The Wardman Wire

All about political blogging.

I’ve written about Operation Ore several times over the last couple of years, as have a number of other bloggers from left and right (Yorkshire Ranter, Tim Worstall, Anna Raccoon), and sites such as The Register.

Operation Ore was a major police operation in Britain which became known to the public in 2002 targetting thousands of alleged users of child pornography websites. In the words of Wikipedia, the statistics were:

7,250 suspects identified, 4,283 homes searched, 3,744 arrests, 1,848 charged, 1,451 convictions, 493 cautioned, 879 investigations underway, 140 children removed from suspected dangerous situations (although the definition of what constitutes such, has varied and remains vague) and an estimated 39 suicides.

The work of journalist Duncan Campbell amongst others has already cast serious doubt over the integrity of the police investigation in Operation Ore.

As I write, Liverpool solicitor Chris Saltrese is taking a test case to the Appeal Court for wrongful conviction:

In the UK, thousands of people were implicated and convicted or cautioned even though they protested no knowledge of having visited the site or any interest or intention to access child pornography.

It has since emerged that the blueprint employed to incriminate suspects was fundamentally flawed, so that many people may have been implicated in a crime they did not commit.

With the help of experts, Chris Saltrese Solicitors has carried out groundbreaking evidential and legal research into Operation Ore.

Leave for appeal has now been granted for a test case to be heard before the full court in Spring 2010.

If this appeal is successful, the ultimate consequences will be profound, because Operation Ore was the first large-scale British “paedo” case. The alleged success of Operation Ore, and the public fear of paedophiles created and fed in its wake, is the foundation upon which law enforcement around paedophile offences and a related public culture dominated by fear of child abuse has been built.

This is a short interview given by Lord Lester this morning on the Today Programme about Libel Law Reform, which is expected to be in the Queen’s Speech.

It is 2 minutes long and well worth a listen.

(Click through for the audio)

The Orange Digital Campaign awards (I haven’t been able to find a website – anyone?) are – as you might expect – being given to people and parties judged to have made excellent use of online campaigning in the Election.

I picked up on this via Anthony Painter’s blog , after he had mentioned them his work for Orange at the excellent post-Election debate hosted by the RSA on May 13th:

The awards will be:

- Best use of digital campaigning by a Political Party
- Best use of digital campaigning by a Candidate
- Best non-party digital initiatives
- Funniest use of digital campaigning
- Worst example of digital campaigning

But they are being awarded by a panel of judges made up of leading journalists and bloggers from across and independent of the political spectrum.

That’s all well and good, but there is no nomination process independent of the panel, and in an election which has been chaotic and quite local in many places, I think that that will inevitably miss many of the best examples.

Further, the nomination panel (Charlotte Gore, Mark Thompson, Guido, Torybear, Rory Cellan-Jones, Sara Scarlett, and (I think) Clifford Singer ) was entirely made up from people based in or around London, Charlotte Gore aside, who is in Leeds, and Guido Fawkes who is based in Ireland even if his blog is Westminster-focussed.

How will good campaigns be picked up if they happen to be locally-based in Wales or Scotland, for example?

Finally, the panel are all – except for Rory CJ – politicos of one sort or another. My suspicion is that a key trend today is the broadening of politics, so that much of the best campaigning might be in different parts of the Internet.

So I’m starting a meme to highlight good digital campaigning during the election, and I’m appointing a “grassroots panel”, comprising the blogosphere.

I’ll be highlighting the website I built last year isthebnpracist.co.uk, which aimed to take the segment of traffic asking “is the BNP racist?” in search engines, and drive it to a website arguing that the answer is “yes”, rather than the page on the BNP website arguing “no”, as had been the case previously. I’ll nominate this as a separate post. This is my own best example of under-the-radar campaigning; I’m sure there are many others.

Here are the rules for the meme:

1. Nominate the best example of digital campaigning known to you.
2. Link back to this post or comment here, so I can add it to the list.
3. Start your title “Orange Digital Campaigning Awards (NOT)”, including the hashtag #orangedigitalawards.
4. Tag some others who can help us find the best online campaigning.

I’m tagging quite a wide spread of people. If you want to tag yourself, go ahead – this needs a broad input. I’m tagging:

• SubRosa from Scotland, who is a Nationalist.
• Tom Watson from Birmingham, who is an MP.
• The Very Public Sociologist from Stoke-on-Trent.
• Chris Paul from Manchester, who is a Labour Blogger.
• Anna Racoon, based in France, who is a Libertarian Party member.
• Dave Cole, who is based near Cambridge.
• Rupert Read, based in Norwich, who is a Green Councillor.
• Jeff from SNP Tactical Voter, based in Scotland.
• Cardiff Blogger, from Wales.
• Cris Hawes, from The Blue Idea in Watford.

and some non-politicos:

• Philip John , from the Lichfield Blog.
• Nottingham City Council LOLs.
• Joanna Geary, from the Times.
• The Church Mouse.
• Mick Fealty, of Slugger.

The RSA staged an excellent post-election debate in collaboration with the Personal Democracy Forum to look back at the Election Campaign 2010 and Election Day.

1. The panel was chaired by Charlie Beckett of POLIS, and included:
2. Anthony Painter, commentator and journalist on politics in the UK, EU & US;
3. Mark Pack, Head of Digital at Mandate Communications and co-editor Lib Dem Voice;
4. Stella Creasey, Labour Parliamentary candidate for Walthamstow;
5. Mark Hanson, new media strategist and associate editor, labourhome.org;
6. Craig Elder, online communications editor, the Conservative Party;
7. Harry Cole, editor, torybear.com;
8. Alberto Nardelli, creator of tweetminster.co.uk;
9. James Crabtree, managing editor, Prospect Magazine
10. From the US: Mindy Finn, Republican political consultant and new media grassroots fundraising marketing expert and Joe Trippi, political strategist and campaigner

Click through on the title for the audio. It is a roughly one hour and a quarter long, and is well worth a listen.