The December and final for 2010 stat porn for my little blog

Continuing my regular monthly stat porn figures for anyone who is remotely interested in who reads my little blog, what stories they read and from where they read it, the monthly summary of my visitor stats according to google analytics is as below for December 2010.

The busiest day on my blog last month was Saturday 18th December, the day I was suspended from Twitter and this was down to the story about the tweet from ITV slagging Nigella Lawson off.

Last month I had 2,351 absolute unique visitors, a great increase on last month. They made 2,980 visits and 3,814 page views.

22.08% of the visitors were through direct traffic, 46.31% from referring sites and 31.61% via search engines.

So, my top 10 referring sites for the last month were;
1. Twitter (2)
2. Facebook (1)
3. Lib Dem Blogs (3)
4. Lib Dem Voice (4)
5. Blogger (5)
6. Google.co.uk (6)
7. Google.com (8)
8. Munguins Republic (11)
9. Caron's Musings (7)
10. SNP Tactical Voting.com (10)

During December I wrote 26 blog posts, one more than the previous month but still a long way behind where I have been in the past.

The top 10 stories by direct page views that you've read most were;
1. ITV News tweets Nigella Lawson not as attactive as she thinks she is
2. Mike Crockart MP, no really he is
3. Andrew Reeves is still suspended on Twitter - but the support is awesome
4. Labour MSP John Park stands down as Dunfermline candidate?
5. X-Factor's Gamu Nhengu and Aberlour Choir for the Christmas No.1
6. Angela Constance MSP is new Scottish Minister for Skills & Lifelong Learning
7. Jack Frew - murdered in cold blood for being gay?
8. Daily Telegraph expose MP Michael Moore, for being, erm, well, honest
9. Keith Brown MSP is new Scottish Transport Minister
10. My response to Ed Miliband's request to join him and Labour - their lies, hypocrisy and arrogance

A mixed bag once again this month ranging from my suspension from twitter because of a rogue tweet from ITV News, the impersonation of Mike Crockart MP, the Daily Telegraph undercover journalist sting of many MPs including Michael Moore and once again the extremely sad case of Jack Frew's murder back in May, he is obviously missed by friends and family alike.
The visitors to my little blog came from 56 countries this month, up 1 on last month, the top ten were as follows;
1. United Kingdom (1)
2. United States (2)
3. Canada (3)
4. Ireland (4)
5. Australia (12)
6. Spain (6)
7. India (9)
8. France (7)
9. Netherlands (=11)
10. Brazil (=11)

That's all folks.

Top 100 Tweeting Bloggers

Another achievement for my little blog in 2010, although this year I have slipped some 32 places to 93, sitting in between a journalist William Green and an Archbishop Archbishop Cranmer.

I am sure there is a joke there somewhere.

The top 100 tweeting blogger's list can be found here on A Very public Sociologist.

Andrew Reeves is still suspended on Twitter - but the support is awesome

Wow, what a difference a day makes?

Yesterday I was watching Twitter via Tweetdeck while writing the last batch of Christmas cards when up popped the tweet from ITV News slagging off Nigella Lawson as shown in the picture below.

I re-tweeted ITV News error tweet which in turn was being re-tweeted all over the place, in fact so much so that I ended up being a trending topic in London - some fame at long last.

I then wrote a brief blog post which you can read HERE and then sent a link to that post to all the people who had re-tweeted my original re-tweet and that is apparently where I went wrong.

However, for all of those of you who are into conspiracy theories, my account was suspended at exactly the same time ITV News finally put an apology out on their Twitter account;

"Apologies for a rogue tweet that was posted from the @itv_news account"

 So, have ITV complained directly to Twitter and got my account suspended, or is the suspension down to an infringement of their rules because I have replied to a lot of people with the same link?

Given each of those people had in fact re-tweeted one of my tweets, my user name was therefore in their timeline and in fact many also decided to follow me yesterday so all in all this maybe nothing more than an error on Twitters or my behalf - nothing more, or nothing less.

