Tories try to delete pre-election pledges from the Internet

[pap]

The Tories are attempting to purge all pre-2010 election pledges and statements from the Internet, according to this piece by the New Statesman.

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/tories-attempt-delete-all-pre-2010-speeches-internet

 

Computer Weekly originally tumbled onto the scam, but the NS article does a damn good job of putting the action in a political context, enumerating Cameron's ongoing hypocrisy on the issue.

 

They're even trying to get content removed from the Internet Archive.

 

I guess if you can't stand by your "convictions", pretending you never had them might be just as good.

[iansums]

Of course they couldn't keep all their pre-election pledges as they had to compromise on some of them to form a coalition government with the Lib-Dems. Were you not here in 2010?

[Sheaf Saint]

Of course they couldn't keep all their pre-election pledges as they had to compromise on some of them to form a coalition government with the Lib-Dems. Were you not here in 2010?

 

And that justifies the attempt to remove them all from public record does it?

[bridge too far]

The splendid irony is that Dave has removed his speech wherein he said how much he valued the power of the internet in holding politicians to account. Surely not the same Dave that now seeks to castrate some of the powers of the internet and, thereby, the powers of such sites as 38 Degrees that do such a good job of challenging policies.

[rooney]

I cannot understand why anybody is surprised at this. What was rthe latest number of U turns since the Election--75?

[pap]

I cannot understand why anybody is surprised at this. What was rthe latest number of U turns since the Election--75?

 

I think the real problem for Dave and pals is that they tried very hard to be portrayed as nice, whereas the actual practice of governing has shown them up to be bandit c**ts intent on selling everything they failed to sell last time around, including the NHS.

 

The only reason to remove all of this is so they don't have to be held accountable for it.

[Batman]

Again Pap. You seem so surprised. They all do it. Yet you only use the Conservative lot as your examples

[Bearsy]

surprised to find pap siding with the robots! Is you forget all the lessons learned in Terminator, pap? I agree with Dave Cameron bout banning the robots.

[Tokyo-Saint]

That's nothing Pap. Remember the mods on here deleted my 'Wanyama has signed' thread form the muppet show just cause I broke the story 4 hours before the mainboard kers

[Bearsy]

yeah where was pap when the conservatives were censoring Muppet Show ITK2013^TM this is not a drill?

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Again Pap. You seem so surprised. They all do it. Yet you only use the Conservative lot as your examples

 

The Lib Dems and Labour have tried to cleanse info off the internet?

[trousers]

Worrying stuff. Sleepless nights ahead.

[Batman]

The Lib Dems and Labour have tried to cleanse info off the internet?

 

you make out that is some sort of hideous crime

[pap]

you make out that is some sort of hideous crime

 

Have you ever read 1984?

 

Changing the public record is the main character's day job.

 

This isn't in the same league; it's deletion, not alteration and not quite as chilling. Another case of say one thing, do another, made all the worse because they're almost certainly using state power to address party political issues.

[trousers]

At least the Tories had some policies worthy of deletion...

[Batman]

Have you ever read 1984?

 

Changing the public record is the main character's day job.

 

This isn't in the same league; it's deletion, not alteration and not quite as chilling. Another case of say one thing, do another, made all the worse because they're almost certainly using state power to address party political issues.

they all change the public record

 

WMD were 45 mins away - FACT

[TopGun]

Not sure you can remove what is public domain on the net successfully. Loads of cache sites will hold it if people want to go looking.

[revolution saint]

The Tories are attempting to purge all pre-2010 election pledges and statements from the Internet, according to this piece by the New Statesman.

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/tories-attempt-delete-all-pre-2010-speeches-internet

 

Computer Weekly originally tumbled onto the scam, but the NS article does a damn good job of putting the action in a political context, enumerating Cameron's ongoing hypocrisy on the issue.

 

They're even trying to get content removed from the Internet Archive.

 

I guess if you can't stand by your "convictions", pretending you never had them might be just as good.

 

Not sure - don't believe even the tories are stupid enough to believe they can remove all that stuff from the interweb entirely. It's all out there somewhere. Guess the big question is why would they delete that stuff from their own website? Fear of embarrassment I guess though it all seems a little silly.

[Sheaf Saint]

Not sure - don't believe even the tories are stupid enough to believe they can remove all that stuff from the interweb entirely. It's all out there somewhere. Guess the big question is why would they delete that stuff from their own website? Fear of embarrassment I guess though it all seems a little silly.

