St Catharines Election Debate: Highs, Lows and the Frustrations of an Electoral System That Sucks

Four federal election candidates courted voters last night in a debate hosted by the St Catharines-Thorold Chamber of Commerce. Two other candidates were not invited, but they made sure everyone knew about it. Christian Heritage Party candidate Dave Bylsma addressed the crowd before the debate -- with or without permission, I don't know -- to register his feelings about being excluded, and Communist Party candidate Saleh Waziruddin followed suit. A show of hands revealed audience support for including them. I sympathize, although the logistics of adding another two panellists were definitely against them.

The final panel, then, comprised (L-R in the photo) current Conservative MP Rick Dykstra, Liberal rival Andrew Gill, Green Party candidate Jennifer Mooradian and NDP man Mike Williams. The criterion for inclusion was that each party must have received two percent of the national vote in the last federal election. Although Wazirrudin said he would file a complaint with Elections Canada, the organizers claimed the criterion was in line with Elections Canada's own policy.

I'm a first-time federal voter, so the last few weeks have involved getting to grips with a swath of political issues as I weigh up how I should vote on May 2nd. One month ago I hadn't a clue how I would vote. By last week, I had a much better idea. After last night's debate, I have a real conflict. I know which candidate I would vote for if every vote mattered. But in the Canadian electoral system, the majority of votes are wasted votes. I know how I'd like to vote, but I also know how I should vote to avoid an outcome I don't want. When you feel you have to vote strategically instead of for the best candidate, something is wrong with your democracy.

With that in mind, here's my take on how the candidates did last night.

Rick Dykstra (Conservative)

Poor Dykstra. He was sick last night, and I could tell. I believe he had a chest infection and was running a fever. He was visibly uncomfortable and fed-up. However, he has a strong record as St Catharines' representative in Ottawa, and he relied on that. People tell me he has done a lot of good for the region, and from what I've seen of him, he's a politician who does actually care for the community round here. He argued his corner well in the debate, hampered only by his illness. One thing that stuck out very strongly was that he never once, to my knowledge, mentioned the Conservatives or Stephen Harper. He talked about himself, "the government" and "Ottawa," but I don't recall him saying either "Conservative" or "Harper." If that was a deliberate strategy, I think it indicates those two words are a liability for Dykstra in this election.

Interestingly, by the way, when the debate turned to partisanship, cross-party cooperation and "working together" (I don't recall anyone mentioning the dreaded COALITION), Dykstra defended the viability of a minority government. I agree with him, but I'm curious whether he's toeing the party line. All I've been hearing from the Conservatives nationally is that we have to elect a majority government to prevent, I dunno, a big earthquake or something. Perhaps Dykstra senses the fear of another Harper minority government swinging voters away from the Conservatives?

Andrew Gill (Liberal)

Gill could not have been more different from Dykstra. From the beginning he talked mostly about the Liberal Party, its platform and its leader, Michael Ignatieff. I honestly thought the "Red Book" was a pejorative used only by critics for its obvious Communist associations, until I heard Gill refer to the Liberal platform with the term. His frequent mentions of Ignatieff, sometimes as simply "the Leader," added to the aura of devotion to the Liberal Party. It was a long time before he even mentioned St Catharines. For most of his solutions, he deferred repetitively to the main Liberal ideas, such as the Learning Passport. I would really have appreciated some more independence and an attempt to engage specifically with local issues.

Jennifer Mooradian (Green)

I don't think I'm alone in saying that Mooradian was the real surprise of the evening. My perception of the Green Party has always been that it is a single-issue party, but last night I learned that its name is misleading. If Mooradian truly represents the Green Party of Canada, I'd say it is a genuine alternative for progressive voters, with workable, evidence-based policies formed around a clear vision of a strong economy coupled with social justice. Mooradian consistently presented the issues with clarity and directness, and proposed unambiguous solutions with reference to the way things are in practice. She was also remarkably non-combative.