I have emailed Twitters suspended accounts team directly to ascertain if my twitter account can be reinstated.

Dear Twitter - please hurry with the decision, I feel lost and empty without you and my friends.

Thank you to all of you who have blogged or tweeted in my support, it is very, very humbling but lovely to know I have so many friends.

You can read the views from Caron's Musings, Jennie Rigg, Welcome to Spiderplant Land and What you can get away with and Dreaming in Digital.

ITV News tweets Nigella Lawson not as attactive as she thinks she is

Oh dear, whoops a daisy, crap etc etc

Earlier this morning the ITV News twitter account sent out the following tweet;

Nigella Lawson is nowhere near as attractive as she thinks she is

I do feel for the person responsible for tweeting this, but it shows when you have a personal account and you operate a business account, check which you are logged into before you tweet.

One of my followers pointed out that Nigella is the same age as Gillian McKeith which means whoever tweeted this from ITV News is wrong anyway!

The offending tweet has been removed but as you can see above it was real.

Conservative Councillor Gareth Compton calls for stoning of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on twitter

Another example of alleged wry humour gone wrong on twitter.

This is an awful tweet to have sent out.  Gareth claims it was a humorous response to something on Radio 5, the problem is if you don't explain the connection the tweet comes over as nothing more than a disgusting personal attack on someone.

When will elected representatives realise that whether in jest or not their words are a matter of public record.

I have had the great privilege of meeting Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and was truly impressed.  Although Yasmin will often offend with her words, she fights racism hard and comes down on those who incite it harder.

So, Conservative Councillor Gareth Compton should not be surprised that Yasmin is reporting him to the police and will pursue this message on twitter.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said;

"You just don't do this. I have a lot of threats on my life. It's incitement. I'm going to the police – I want them to know that a law's been broken."

She added that she regarded Compton's remarks as racially motivated because he mentioned stoning.

"If I as a Muslim woman had tweeted that it would be a blessing if Gareth Compton was stoned to death I'd be arrested immediately. I don't think the nasty Tories went away."

The Guardian has also picked the story up;

The columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has said she will report a Conservative councillor to the police after he posted a message on Twitter saying it would be a "blessing" if she was stoned to death.

 Councillor Compton has now profusely apologised, many times.

Compton, the Conservative councillor for Erdington, said he was writing in response to comments made by Alibhai-Brown on Radio 5 Live.

The councillor claimed she had said, with reference to David Cameron's trip to China, that no politician was morally qualified to speak out about human rights abuses, including the stoning of women, bar the likes of Nelson Mandela.

Compton, who later apologised on Twitter, added: "Twitter is a forum for glib comment of the moment. It was a glib comment. Who could possibly think it was serious?

"Obviously I apologise. No offence was intended."

Councillor Compton may well have not intended any offence but Yasmin has taken it.  Gareth may come to regret ever listening to that debate on Radio 5 and he will certainly regret going on to tweet about it.

Other politicians who have made major mistakes on twitter have found a quiet life after, especially those who have then been forced to resign after, will Councillor Compton be one of them?

Kerry McCarthy MP receives police caution for illegally revealing postal vote results

In April this year I did a blog post titled - Tut tut - Kerry McCarthy breaches election law on Twitter - when Kerry McCarthy revealed a little too much about the postal vote opening in Bristol East.
Well, now Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP who illegally revealed postal vote results on Twitter in April, has been given a police caution for the said offence.
Labour’s “Twitter Tsar” and a qualified solicitor, has avoided both a fine or a six month prison sentence for the offence.

Although she deleted her original post after a few minutes, it had already been spread around the internet.

An Avon and Somerset police spokesman said:

"Police have confirmed that they have cautioned a man and a woman – both from Bristol – following an investigation into alleged electoral fraud earlier this year under the Representation of the People Act 1983."

So, we assume that was both Kerry and her Agent.