 

It's not just their own website they tried to clean up though. As the article says, they tried to get any reference to these speeches removed from search engines as well. That clearly points to something more sinister than the reasoning they provided: that they were just carrying out a bit of housekeeping to make their website easier to navigate for visitors to it.

[revolution saint]

It's not just their own website they tried to clean up though. As the article says, they tried to get any reference to these speeches removed from search engines as well. That clearly points to something more sinister than the reasoning they provided: that they were just carrying out a bit of housekeeping to make their website easier to navigate for visitors to it.

 

Ah, didn't actually follow the link to the computer weekly story although still seems stupid / naive* (delete according to political allegiance). Guess they've got form in that direction though....

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

you make out that is some sort of hideous crime

 

not really

[Batman]

not really

 

Bet All the parties have deleted stuff from the Web

[Horley CTFC Saint]

Have you ever read 1984?

 

Changing the public record is the main character's day job.

 

This isn't in the same league; it's deletion, not alteration and not quite as chilling. Another case of say one thing, do another, made all the worse because they're almost certainly using state power to address party political issues.

Christ on a bike I'd be more worried about the crap the papers spout!

[CB Fry]

Anyway, it's great that the press have exposed it and not conspired with governmemt to cover it all up, which is what some nutcases think happens all the time.

 

Well done The New Statesman (I am attempting to delete all references to me getting the name of the news source wrong).

Edited 13 November, 2013 by CB Fry

[pap]

Anyway, it's great that the press have exposed it and not conspired with governmemt to cover it all up, which is what some nutcases think happens all the time.

 

Well done The Spectator.

 

It was that mighty champion of human rights, Computer Weekly, that broke the story. The New Statesman put it into context succinctly though.

 

You should watch Keith Allen's film on the Diana Inquiry. That gives a very good indication as to how the press works.

Edited 14 November, 2013 by pap

[CB Fry]

It was that mighty champion of human rights, Computer Weekly, that broke the story. The Spectator put it into context succinctly though.

 

You should watch Keith Allen's film on the Diana Inquiry. That gives a very good indication as to how the press works.

 

Difficult to control, dem conspiracies, aint they? Computer weekly clearly not at the "listen chaps, let's all, like, cover it up" meeting.

 

Presumably the editor of Computer Weekly will be found dead in a field in a few weeks time. Or a staged heart attack/fall over in Scottish highlands fake death scenario.

 

The delightfully silly C4 comedy Toast of London did a nice bit on films funded by Egyptians with a grudge against the Duke of Edinburgh only last week. I'd class that show as one of many British comedies that I personally think is better than the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

[Hockey_saint]

To be fair, they could do an article on this about Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems but it'd be like writing the following "sooo....ermmm....the sun, it's a bit hot innit?"

[Nolan]

An article well spun. To get their current policies as high as possible in search rankings, you place a simple bit of code on your website. You don't want old policies getting confused with new.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

[Verbal]

The Tories trying to delete the internet must have been watching that documentary, the IT Crowd, and got hold of Jen's internet box.

[dronskisaint]

At least the Tories had some policies worthy of deletion...

 

Chuckles.. but not sure that stands up as a defence somehow :-)

[pap]

The Tories trying to delete the internet must have been watching that documentary, the IT Crowd, and got hold of Jen's internet box.

 

Colour me amazed. Verbal spews forth with a cultural reference from the last decade.

 

Good skills.

[holepuncture]

Not sure you can remove what is public domain on the net successfully. Loads of cache sites will hold it if people want to go looking.

 

[newstatemen quote Mark Bullard]The erasure had the effect of hiding Conservative speeches in a secretive corner of the internet like those that shelter the military, secret services, gangsters and paedophiles.

 

The Conservative Party HQ was unavailable for comment. A spokesman said he had referred the matter to a "website guy", who was out of the office.

 

That seems pretty contemptable to me.. they are archiving their data to the point where it is closer to the dark-web (where fraudsters live etc) than what a normal user can search for using common search engines (google etc). This information will be difficult for normal users to find, which is wrong IMO.

 

Im getting a little tired of these tories and I dont think im alone here, I appreciate they have come in and made drastic cuts which were necessary, but you scratch through their call me Dave personnas and they are in my opinion deeply self serving individuals with little or no concern for the electorate.

 

I side with Russel Brand on these people!

 

‘I think if you’re a bit mean and tight, and always cutting benefits and being horrible, it’s because you don’t know how to f*** properly,’ the 38-year-old tells Alan Carr on Chatty Man this Friday.

