Parlez~me~'n~Tory

Rightly wry, satirically right

UPDATE at foot of post:
Whilst waiting for #bbcqt to begin this evening I was wandering around the darkened corners of the Web and settled upon the Website of Ed (I am a bully) Balls – edballs.co.uk.

It’s not a riveting read to be honest so I do these things so that you don’t have to and if you wish to buy me a beer sometime for that gesture then I shall be most grateful. Anyway, I digress…

Whilst considering Ed’s arrogance and his outright refusal to answer any of my 42 questions I have posed him on Twitter I decided to visit his Privacy Policy to see how “robust” [his favourite word of late] it actually was. What I found is below:

Privacy Policy

IP addresses and log file data

The Labour Party site does not automatically capture or store personal information, other than logging the user’s IP Address or the location of your computer or network on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. (If you are connected to the Internet you have an IP address, for example an IP address might read “154.198.99.9″). We also use IP addresses in the aggregate to track which pages people visit in order to improve the quality of the site.

Data collection and use

You may be asked for personal information if you complete one of the forms on this site. Please see below the information we ask for and what this information is used for.

In each case we will only use the information about you for the purpose for which you provide it. The Labour Party does not sell or disclose this information to outside organisations or individuals, nor transfer it outside the United Kingdom. You may remove or change your details at any time. You have right of access to your personal information held on our files by written request to the data protection officer (address below) and on payment of an administration fee.

Site registration and email service (to receive Ed Balls newsletter)

When you register onto the site or subscribe for Labour eNews we ask you for contact information (such as your name and e-mail address), geographic information (such as your postcode and constituency), and other details about you and your interests. This is used to help us provide you with information to match your interests. We may also use it to alert you of campaigns you may be interested in and events happening in your area.

You can remove your name at any time from our e-mail subscription list by sending an unsubscribe request.

If you are registered onto the site, you can edit your registration and enews subscription details at any time through your personal on-line form. If you have not registered on the site and you wish to change your contact email address you need to unsubscribe from our mailing list and sign up again using your new information. If you are registered on the site as a member and you use the site to change your registration details (eg. address or email address) this information may also be used to update your membership record on the Party’s membership database to ensure it is up-to-date and accurate.

Cookie

A cookie is a tiny text file that is stored on your computer. We may use cookies in order to tailor your experience on our site according to the preferences you have specified. However we will only access the information that we stored in your cookie file. We will not access any information stored in a cookie by other websites. Our cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information.

Information on children

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 16 without permission.

Links to other sites

Our site contains links to other sites and servers. The Labour Party is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

How we protect your information

Our website has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of the information under our control. Our server is located in a locked, secure environment.

Choice/unsubscribe

We provide you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us easily and promptly. Our unsubscribe requests are processed weekly.

Correcting your information

If you need to correct the information you provided us with when you subscibed to our e-mail list, you can do so through your personal form provided on-line. If you need to change your e-mail address, you can unsubscribe from our mailing lists and sign up again using your new information. Or if you have registered with a username and password you may change your details at any time via the login page without needing to re-register.

Contacting us about privacy

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this site or your interaction with this website, send an email to: ed@edballs.com or telephone us on 01924 898158.

You can also contact us at the address displayed on every page of this site.

We will continue to evaluate our efforts to protect your information and will update our privacy policy whenever necessary.

I won’t blame you for not bothering to read that but I shall pull out a few snippets for your delectation:

IP addresses and log file data
The Labour Party site does not automatically capture or store personal information

The Labour Party does not sell or disclose this information to outside organisations or individuals, nor transfer it outside the United Kingdom

When you register onto the site or subscribe for Labour eNews

We may also use it to alert you of campaigns you may be interested in and events happening in your area.[what Normanton???Come on Ed]

If you are registered on the site as a member and you use the site to change your registration details (eg. address or email address) this information may also be used to update your membership record on the Party’s membership database to ensure it is up-to-date and accurate.

Links to other sites
Our site contains links to other sites and servers. The Labour Party is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Our server is located in a locked, secure environment.[no Ed, it isn't!]

