Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate resigns over blog comments

Greg Stone yesterday resigned as Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Newcastle East, a month after revelations over comments he posted anonymously on Guido Fawkes blog last year.

Using the pen-name 'Inamicus', Mr Stone left his comments on the Guido Fawkes website as part of a weekly live discussion of Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, in which many contributors make personal criticisms of MPs.

He twice attacked Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, once asking “How much Botox is Blears on?” and later adding “Don’t know about Botox, think Blears has had a stroke.” He described Mr Miliband as looking “monged”, made a sexual comment about Mr Straw, and made an apparent reference to Ms Smith’s cleavage.

Women MPs were singled out for harsh treatment. Anne McIntosh, the Conservative MP for the Vale of York – against whom Mr Stone stood in 2001 – was attacked four times. She was variously described as “a depressed woman in blue”, ” needing a makeover”, being “in spinster librarian mode again” and looking “like a deckchair today”. Roberta Blackman-Woods, the Labour MP, who was described as a “sour-faced bitch”.

Even one of Mr Stone’s potential future Lib Dem colleagues, Paul Rowen, MP for Rochdale, was criticised as “the dullest MP in the House”.

Berkshire LD blogger Mark Reckons asks 'Has Greg Stone paid too high a price?' The question is does he really think these things, or does he think he will gain somehow by just saying any old rubbish. Frankly its a lucky escape for the LD, imagine what a storm there would be if he became an MP with attitudes like this.

It may not be an isolated case, other LDs have become known for there nasty comments. In Reading the LD are complaining about others making anonymous comments, but they are sometimes lead the way. In the last few weeks I have seen several personal attacks.

Gareth Epps LD PC for Reading East wrote 'The fact is that anyone our LD members select to fight Reading West will have much firmer green credentials than Lab and the Tories could muster between them and the credibility lacked by the maverick Green candidate there.' Now I think being called a Maverick could be a compliment, suggesting I have no credibility isn't. Here he says 'You seem to know nothing about planning' while showing how little he has done to oppose Tesco, while claiming to be an effective opposition.

A blog that claims to be about Berkshires blogs but is actually a LD supporting site often attacks politicians. When I sympathised with a gaff by a Labour candidate, I was attacked. "Adrian Windisch, as the Green Party candidate, can't help himself from wallowing empathetically in the pain of his competitor and compares it to other gaffes - including one of his own, where he failed to remember what Reading's renowned '3B's' are.'

Usually the LD attacks on the Greens do not quote what we say, but make up policies that we dont have. Cllr Glenn Goodall claims as 'FACT' that the LD is the only party to scrap tuition fees, despite evidence to the contrary. He said 'This even led to some scandalous remarks from the Greenie-meanies suggesting it was a forgone conclusion that the policy would be jettisoned. Also, they stated their (authoritarian) party would be the only choice for liberal-students… ' They have abandoned their opposition to tuition fees for the next term, so actually we are the only choice now.

He is convinced we are authoritarian, that we would 'FORCE people not to have kids, not to drive, not to eat meat, not to have any tech and basically live the way YOU want them too. That is the very definition of an authoritarian party… So in fact the Green Party is the same as Labour and the Tories - “Do what we say, or else!”'

Its funny how some people attack others by saying what they themselves are like. He is quite wrong about Green Party Policy, there is nothing on forcing people not to have more children/not eat meat etc.

So while many LD do support some good policies, many more do not. Some of them give politicians a bad name by being really nasty. Are they so desperate for power that they will say literally anything?