 

‘They’re like snickering little posh people, sort of like w***ing into their sock. I think if your job is to look after the country and you don’t care about the people who need it most, you’re out of order. And you’re a filthy, dirty, posh w***er,’ he goes on.

 

Not holding back, Brand goes on to suggest the privileged upbringing of the country’s most senior politicians has left them out-of-touch with modern society.

 

‘It’s alright if you go to Eton, and then you’re in the Houses of Parliament – incidentally all those places look the same [Oxford, Cambridge] because the language and the code it these people are meant to be in charge. So it’s alright for them to say “oh don’t worry about gay rights, don’t worry about poor people”, because it’s not part of their lives, but it’s part of our lives.’

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

This is a tragedy for fans of quality broadcasting: Tories have taken down "WebCameron" from youtube

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/14/conservatives-remove-webcameron-from-youtube

 

I honestly believe that to some extent that you get the politicians you deserve and as a country we get shower of ****e after shower of ****e.

[JackFrost]

Again Pap. You seem so surprised. They all do it. Yet you only use the Conservative lot as your examples

 

Certainly looks that way

 

The splendid irony is that Dave has removed his speech wherein he said how much he valued the power of the internet in holding politicians to account. Surely not the same Dave that now seeks to castrate some of the powers of the internet and, thereby, the powers of such sites as 38 Degrees that do such a good job of challenging policies.

 

Funnily enough it appears that Labour have tried to do the same thing with "boom and bust"

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24942040

[pap]

Certainly looks that way

 

Funnily enough it appears that Labour have tried to do the same thing with "boom and bust"

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24942040

 

Not remotely the same thing. Labour aren't trying to get content permanently removed from every nook and cranny on the Internet.

 

Labour would probably love to have some of its more embarrassing statements purged from public Internet record, but it hasn't done so, mostly because it isn't the party in government. Can you imagine the furore if Ed had been caught trying to get things deleted from the Internet Archive? On what grounds could he even attempt that? On the basis that he's the leader of a political party? Hardly. The only reason the Tories thought they could get away with this is because they're the people in charge.

 

I'm not saying Labour have been forever blameless on this issue, but the two cases you make in your mocking comparison aren't the same thing. There is a difference between removing stuff from your own website and trying to get it removed from the entire Internet. Historically, I'd have had you pegged as the sort of character able to make the distinction.

[JackFrost]

Not remotely the same thing. Labour aren't trying to get content permanently removed from every nook and cranny on the Internet.

 

Labour would probably love to have some of its more embarrassing statements purged from public Internet record, but it hasn't done so, mostly because it isn't the party in government.

 

The only reason the Tories thought they could get away with this is because they're the people in charge.

 

Replace the words "thought they could get away with this" with "did it". Do you honestly not see the common denominator in your own post?

 

You've said it yourself.

 

I'm not saying Labour have been forever blameless on this issue, but the two cases you make in your mocking comparison aren't the same thing. There is a difference between removing stuff from your own website and trying to get it removed from the entire Internet. Historically, I'd have had you pegged as the sort of character able to make the distinction.

 

Yes, it's called one party not going to the same lengths, and the simple reason is one party is in power and the other isn't, meaning one party is subject to more criticism/scrutiny because the decisions they make affects everyone in this country on a regular if not daily basis. Just because one party hasn't gone to the same extent doesn't mean the overall concept is any different. You think Labour wouldn't have done the same if they were in power?

 

As for distinction, I certainly can't make much between the parties in the most elitist Parliament in modern history. The Tories are the Tories, and the Lib Dems have proven to be an unelectable party that say whatever they want to gain populist votes, and have become the fall guys for most of the Tories' more stupid policies. As for Labour they are a directionless entity who don't represent who they claim to represent, and conjure up meaningless gimmicks portrayed as policies to try and convince people they do. In general I merely get amused when people try to score political points against any party for a reason that is a common factor between their or all of the political parties.

[The9]

Within the parameters that all attempts to remove public record from the internet should be illegal...

 

...isn't the difference that nobody cares what you said you were going to do when you get elected, if you don't get elected?

[pap]

Nice follow up piece in the New Statesman which covers some of the specific pledges the Tories might have been trying to remove.

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/pre-election-pledges-tories-are-trying-wipe-internet

[Nolan]

its standard practive in search optimization. If you only want accurate current information to be found by a search engine, you remove out of date items.

 

Labour does it too. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24942040