendency operating in the UK today.

Oh the irony.

Tim – so shall we all agree that, should these allegations prove true, that would put Guido on the same ethical level as George Galloway? I think I’d be happy with that.

I didn’t suggest that you did and no, the argument is not a straw man.

I’m merely suggesting that people are a little selective at times in what they get outraged about. The BNP are seen as being untouchables because they are regarded as the successors to the vile idiocies of the various Fascist movements.

I would rather hope that people also regard various other groups as untouchables because they are regarded as the successors to the vile idiocies of the various Baathist and Communist movements.

That’s all: Nothing about Guido or Sunny per se, rather that if one bunch of mass murderers are regarded as being beyonf emulation in civilised discourse then why aren’t all such bunches of mass murderers?

Ah Kulvinder,
I thought you’d forgotten! I’m sure it’s a good article and if you get your skates on. I’ll put it the Scottish Blog Round up which I’ll be hosting next week.

So a sort of peace has broken out in the recent “blog war”. Whether it is a temporary peace or something more enduring has yet to be seen. In all honesty such an outbreak of hostilities was inevitable. The Labour……

That’s funny, and a good perspective.

Or end up embroiled in another Pamelagate type of thing.

Imagine that – Sunny and The Guido fighting over someone’s favours.

-Sid O’Flaherty Fingal Wilde

Sid,
Unless this is all bollocks — which I hope it is — your last post, though insightful, might conceivably be used to illustrate Mr Guido’s case.
Don’t shoot the messenger now.

I’m afraid its probably going to be a collection of thoughts rather than a brilliantly concise work.

Firstly this Guido character has a right to go legal if he so feels.

Secondly, the so called blog wars are nothing more than a battle for circulation.

Thirdly, the political motivation if there is such comes not from Sunny, or probably a number of the others, but from an invisible hand who see the bloggers as tools.

All of this is similar to what you’d expect in the tabloids. From my side, no one comes out with any merit.

And Amir if anyone should be taken to task, its you.

Most of what you’ve said above I find deeply depressing, and not in the style I’d have expected.

Pushing all the ‘right’ buttons: Salma Yaqoob, Ummah, Islam, Lenin, Stalin,Jamal etc etc did not add one iota to your argument. To the contrary it exposes more of what you think would work on Pickled Politics.

I am impressed as to how PP has ‘progressed’ from an unquestioning self-opinionated bunch repeateding the same mantra to a group of regular contributors who have learnt a lot about each other and the mechanisms of propaganda and mis-information.

So I am depressed even more since what you have posted is very much like what your drunken turbanned flatmate would have posted on CiF.

Now on the issue of going legal, if Guido had simply responded on a posting here it would not have meant a thing. Blogs being what they are, a comment amongst a hundred others is irrelevant. Multiply that with the number of blogs running the same story a falsely accused person does not stand a chance.

What Guido has done is laid down a marker which all of us should take note of should any one of us fall prey to the tabloids and their online blog equivalents.

As for the allegations, I have no idea what they mean. Do I want to know what they were? I couldn’t be bothered. If on the other hand the Guido has influence and he has prejudices which has resulted in his own enemies well then so be it.

One thing I would add which favours tabloid bloggers as opposed to tabloids proper is that any lies and deceit reported which damages an individual can be challenged legally or otherwise directly.

I am sure this would also apply to posters.

Finally, Sunny and PP circulation will be the winner. Sunny is no one’s fool. I see an Andrew Neil in the making.