Draper's having another one of his hissy fits over Guido's Friday Caption competition. And he is DEMANDING - yes, demanding, that I and ConHome remove our sidebar links to Guido. How very student union of him. He even shows graphics demonstrating that we link to Guido. What Draper has conveniently ignored is that about half of the lefty blogs listed in DraperList'sLabourList's sidebar also link to Guido... Tom Harris, Colin Byrne, Sadie's Tavern, Kezia Dugdale, Progress Online, LabourHome, Frank Owen and Conor's Commentary to name just a few.
He really doesn't get how blogging works, does he? You wouldn't believe some of the Labour bloggers and politicians who have been in touch over the last week to tell me what a prat they think Draper is, and how they are putting pressure on Labour HQ to disassociate themselves from him.
Having accused me of condoning racism, and now Guido, one wonders how long it will be before he does it to everyone else. It really is the last refuge of the political scoundrel. People have said I shouldn't react, and they have a point. But if someone is deliberately setting out to traduce your reputation, you can't let something like that stand. But it just shows that a leopard never changes its spots. He showed himself to be morally bankrupt over Lobbygate. Some of us thought he had learned the lesson, but clearly not. He's still a moral bankrupt now.
Sometimes I think there really ought to be a blog regulator. Because they could then fine Draper for bringing blogging into disrepute.
Meanwhile, we can just watch this slow motion car crash continue to happen.
UPDATE: The hilarious thing is that the only place the allegedly racist comments left by Guido's commenters can be read ... is on DraperList. When Guido found out about them he deleted them. Yet Draper still happily hosts them on his site. You couldn't make it up.
Apologies for the lack of links to Draper's site, but he ain't getting any linklove until he apologises for saying that I condone racism. I also won't appear on a public platform with him until he does so, so to all those lobbying companies and media organisations who keep phoning and emailing me asking me to be interviewed or to appear on panel with him, please don't bother. The answer's no.
