Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

 Dear Kenny MacAskill,
It looks to me as though you, as Scottish Justice Secretary, have spotted a rather unusual loophole in laws designed to protect people from stalking and harrassment.  Ministers in Scotland are currently considering a new law which would help stop people stalking and harassing their victims by text or online.  Currently those who behave in [...]

Dear Kevin Rudd,
Although you may still be basking in the glory of being one of the few developed nations not to go into recession during the global economic meltdown, it seems as though you still have some questions to answer.  It appears as though you have been taking lessons from the illiberal authoritarian lunatics in [...]

Dear Advertising Standards Authority (ASA),
You never seem to stay out of the headlines for long, and many incidents that you are involved in provide plentiful entertainment.  I have just discovered that more than 1,000 people have joined a Facebook campaign to ban billboards advertising for a website that promotes adultery, but thankfully you have shown common sense [...]

“All of these things are twisted out of context to make me look like a c***. I may be a c*** but I’m not a racist c***.”
- journalist Rod Liddle, who finds himself at the centre of yet more accusations about the messages that he has posted on online forums.  Liddle felt compelled to explain in the Jewish [...]

“Are you still single and bitter?”
- the question posed by the match-making website set up by China’s central government to help thousands of busy but lonely government workers find love at work.   The official government website for the “Central Government Unions Magpie Bridge” — featuring a young man and woman peering at each other around [...]

“This is not about prosecuting some poor minnow who has taped a record one night and circulated it to their friends. This is about large-scale, professional, clever, technical ripping off.”
- Peter Makepeace, opening the case for the prosecution at Teesside Crown Court earlier this week against 26-year-old Alan Ellis – who ran the Oink website [...]

“If they really think it’s worth spending vast sums of money on these measures then [the Government] should be footing the bill, not the consumer.”
- Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse, as Government ministers admit that proposals to suspend the internet connections of those who repeatedly share music and films online will leave consumers with a [...]

“I feel proud to live in a country where you’re not persecuted for your opinions. That right has to be protected. Even though people are now taking shots at me on the web, I believe those people have a right to their opinions — and their anonymity.”
- Rosemary Port, who is suing Google for $15 million because she [...]

Dear Lord Mandelson,
After your meteroic re-rise to the top of the Labour Party, I was hoping that you would have learned the lessons of the past.  Apparently not.  Despite surviving the expenses scandal relatively unscathed, your reputation for sleaze and corruption remains unshaken as demonstrated by your increasingly dubious behaviour over the past ten days.
Last [...]

Dear Liskula Cohen,
Although your name recognition was pretty much zero in the UK before this week, your US legal case may have ramifications that roll on for years.  You have won a landmark court battle to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called you a “skank” and an “old hag”.  This case sets [...]

Dear Pirate Party,
As of 30th July 2009, you have become an official political party in the UK after registering with the electoral commission.  This means that you can now have Pirate Party candidates standing at the next general election.  I doubt that this will attract any attention at a local level, but I wonder if [...]

Dear Jennifer Stoddart,
Thank you for finally waking up to the gradual encroachment of Facebook into basic civil liberties.  The advent of social networking has raised a huge number of issues regarding privacy and personal information, but there has been surprisingly little reaction to the way that sites such as Facebook hand out personal details to [...]

Dear Lisa Greenwood,
Although a lot of people have lost their jobs during the recession, your sacking was not recession-related in the slightest.  After posting an anonymous message about Hazel Blears on the internet at the height of the furore over abuse of the second home allowances, you have been fired from your job as office [...]

“It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks, for goodness sake let’s grow up.”
- David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, who said that photographs of Sir John Sawers, the new head of MI6, that appeared on Facebook are not a threat to national security.  He described Sir John as an “outstanding professional” and denied that [...]

Dear Darryn Walker,
Although it didn’t cause much of a ripple in the mainstream media, the end of your court case this week concluded a rather uncomfortable saga for bloggers around the country.  You were cleared of breaching the Obscene Publications Act with a story that you wrote about Girls Aloud on an internet site, which described in [...]

“There’s no way they’re ever going to get that”
- Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a 32-year-old mother of two, who has been found guilty of wilful copyright infringement and must pay $1.92m after a retrial in a US court, making her the first person to be successfully sued for illegal filesharing in the US. A court awarded the Recording [...]

Dear Nightjack,
Your quest to protect your identity is at an end, sadly.  Despite your best efforts, Mr Justice Eady refused to protect your anonymity and you now have your name splashed across the papers this morning.  Needless to say there is some concern about the implications of this case for other anonymous bloggers in the UK, but [...]

“construct a green, healthy and harmonious internet environment, and prevent harmful information on the internet from influencing and poisoning young people”
- a notice from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued to personal computer-makers instructing them that every machine sold from July 1st must be preloaded with software aimed at restricting online pornography but which could also [...]

“We want them to register their activity as a business – it’s still taxable, even if it’s a hobby.”
- Dag Hardyson, a tax official in Sweden, discussing the authorities’ decision to examine websites that feature Swedish strippers in an effort to identify them and make them pay tax on their earnings.  The lost tax revenue is [...]

Without doubt my favourite image from Google Street View submitted to the BBC in their feature on bizarre images caught by the new service.  That said, Google has apparently been hit by a “wave of privacy complaints” after Street View was launched.  They said yesterday that it had removed scores of photographs from the site, including [...]

Dear Matt Lewis,
Waking up on a Saturday morning is difficult enough for most people, but for you waking up today must be a pretty horrible experience.  Almost every paper has run with the story about your questionable decision to dress up as a dead Madeleine McCann at a fancy dress party, with the Daily Mail [...]

Dear readers,
There have been a number of stories recently about the legal aspects of blogging, and leaving comments in particular.  Here is ANOTHER STORY that suggests the balance of power is shifting away from anonymity and towards liability.  Sarcasm, it seems, is not a sufficient defence if you post a jokey remark which can be misconstrued.
A.Tory

Dear readers,
It was only a matter of time before the lawyers got their teeth into the blogosphere and even though it didn’t exactly grab the headlines today, it seems as though the mask of anonymity provided online is about to be taken away.  Have a read of the story, and leave your reactions in the [...]