In case you haven’t understand from the above Ed is either pretending to be the Labour Party as a whole or he has stolen the Privacy Policy from the Labour Party Website.

Is he equal to the Party? He may think he is…

I have reproduced the LabourParty.org.uk original Privacy Policy below so you can compare for yourself.

IP addresses and log file data
The Labour Party site does not automatically capture or store personal information, other than logging the user’s IP Address or the location of your computer or network on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. (If you are connected to the Internet you have an IP address, for example an IP address might read “154.198.99.9″). We also use IP addresses in the aggregate to track which pages people visit in order to improve the quality of the site.

Data collection and use
You may be asked for personal information if you complete one of the forms on this site. Please see below the information we ask for and what this information is used for.

In each case we will only use the information about you for the purpose for which you provide it. The Labour Party does not sell or disclose this information to outside organisations or individuals, nor transfer it outside the United Kingdom. You may remove or change your details at any time. You have right of access to your personal information held on our files by written request to the data protection officer (address below) and on payment of an administration fee.

Site registration and email service
When you register onto the site or subscribe to our emails, we ask you for contact information (such as your name and e-mail address), geographic information (such as your postcode and constituency), and other details about you and your interests. This is used to help us provide you with information to match your interests. We may also use it to alert you of campaigns you may be interested in and events happening in your area.

Joining the Party and renewing your membership online
We collect the required information in order to check you meet the conditions of and help you fulfil the opportunities provided by membership of the Labour Party. At your option, we ask for additional information such as gender, date of birth and trade union membership to help us provide a better membership service to you.

To volunteer (pledge your support)
We ask for your contact details, postcode and information on the type of volunteer work you are interested in. This information helps us identify suitable volunteer opportunities for you within the Party. Your details will be forwarded to the appropriate local or regional party officer who can then contact you.

Donating to the Party
The information we ask for is used to process your donation and, if you donate more than £200, to check that you are on the electoral register. If you donate more than £1,000 to a Labour Party unit (eg. Constituency Labour Party) or more than £5,000 to the Labour Party nationally in the course of a calendar year, your name and the amount of your donation will be reported to the Electoral Commission for publication on their public register of donations to the Labour Party. Donation Information will be stored on our membership database and used to keep you informed of Labour news, campaign and other opportunities to support the Party.

Cookie
A cookie is a tiny text file that is stored on your computer. We may use cookies in order to tailor your experience on our site according to the preferences you have specified. However we will only access the information that we stored in your cookie file. We will not access any information stored in a cookie by other websites. Our cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information.

Information on children

The Labour Party does not process any personal details from individuals under the age of 15 without parent/guardian consent. Details of under 16s are processed for membership purposes only.

Links to other sites
Our site contains links to other sites and servers. The Labour Party is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

How we protect your information
Our website has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of the information under our control. Our server is located in a locked, secure environment, with a guard posted 24 hours a day. When you contribute online, we use a secure server to protect your credit card number and other personal information during transmission. The details are transmitted through Thawte to ensure absolute security.

Choice/unsubscribe
We provide you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us easily and promptly. Our unsubscribe requests are processed weekly.

Correcting your information
If you need to correct the information you provided us with when you subscibed to our e-mail list, you can do so through your personal form provided on-line. If you need to change your e-mail address, you can unsubscribe from our mailing lists and sign up again using your new information. Or if you have registered with a username and password you may change your details at any time via the login page without needing to re-register.

Contacting us about privacy
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this site or your interaction with this website, please contacy us by clicking here or telephone our call centre on 08705 900200.

You can also contact us at the address below:
E-campaigns team
Labour Party
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0HA

Our data protection officer can be contacted at the following address:
Melanie Onn
Labour Party
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0HA

We will continue to evaluate our efforts to protect your information and will update our privacy policy whenever necessary

Quite simply Ed Balls has stolen this text and used it on his own site.

Even if he attempts to claim he had permission to use this then it shows that anybody who has given information such as e-mails etc via edballs.co.uk has no legal assurance that their information will be held and used correctly.

I put it to you, Ed Balls, Sir that you MUST change your Privacy Policy to correctly reflect the Website content you present.