But candidates like Mooradian face an uphill battle to win in this election. For one thing, the party name is a liability. If I, as someone who invests hours in following politics, thought the Green Party was all about environmentalism, what does the average voter think? I mentioned this to my mom; her response was that she associated the party with being "on the wrong side of the law" (a perception she confessed rather timidly). In her head were images of unruly hippies, illegal squatters and fierce Greenpeace protesters. This has got to be a real problem for the Green Party. Second, reasonable arguments and evidence-based policy don't automatically win an election. It's not the way the media or politics work these days. Third, most voters are, I think, motivated by self-interest. When asked about restrictions on Niagara's wines being sold outside Ontario, the other three panellists took for granted that all restrictions were a bad thing; Mooradian alone turned it around and questioned the effect on other provinces. Unfortunately, "Hang on, let's look at this from their perspective" isn't a vote-winner. It can be, but it needs marketing. And this is the challenge for Mooradian and the Green Party when it comes to evidence-based policies and social justice.

Mike Williams (NDP)

I've tweeted to and about Mike Williams, and I feel bad that's it's almost all been negative. He seems like a fine guy, and I'd be happy to sit down and have a beer with him any time. (If I were much of a beer-drinker.) Unfortunately, he is really out of his depth in this election. And he's admitted it time and again. In the recent Cogeco TV debate, he more or less said he didn't have a clue and that a vote for him would be a vote for Jack Layton. He'd work damned hard for St Catharines, he told viewers, but he didn't have the experience to know what he was doing. He began last night's debate with the same apologetic schtick: I'm just a guy who works in a factory; I've read my party platform, but I don't have it memorized. Read: I'll try, but don't expect much. I suspect the NDP had a hard time finding a candidate in a riding where the party has no chance of winning a seat, so Williams reluctantly stepped into the gap.

In the debate, his main tack was to be the angry dissenter, fed up with the system and fighting back on behalf of ordinary people. But while the bitterness undoubtedly reflected the feelings of a lot of people, he gave no idea how he could or would change things. He railed against the Conservative government but suggested few concrete alternatives. On being asked how he would solve underfunding, his answer was literally "more funding." His solutions conjured up images of a bottomless pot of money somewhere in Ottawa, where the only question is whether our pockets are big enough. He passed on one question because he didn't know the party policy and so chose not even to comment.

How It Ended (for Me)

By the end of the evening, I had a pretty clear opinion of how the four candidates did in the debate. Rick was fine, despite being sick; Andrew was disappointing; Mike did poorly, but I didn't expect great things anyway; Jennifer blew me away. I spoke to Jennifer at the end, and I told her quite bluntly: My fear is that if I vote for you, it's a wasted vote.

I'm a small-L liberal. Most of the things I cherish about Canada I owe to big-L Liberals. With the right leadership and platform, the Liberal Party could be for me. And I will probably vote for them, because it's the only viable choice for me in this two-party race. If the Conservatives form the next government, I'll be disappointed; even more if it's a majority. I don't have a huge issue with Dykstra winning here, per se. I don't want another Tory government, although Dykstra seems okay to me so far.

But if the electoral system really worked and every vote counted, and if I had the confidence it would change a damned thing, I'd be voting for Jennifer Mooradian on May 2nd. Unfortunately, I don't have that confidence. Because the system sucks.

Ignatieff's Absences: Why the Iggy Enigma Is My Personal Issue

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has received a fair bit of stick from Conservatives for his 30-year absence from Canada. Long before the 2011 federal election campaign, the Tories were running attack ads against Iggy: "He didn't come back for you."

Every time I hear that, I want to respond: "That's okay. I didn't come back for him either."

I'm a dual British-Canadian citizen. I was born in BC, moved to England at the age of five, returned to Canada for a couple of years in my twenties, and moved back to the UK from 2003 to 2009 before returning to Canada. So it stings a bit when I hear criticisms that suggest absence from Canadian soil is a reason for questioning a citizen's loyalty, commitment or patriotism. Dual nationality is a blessing and a curse, and I've lived 33 years with the joys and the hurts that come from being tied equally to two nations. But I'm no less Canadian because I'm British and no less British because I'm Canadian. I love both my nations.

