baldysblog.co.uk

I have written before about the media operation set up by New Labour in the 90’s to instantly respond to any negative articles appearing in the right wing press, it was called Excalibur and was highly successful in exasperating the death throes of the Major Government.

They have recently decided to revive it to focus on the “blogsphere” in the run up to the 2010 General Election, the following is an example of how this works from the Daily Telegraph, it involves the use of a “Troll” who is someone who hovers around the “discussion boards” ready to swoop in with negative input.

Background

In the British media, the BBC, Times, Guardian, Telegraph and many others operate live mail in discussion boards, the majority though limit the amount of input to say ‘x’ characters which includes spaces and censor heavily. The Telegraph is unique in that there is a limit but it amounts to about an A4 page which is a lot plus, they don’t censor heavily but will remove posts if there is a complaint.

I quite enjoy reading the DT on-line and especially the responses to the articles which can be a lot of fun and range from the very intelligent to the totally pompous through to totally barking mad. The following though is a real live example from a regular troll on the Telegraph although I’ve hidden his name.

My Original Post interspersed with His Replies in CAPS !

  
As usual, you are totally wrong again because you don’t understand the situation, business or most importantly of all, people plus your grasp of “recent history” is non-existent:

“Thatcher destroyed British Jobs.”

OH YES SHE DID – SHE SHUT DOWN THE INDUSTRIES SET UP IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. IN TOTALITY AND WITHOUT SCRUPLE.

No she didn’t, she curtailed the power of the Unions and in terms of trying to hang on to British manufacturing jobs, she was as hopeless as any Socialist – DeLorien Cars, Westland Helicopters (Hesaltine’s resignation), BMC/British Leyland, getting it bought by BAE…

The people who destroyed British manufacturing were bad management that didn’t produce the things people wanted to buy at the price and quality point they could get from abroad.

IT WASN’T BAD MANAGEMENT AT ALL – IT WAS MARKET ECONOMICS AND THATCHER FAILED TO INTERVENE

In short, it was the British consumer who voted with their feet who did the dirty deed not any Government.

As for ‘Non-Jobs’, you can’t even get that right. Yes being unemployed is very bad news particularly if you have a young family but the real killer is “not being wanted”,

SORRY – THINK YOU ARE TAKING A VERY CONDESCENDING VIEW HERE. HOW ON EARTH DO YOU PURPORT TO KNOW HOW OTHER PEOPLE EXPERIENCE JOB SATISFACTION? WHAT POMPOUS NONSENSE.

that no one considers you valuable enough to pay you for your time. In my life I have been sacked twice and had no problems in either case, being a young turk standing up for principles was fun but the worse experience I have ever had was being made redundant – the no fault/no blame way of losing your job – it is crap.

Non-jobs do not confer pride and value on the person who holds the post, it rots and saps the soul, we all need to feel valued and to feel that we are making a contribution of some kind, that the labourer is worthy of his hire. As an IT Contractor I never walked out on a contract early except once when a project went on ‘hold’ and the company were prepared to keep me on for the remaining 10 weeks at £2,500 pw doing nothing and in case they changed their mind about the project.

WHAT HAS THIS GOT TO DO WITH MACRO-ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS?

Some might stay, I wouldn’t and walked because in the end, it is all about self respect and being in control of your own life and not living on charity which is what non-jobs are.

SORRY – THIS IS RUBBISH!

My Reply

I would explain that to those that don’t know, typing in capital letters is known as “SHOUTING” and I finish off with a quote from something he wrote to another person.

“Clearly you have lost the argument here, insulting people being the giveaway. If I remember rightly, you claim to be a self employed businessman with a six figure salary and are not a Labour Troll.

Many of the contributors to these pages are most likely retired. At 62 I look after my 88 year old housebound Mother and until he died my Father. I keep my intellect active by the odd contribution to the DT, my own blog, photography and keeping my IT skills current. The reason I explain this is for you to understand that when my Mother dies as she will, I will go back to living an ‘outgoing life’ and re-engage with the world around me.

I will cease writing to the DT, probably drop my blog although the photography and IT will no doubt remain. You think I am pompous, you may be right, I may even be as pompous as you – terrible thought ! But at least I live my life, if you are a young and fit man, you are wasting yours unless of course you are earning your living as the Labour Troll everyone knows you are.

As to your grasp of “economics”, they are clearly non-existent and to quote your own words “Go and read a basic economics text book you idiot.”

Conclusion

Generally what most people do is to ignore the trolls, you get to know who they are but sometimes it can be fun to have a ‘pop’ at them because they are generally more annoying than intelligent and pressing them leads to them making mistakes. We all suspect that this particular one is still a teenager employed by Labour HQ as an office boy but, he does have ambitions and why not ? If Gordon Brown an economic illiterate can be Chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years and eventually the worse PM in British history, why shouldn’t this lad ?