Perhaps now the Labour party will advise their Election Agents and candidates to read the secrecy notices given out at election time.

Scottish Conservative candidate Colin McGavigan describes carers as "the great unwashed"

The Scottish Conservatives are not having a great week, on Tuesday one of their candidates called Scots thick and then he resigned.

I blogged about this yesterday morning Conservative candidate Ivor Tiefenbrun describes Scots as "so thick" and his subsequent resignation yesterday evening Conservative candidate Ivor Tiefenbrun resigns over insult to Scots.

Then this morning we woke up to hear that the Scottish Conservative candidate for Clydesdale, Colin McGavigan had tweeted:

"kids in care: why do the carers look like the great unwashed? They're supposed to be carers not warders."

These comments by Colin McGavigan were made in response to a BBC documentary broadcast on Tuesday night, focusing on children in care.  You can read the full story in The Scotsman.

Mr McGavigan was yesterday forced to express his "utmost respect" for carers in a statement issued by his party.

However, the Scottish Tories are set to allow him to continue as the party's Clydesdale candidate at next year's election on the grounds that they believe he has no case to answer.

I think this case should highlight to all of us in the public eye, whether it be a candidate or support staff such as myself, our tweets are followed by journalists waiting for this catastrophic mistakes.
 
I disagree with the Conservatives though, how on earth can they say there is no case to answer?  Yet again this shows one of their candidates as out of touch. 
 
How on earth can the voters respect someone who can cast aspersions such as this in a public forum?
 
Sorry Annabel, I really think another one bites the dust!

My little blog gets a mention on The Guardian website

My little blog continues to go from strength to strength and this week another first was achieved.

On October 1st my blog was mentioned on the Society Daily section, written by Patrick Butler.

On my radar ...

• Nadine Dorries MP. I thought at first her blog attack on "benefit scroungers" who Tweet was a hilarious spoof. But apparently not. Much Tweet anger followed yesterday, and some good blog ripostes, such as these by blogger Mind in Flux, Ms Humphrey Cushion and Liberal Democrat activist Andrew Reeves. Reeves writes:

"Oh my god, it is stupid ridiculous comments like ...[Dorries'] that remind me despite being in coalition, our two parties are so far apart."

And here's Rich Watts' pithy Tweet:

"I don't know which is funnier: a) Nadine Dorries's indignation, or b) Nadine Dorries's obvious ignorance and stupidity."

Dorries has kept digging though. You can read the latest instalment of her War on "the left wing Twitterati" and the Workshy here.

So my thanks to Patrick Butler but I really should thank Nadine Dorries MP whom without the blog post - Conservative MP Nadine Dorries loses the plot - would never have been written.

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries loses the plot

Over on Nadine Dorries MP's blog, she questions whether you can be addicted to Twitter?

Firstly though, she plugs the fact that she has written an article for Iain Dale's book, before she then questions whether you can in fact be addicted to Twitter, she writes;

In the article, in which I very clearly define the reasons why MPs should not blog or Twitter (yes, I know ) I mention someone who has posted 22,000 tweets in four months.

Today, someone has emailed my office with the details of a political/personal Tweeter who has posted 35,000 tweets in a similar amount of time.

I'm going to have to set up a Twitter account again so that I can check this out for myself!... Not.

Is there such a thing as Twitter addiction?

I think this is funny given Nadine has given up on Twitter (although it was always funny how she blocked people who didn't agree with her) but still blogs - what's that old saying?

Don't do what I do, do what I say.

It seems appropriate for Nadine Dorries on this issue.

Anyway, I digress.  What is wrong with posting 22,000 comments over a period of four months?

Nadine explains;

Surely these people cannot be in employment because if they are, how can they work? if they aren't then it's time they got a job which involves being sat at a key board because there's nothing much up with their fingers, brain or attention span!!

Oh my god, it is stupid ridiculous comments like this that remind me despite being in coalition, our two parties are so far apart.

