by Unity

Let’s try a bit of word association… James Delingpole..?

I’m guessing that ‘climate change denier’ was probably the first thing that came to mind, although having read George Monbiot’s latest missive on CiF, ‘vicious douchebag’ seems rather more apt.

On Sunday, Delingpole posted this on his blog at the Telegraph:

The Warmists are looking increasingly foolish and wrong. But they aren’t going to go down without a fight. Consider, Exhibit A, this nauseating email currently being sent out to Conservative candidates. It seems that in the last week a couple of hundred Tory candidates have received variations on the theme below. Note that these emails do not come from a named organisation but from individual voters in each of the different prospective parliamentary candidates’ constituencies.

The text of the email in question, which he also posted, goes like this:

Dear Edwin Northover I was concerned to note the results of a survey of 140 Conservative candidates for parliament that suggested that climate change came right at the bottom of their priorities for government action. I hope you can reassure me that you recognise the importance and success of climate change action by the UK government at home and internationally. Can you clarify that: You accept that climate change is caused by human activity? Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020? Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change? Kind Regards, *** ***”.

Not only does that look to be a perfectly polite and reasonable enquiry but it looks, to me at least, very much like the kind of simple fill-in-the-blanks form email that’s pretty much a staple tool of internet-based campaigning.

In other words, it about as far from ‘stalking’ – the term Delingpole used in the title of his post – as its possible to get.

From here, I’ll let Monbiot pick up the story:

It looks to me like a polite enquiry from someone concerned about climate change. Delingpole, however, saw it as a “nauseating email” which must have come from a “disgusting eco-fascist organisation”, though he didn’t know which organisation this might be. His post was headlined “Conservative candidates stalked by eco bullies”. Much worse, he published the man’s name and home address. Delingpole’s bootboys took the hint and immediately swung into action. Within a few minutes of the comments opening, they had published the man’s telephone number and email address, a photo of his house (“Note all the recycling going on in his front garden”), his age and occupation. Then they sought to tell him just what a low opinion they had of “stalking” and “bullying”. One commenter wrote: “I tried to telephone *** *** on the number helpfully posted in this blog, but he’s out until tomorrow. Perhaps he is out ‘tackling climate change’? – anyway his missus didn’t seem to know where he was.” Paradoxically, their hounding of this poor man demonstrated that he was just what he seemed to be: an ordinary citizen, exercising his democratic right to ask a parliamentary candidate about his position on an important matter.

The Telegraph have now removed Delingpole’s post, although not until it had sat on their site for 20 hours collecting abusive and inane comments, including:

“This intrusive and abusive lobbying is disgusting” “I cannot stress enough how dangerous and vindictive the environmentalist movement is.”

There is, however, one very important point that Monbiot fails to reflect on.

Edwin Northover is the Conservative PPC for the constituency of Leyton and Wanstead and the clipped copy of Delingpole’s article that I’ve managed to track down shows that this particular email was sent Northover at a googlemail address used by Leyton and Wanstead Conservative Association’s constituency office:

Leyton and Wanstead Conservatives – working to elect a Conservative Government With a Constituency spanning Waltham Forest and Redbridge we are an active association working hard for a Conservative Victory in the 2010 local elections in Waltham Forest and Leyton and Wanstead and in Leyton and Wanstead Constituency in the General Election in 2010. After years of Labour mismanagement and Leyton’s own “expenses-gate” we have a excellent opportunity to win Leyton and Wanstead at the next General Election. If you would like to join our campaign or learn more about our work please email LWConservatives@googlemail.com or call our Constituency Office on 020 8551 4333. Ed Northover- Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Leyton and Wanstead

So, how did a private email to a would be Member of Parliament come to be published, with the name and address of the sender, on a blog post at the Daily Telegraph?

Methinks, that Edwin has a considerable amount of explaining to do.

After all, if he, or perhaps his constituency office, cannot respect the privacy of a constituent when he’s a candidate, how can either be trusted to respect his constituents’ right to privacy and confidentiality should he become an MP.