Your failure to do this in a timely fashion (and I suggest that timely fashion is 14 days from today so I am putting a deadline of 11th March 2010) will result in both you and your Website administrator being reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under a breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA).

I welcome your suggestions as to how you propose to do this.

—–
UPDATE: After writing this last night I was amazed when I logged into Twitter this morning to find a number of people seemingly unaware of how important this little find is and how little awareness of the Data Protection Act there is out there and what you can expect of how your data is held and used.

The “Tweets” that awaited me this morning ranged from “when will you get a life” through “a moment to tedium” to “get back to fighting the good fight on the issues that matter” and “absolutely spot on, but what does the DPA do”.

Well, as for fighting the good fight and getting onto the issues that matter, this does matter, this matters a great deal. There are millions of businessmen and women, businesses, civil servants and the like out there slushing around on a daily basis having to ensure their wares meet the regulations set out within the DPA and further constraints set out by the ICO so why not expect that a Crown Minister complies with the law of the land?

If you have given your details via the Ed Balls Website I repeat you have no assurance of how that data is treated, the DPA exists to protect you and your data.

The Privacy Policy on the site is misleading and incorrect. I am prepared to bet good money on the fact that Ed Balls uses a standard commercial host and to make the statements he is making I would like very real proof of evidence, or at least I would had I been churlish enough to give my data over to his site.

I have contacted Ed Balls via his Website to inform him of his non-compliance and await a reply.

Gordon Brown, you stand guilty of killing off Britain.

This once great nation that stood proud and true is all but broken, her epitaph reads as such:

And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There’ll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.

With notable thanks to Philip Larkin for his “Going, Going” poem of January 1972

An insider quoted the great economist Forrest Gump when he said

…that’s about all I’ve got to say about that

Yesterday was a weird day. Not weird as in freaky but just a tad odd.

It all started by me Tweeting a few very valid comments about DAVID WRIGHT then I got a message via Twitter stating that I had been “unfollowed” by a Labour supporter because of my “#fauxoutrage” over Mr Wright.

I put it to the chap that it was not a faux outrage and I was personally offended that I had been called a Scum Sucking Pig [David Wright later confirmed he "meant" the Tory party not its supporters were Scum Sucking Pigs....but he didn't really mean that as he didn't really send the Tweet did he!]

Anyway, the chap decided not to accept that I or other members of the Party could be offended and attempted to turn it on his head and started to go headlong into a monologue of how David Cameron had lied about his vote on gay adoption. I told the chap that if he had lied then that was wrong but that the subject did not affect me personally and so therefore I do not have enough knowledge of the subject and therefore cannot comment further. He continued…

Even engaging with other members of the Tory party via Twitter to continue his insistence that this was all somehow Cameron’s fault. He refused to accept that I was genuinely outraged and accused me of not caring over an issue because it did not personally affect me.

I invited the individual to grow up and stop cheapening the debate with false words attributed to me and further invited him to refollow me as and when he sees fit. I received no apology and I don’t expect this to be anytime soon. Which is a shame because despite his constant “labour are never wrong” attitude he is on the whole an “ok” follow providing you can see through some of his daft debating points.

Anyway, the point of this blog is not meant to be a discussion of yesterday but to make a plea to the little people of Twitter/Blogosphere and the big people of Twitter/Blogosphere whatever their Political belief.

That plea is: If you have a PPC in your constituency you wish them to enter politics with enthusiasm and belief, you wish them to represent you to the best of their ability, you expect them to sometimes vote against their party, not in protest but because they genuinely believe in something. You expect them to have the power of individual thought. The same goes for a sitting MP, you expect them to have the power of individual thought.

Dear voter, please afford the PPC, the MP and the whole of the Twitter world/Blogosphere the power of your individual thought. If you wish to spout a party line without your own thoughts then there are plenty of places for that, the hustings even, your own rallies perhaps. But when you are attempting to engage with others of the same and differing persuasions why not try expressing your own thoughts. Try it, see how it goes, you never know you may actually like being an individual that stands out from your crowd.