Anyway, if that comment from Nadine Dorries wasn't enough to drive you to drink, then hold on to your hats folks.

In the meantime, do you know of anyone else who has Tweeted more than 35,000 times in less than six months? If so, email my office and let me know. Or, better still, if it's someone you know is on benefits, contact the DWP.

Honestly, you really could not make it up could you?

Joanne Cash, temper tantrums and twitter all in Westminster North

On Tuesday I blogged a simple message with a link to Conservative Home, that Joanne Cash, the Tory candidate for Westminster North had resigned.

Well, now apparently everyone's toys are all back in the respective prams and she is the candidate again.

On Joanne Cash's Twitter page, some toys are obviously still out of the pram, there is a line in her biog, for all to see, RIP dinosaurs - that's so grown up and clearly what local people will want from their MP isn't it?

No, it clearly isn't, reading this from the Daily Mail:

'She [Joanne Cash] lost a lot of goodwill by doing that. Labour will now have a field day. It may be best if both Sayers and Cash resign and we have a completely fresh start,' one local party member said.

This is not simply a clash of two alpha females as some in Cameron's Conservatives may have us believe.  Cameron and his team of interferers have had their noses put out out before, remember the Bromley by-election?

The local association didn't take kindly to interference from Cameron and his team and so ignored the A-lister thrust upon them and went for three jobs Bob Neill (and I want a 4th), and then came within 700 votes of losing the seat.

Cameron would have us believe his party has changed, but situations such as this show that it hasn't in any way, my blog post earlier about his attack on lobbyists only for a senior tory, Andrew Mackay to become one two days later, a Conservative Future chairman suspended for making Nazi comments, the twitter rules for twits saga, the list just goes on and on and on.

When David Cameron and Eric Pickles have to personally intervene in a dispute such as this, it really does show all is not well in Camp Cameron.

Has this public throwing the toys out of the respective prams just shown that Joanne Cash will resign again at the drop of a hat if she doesn't get her way?
It could make the voting lobbies in the House of Commons interesting on occasion if she does.

Was this a flash in the pan or a slow burning problem, let's see.

Tories Twitter Rules for Twits

The Daily Mail today is covering the story so a hat tip to them.

The Conservative high command has issued a directive to every one of their candidates in the forthcoming general election that all twitter, facebook, blog and website comment must be checked first!

So, they are saying every tweet must be approved, every facebook status update must be approved, every letter in the local paper must be approved, every blog post must be approved and every comment or post on a website must be approved.

What they are actually saying is this, we don't trust you to make decisions on your own and we will dictate more than Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson did in 1997.

What a load of crap, I'm intrigued how Tory Central Office will even cope with this?

They can't cope with the gaffes that Chris Grayling MP, George Osborne MP and David Cameron make, so how do they propose to manage 650+ candidates?

This is the party that could, according to their own arrogance, possibly form the next government!

Don't get me wrong, people make mistakes on these outlets but that's because they are human.

As a person who uses social media and also works for the Liberal Democrats I would be horrified if the party or my bosses started to tell me what I can or cannot put on my blog, twitter messages and facebook statuses.

But that's the difference.

The Liberal Democrats believe in personal freedom, the Tories, as is becoming more apparent believe in a central dictatorship.

More power to the power of social media and a lot less for Tory CCHQ.

Carter-Ruck, The Guardian and Trafigura

Today has been very weird, I want you to be honest with me now, had you heard of Trafigura before the explosion on Twitter this morning?

I certainly hadn't but thanks to the fuss this morning by Carter-Ruck I have spent a fair amount of time this evening reading up on it and am not overly impressed by what I have discovered.

Trafigura sponsor the British & Irish Lions, the reason I mention this is because on the latest news and our news section that is the last bit of news, from the 31st March 2009 - hardly inspiring when you then go on to see that this is not their prime aim in life, this is what they say about themselves;

"Trafigura is one of the largest independent companies trading commodities today.