It's far from certain, however, that all the criticism of Ignatieff's Canadian credentials stem from the mere fact he was away for three decades. It's an undercurrent I've detected in some attacks; but there are legitimate questions, too. It's an unavoidable fact that Ignatieff ran for a seat in the House of Commons almost immediately on returning to Canada. Once an MP, and following Paul Martin's 2006 election defeat, he unsuccessfully ran for leadership of the Liberal Party. He succeeded in his leadership bid in 2008, and now he has a good chance of becoming Canada's Prime Minister. He spent those 30 years outside Canada as a historian, scholar, commentator and writer. Politics, in one form or another, is what he's always done. Maybe that makes him a careerist, an opportunist. Maybe that just means he knows his stuff and that's what he's good at.

Ignatieff's detractors have exploited his statements to the hilt. The most common soundbites don't hold up. He referred to the Canadian flag as "an imitation of a beer label," but read in context, it was clearly ironic, self-deprecating, affectionate, patriotic humour. He told Maclean's the only thing he missed about Canada was Algonquin Park, but I haven't been able to find the original article anywhere. (It definitely exists; I just can't check the context.) Given that, I doubt more than a handful of Ignatieff's critics have seen it either. These are cheap shots.

Then there's the question of whether Ignatieff voted in other countries. He and his office have gone back and forth on this, although it appears now the fact is he voted in the UK as a member of the Commonwealth. He claims not to remember how many or which Canadian elections he voted in while abroad. As for voting in other countries, his prevarication only fuels the erroneous and offensive (to me) assumption that voting in another country puts a person's loyalty to Canada into question. As well as being enshrined in law, it's perfectly possible to be a loyal Canadian and vote in or be a citizen of another country.

His opponents have confronted Iggy with more than just his absence from Canada. In Tuesday's Leader's Debate, NDP leader Jack Layton charged Ignatieff with a dismal 30% attendance record for parliamentary votes. It turned out the actual figure was 41% -- an improvement, but hardly impressive. Ignatieff dodged Layton's question and visibly lost his temper, snapping: "At least we get into government. You'll be in opposition forever." He later appeared to dodge a French reporter asking the same question in the post-debate scrum. Bad move, Iggy. You owe it to voters to explain a 59% absence.

Iggy is an enigma. There are some questions, but those questions are clouded by popular suspicions about Ignatieff's Canadian credentials based purely on his absence from residency in Canada. That merits asking whether he knows enough to govern Canada. It doesn't merit questioning his loyalty or patriotism. That is offensive.

It may be that questions of loyalty and patriotism are a Tory problem, however. I haven't noticed anyone but the Conservatives making a big issue of Ignatieff's Canadianness. As a dual citizen, this concerned me, and I looked into the issue a bit. I learned that in 2006, the Conservative government challenged Canada's laws on dual citizenship in the midst of an influx of Canadian citizens from Lebanon, due to the Israel-Hezbollah War.

Should I be worried that the Conservative Party doesn't like the laws on dual citizenship? Should I fear for my own status as a dual citizen? I have a history and a heritage in this country, and the mere thought of losing that is enough to bring tears to my eyes. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees my right to come and go from my country.

(Would it be far-fetched to suggest I probably don't need to worry because, unlike my fellow Lebanese-Canadians, I'm white, Western and not "ethnic"?)

I don't know what I think of Iggy. I have an idea what I think about his policies, but for me the jury's still out on whether the man himself is more opportunist than anything else. One thing I'm not prepared to do is to question his identity and loyalty as a Canadian purely because he lived outside the country for 30 years. That kind of unpatriotic thinking is just too close to home.

Signed,

Canadian and British and Very, Very Proud

Election Debate: The Morning after the Fight Before

Last night, all of Canada, or at least the handful bothered with the current election, tuned in to the 2011 Leaders' Debate. I'm a Canadian citizen from birth, but this is my first federal election as a voter, so I've been following the campaign with interest. I began the election with no idea which way to vote. I think I've arrived at a fairly firm decision, but not without seriously considering the alternatives.