Oh, and to make yesterday even weirder I predicted Man Utd would win 2-3 when they were already 1-0 down!

Parlez~me~’n~Tory doesn’t really do a QUOTE OF THE DAY special. Partly because I think I’d miss most of the candidates and partly because so many other bloggers do it better, faster and more succinctly than I possibly could.

However, as of today I am introducing a new category for the award of a NEWARK to the most spiteful, vile, horrible, ridiculously contempt statement made by a member of a Political Party or by one of its PPCs.

How fitting that I choose today to issue the first NEWARK to DAVID WRIGHT MP following his outrageously stupid Tweet from yesterday afternoon.

In this instance, rather than describe the events that led to DAVID WRIGHT becoming the first recipient I shall simply let the excellent Twitterer ToryRadio tell the story.

At what point did you realise the scum sucking phrase had been used David Wright?

The claim that the twitter account of David Wright just doesn’t add up IMHO.

Let run through some of the tweets. Anyone can go through all the tweets to and from @davidwrightmp here. No mention of account being hacked until the story is picked up on by mainstream media. Funny that!

…read the entire post HERE

DAVID, want to get your hands on the NEWARK? Give me a call, drop me a line and I shall send it right over so everyone can see how much of a NEWARK you really are!

New Government Seal

Official Announcement:

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from a Union Flag to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance.

A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed.

Damn, it just doesn’t get more accurate than that!

With great thanks to the Labour Party without whom we’d all be a lot better off.

Do you know what? Quite frankly I am pissed off.

Why such a state of affairs for myself?

Well, it is the cynicism and blindness with which Labour supporting Tweeters spend their entire waking day slating anyone and anything other than Gordon Brown and/or the Parliamentary Labour Party. That’s fine, I can handle that but what I cannot handle is their duplicity, their double standards and their utter inability to accept anything other than what is preached to them by the ruling criminal class.

This week I have had several attacks on me as a Twitter user calling me bigoted, a troll, an arse, a member of a fu**ing stupid party, the vast majority of these tweets have been accompanied by vile and slanderous hashtags such as #toryfail #toryduplicity #nastyparty #stillthenastyparty and #hypocricy.

Well, news for you, you fools. The hypocricy is yours and yours alone. You don’t seem to realise that to use defamatory hashtags is the very thing you claim to detest and that is the act of trolling.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion

The reality is that this country is in a shit state (this is where the Labour tweeters will now complain and call me a troll again) and it is the ruling Labour party that have wasted every resource we have.

They have thrown us to the dogs so that they may cling on with their fingertrips and Gordon Brown has become so ineffectual we are now expected to accept that his decision to be interviewed so close to the election is a normal state of affairs…and before you slate me PLP I don’t have an issue with him crying or showing emotion, I would do the same, but I do have an issue with the PLP attempting to give him another makeover and gain from the public at this late stage without examining the reality of the bias that has been shown against ANY other Party.

Honestly, there are some lovely Labour tweeters out there but there are some extremely vile and angry people.

You wouldn’t think these are the ones who have had power for so long. If ruling the country makes them so angry we had better watch out when they are in Opposition. God only knows what it does to their blood pressure.

I like to follow a wide range of people and Political oriented activists on Twitter because it opens the channels for debate, that is real debate not phony slanging matches, but it amazes me how some people just cannot seem to understand there are many things wrong with this country and they refuse to believe that it isn’t all sweetness and fluffy bunny rabbits.

As the chase for #GE10 hots up I fully expect the vile comments and partisan crap to increase and each instance will be blogged on here. For too long I have kept quiet, found a way forward by being conciliatory and by attempting to debate a point with someone who just wishes to abuse someone, anyone with a view that doesn’t fit theirs.

From now on? The gloves are off.

Let’s load the barrels, let’s plot the course because we have a fight on our hands and there are many on the LEFT who insist on making it a bloody dirty fight.

Following the Gordon Brown interview to be aired on Valentine’s day and given that every set-up has been perfectly stage managed throughout the inverview one wonders whether we are to see the future Lord Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan of Chailey heading up the Lords Communication Committee in a few years time?

Perish the bloody thought!