We handle every element involved in the sourcing and trading of crude oil, petroleum products, renewable energies, metals, metal ores and concentrates for industrial consumers.

1,900 of our people operate in offices in 42 countries across the globe to give us the local knowledge to anticipate and respond to variations in global supply and demand.

In the oil sector, Trafigura has access to over 30 million barrels of storage facilities through a combination of owned terminals under its PUMA network and long-term lease agreements with third party oil terminals; we also time charter in excess of 60 vessels worldwide.

In the metals and minerals sector, Trafigura currently owns and operates concentrate storage facilities and one mine in Peru. Additionally, Trafigura is a significant stakeholder in a smelter and in various publicly listed mining entities.

Capitalising on resource trading and investment expertise Trafigura has diversified into asset management through the development of offshore hedge funds."

Okay, that is quite obviously the corporate sell, and I certainly wasn't interested in that given what was being tweeted this morning. So I went digging on the internet. Now if Trafigura's website had a search engine I would have entered Ivory Coast and then waited to see what came up - all I could find was that they do have an office there.

There is a great piece by the Independent, titled "The dark secrets of the trillion-dollar oil trade" from September this year but it really does get worse.

The Guardian in May this year had an article titled, "Papers prove Trafigura ship dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast" which as you will see if you read it, goes onto explain how 30,000 people in the Ivory Coast claimed they were poisoned by the waste dumped by a ship that the company had chartered. It really is a must read article.

So, now we know a little more about this company, but really only thanks to their lawyers and the gagging order they put on The Guardian who were trying to publish a Parliamentary Question, the name of the MP who Tabled it and the Minister it was going to - all available in the public domain! A good use of client's money if ever I saw one - not.

Carter-Ruck eventually gave in, thanks to the power of Twitter and the internet and have lifted the gagging order on The Guardian. However, as the day and evening have gone on it now appears that BBC Newsnight (the link takes you to the original story) is being threatened by Trafigura via Carter-Ruck.

Shortly before the court case was due to be heard, Carter-Ruck announced that it's client no longer opposed reporting of what was said in Parliament about them.

In the House of Commons Evan Harris MP and David Heath MP, for the Liberal Democrats, David Davis MP for the Conservatives and Paul Farrelly MP, the Labour MP who started this all off have all raised this issue passionately today.

Paul Farrelly said; "Absolute privilege in reporting parliament has been established since the Bill of Rights in 1688. It is a fundamental freedom for the press, and it is vital that neither lawyers nor the courts seek to attack this time-honoured right."

The power of the internet won today, but more importantly people power won the day and stood up to a corporation and lawyer who felt they knew best. Long may it continue.

Guardian Injunction and Twitter #Trafigura

Wow, if you are on Twitter you cannot fail to have noticed the trending topic of the Guardian injunction, Trafigura and Carter-Ruck.

This all relates to a Parliamentary Question by Paul Farrelly, number 61 if you want to scroll down. The Guardian has been gagged from identifying the MP who asked the question, the wording of the actual question and where the question can be found.

This is utterly ridiculous, as my link shows above this information is actually in the public domain anyway so why should a newspaper be gagged, and why has someone done this. Whatever happened to free speech?

The Spectator reports the story, Twitter keeps the story moving minute by minute and shows the popularity by the trending topics. In this electronic age the story moves so quickly but it also shows the hunger of those of us on the Internet to be fed these stories.

There are now many blog posts on this around the place, here a re a few of my favourites;

Mark Pack blogs the most republished Parliamentary question ever? Trafigura and the Ivory Coast.

Rob Fenwick blogs The #Trafigura question #CarterRuck don't want you to see

Caron Lindsay blogs Why is Twitter going mad about Trafigura?

The Caledonian Sleeper

Well, despite having put my Mum on to the Caledonian sleeper at Euston a few times to go back home via Inverness I've never actually been a passenger myself.

Until last night that is, the cost versus a normal train ticket and hotel room in London was significantly cheaper and that included the fact I went first class (my snoring prevents me from sharing anyway).

However, if you book enough in advance and look at single tickets opposed to returns you can often go first class cheaper than standard! Illogical I know but who's ever claimed to have understood the phenomenon that is the British railway system.

The cabin http://mypict.me/oOM3 is compact but adequate. However, Scotrail do need to learn to clean. My 15 years in the hotel and catering industry taught me a lot but not just about hygiene.

Its all in the detail and that's where Scotrail failed big time. Nothing major but lots of little things that all add up of course;

One light bulb not working, the edges of the carpet not hoovered, the sink was dirty and the bin was filthy.

I loved the complimentary toiletry bag, nice touch and it had everything you needed, I'd have had the Scotrail logo on things though!

If you are on Twitter you may have read that I commented on the fact that we arrived in Euston at 6.30am, 45 minutes early and the attendant was nowhere to be seen so I never got the breakfast, so another little fail.

We stopped during the night to couple up with another sleeper train, it took 9 or 10 attempts to couple the two trains which completely woke me up but overall not the worst journey I've had.

Overall score 7 out of 10.

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Twitter, twitter, twitter

We have all become obsessed with it and it was only when we didn't have it on Thursday/Friday we all realised it - although I have UberTwitter back, Twitter itself is still not quite right.

What was funny for me was not only the realisation that I had sort of become addicted to it but watching the volumes of folk rush back to Facebook to realise that Facebook had also been buggered.

I have to be honest initially I signed up and wasn't really that bothered but now I use, Tweetburner, UberTwitter, Tweetdeck, Twitter, TwitterBerry etc etc

I actually quite enjoy using it and I never tie my messages to Facebook, if I change my status on Facebook it reads very different to my Tweets.

Since I have lived in Scotland I have tweeted a lot more and am really impressed by the sheer volume of my colleagues and friends within the Lib Dems who are active on Twitter. Here are just a few of my favourites in Scotland.

MPs
@willierenniemp @mooremichaelk @dannyalexander

MEP
@georgelyonmep

MSPs
@tavishscott @jimhumemsp

Councillors
@cdundas @katdn7

Bloggers
@andyreeves @caronmlindsay @cleslie92 @stephenpglenn @ruaraidhdobson

EdTwestival Local - Thursday 10th September 2009

I have been on Twitter for well over a year now and have seen some of these events before, they seem amazing and raise a lot of money for a nominated charity.

The Edinburgh Twestival (EdTwestival Local) will be on Thursday 10th September 2009 and will run from 7pm to midnight at a venue still to be confirmed.

But, the battle to nominate the charity that will benefit from all the fundraising there has already begun.

You can vote for a charity using all 3 votes you get when you visit the site or give 1 vote to 3 different charities, http://bit.ly/C4zdf

You can also nominate a charity, all of the guidelines, rules and instructions are on the website.

I voted for three charities;

1. LGBT Health and Wellbeing Centre
2. Leith FM Community Radio
3. Teenage Cancer Trust (Lynne McNicoll)

This is a fantastic idea and I applaud the organisers, although I do wish they would update their main website with details of the September event as the main Twestival site no longer links to Edinburgh!

UPDATE: The EdTwestival main website has now een updated.

Communicating with MPs

Tom Brake MP, one of my previous brood when I was one of the Lib Dems London Campaigns Officers has done another first. A surgery on Facebook, see his poster on the left.

This was a surgery that Tom held on Facebook last Friday and has been blogged about here. Well done Tom, another great idea.

Tom Brake is often at the fore of new initiatives and finding ways to reach out to his constituents including a meeting organised via Facebook only last week - in the same week as the Facebook surgery.

I have known Tom now for nearly 10 years and I know he is so passionate about his job and keping his constituents in the loop about what he is doing on their behalf.

So, Tom has also joined the masses on Twitter. Given the mix of folk in Carshalton & Wallington it is great to see an MP actively seeking ways to communicate with them.