Admittedly, last night's debate was as much about the excitement as the issues for me. So, here, in the spirit of politico-entertainment punditry, is my take on how each of the four leaders -- Stephen Harper (Conservative), Michael Ignatieff (Liberal), Jack Layton (New Democratic Party) and Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois) -- did in the debate.

Stephen Harper

Tory commentators say he was calm; I say he did a James Franco and smoked weed before the show. He was incredibly placid and soft-spoken, as is generally his manner, but I thought his tone got whining and fed-up very early on. Despite the low, soft tones, he quickly began to sound defensive, exasperated and impatient when the challenges started coming in (predictably, from the outset). As far as the issues went, he seemed to go in with "Economy, economy, economy" on the brain, so he clearly thinks that's his strong point and the issue that will win the election for the Conservatives.

Michael Ignatieff

Ignatieff went straight for Harper's jugular on the issue of trust. Harper consistently blamed an election Canadians don't want on the opportunism of the other parties, but Ignatieff repeated a few times that the election was called because Harper couldn't tell the truth on "jets, jails and corporate tax giveaways." It eventually got a bit repetitive, as Ignatieff repeated the same attacks verbatim. He also got pretty grumpy a few times, and lost it when Layton challenged him on his absence record from parliamentary votes. (Layton claimed Ignatieff's attendance was a mere 30%, although it's actually a mildly better 41%, or 59% absence.) An irritated Iggy flew off the handle and snapped: "At least we get into government. You'll be in opposition forever." Though he looked childish, he successfully dodged the issue. I heard a French reporter challenge him on the same point in the post-debate press scrum, but Iggy appeared to evade the issue again, disappearing hastily.

Jack Layton

I'm not surprised that most people declared Layton the winner. He was the most impressive, and he won the debate because he has the least to lose. Conservatives naturally hail his success because they know it would be a stretch to declare Harper the winner, and championing Layton is a nice way to divide the left-wing vote. Layton was the liveliest, most coherent and most polished of the four voices. His main tack was to suggest that Ignatieff and Harper were "best friends." He was big on the social justice issues and managed to get in a few mentions of climate change, an issue otherwise hardly discussed; doubtless a manoeuvre to win over some Greens (who, to a bit of an outcry, were left out of the debate).

Gilles Duceppe

Quebec, Quebec, Quebec. Are you surprised? I'm a BC boy living in Ontario, so the BQ isn't an issue as to how I'll vote. I find Duceppe a bit comical and hysterical. I was distracted by his unintentionally funny English mispronunciations -- "ship" became "shit," "second" became "chicken," and "developing" became "dev'lopping." I only wish I knew French better so I could watch tonight's debate and hear the English leaders mangle their French pronunciations in the same way.

2011 Canadian Federal Election: Twitter Hash Tags

So the Harper government has fallen, and Canadians will go to the polls on 2 May 2011 to vote for a new government. I'm new to this: I'm British-Canadian, but I've spent 24 of my 33 years in the UK. Last October I had my first experience as a voter in Canada, participating in the 2010 St Catharines Municipal Election. The upcoming election will be my first federal vote.

I'm honestly undecided which way to vote. I've followed Canadian politics somewhat since moving back here in 2009, and none of the major political parties has convinced me. But Twitter may be coming to my rescue, as I get talking with some of the candidates, journalists, political pundits and ordinary voters with an interest in the election. The hash tags are confusing me a bit, however, so here, with help from Twitter Search, PoliTwitter and David Akin, I'm going to gather a list of Twitter hash tags to make conversing a bit easier. Hopefully, some other tweeps will find it useful, too.

Glossary of Canadian Politics/2011 Canada Federal Election Twitter Hash Tags

Note: #cdnpoli, #elxn41 and #cv11 are (in my observation) by far the most popular English-language Twitter hash tags for the 2011 Federal Election.

#abc Anyone but Harper

#canpoli Canadian politics

#cdescom French-Canadian political discussion

#cdnleft Canadian left

#cdnpoli Canadian politics

#clsh Conservative leader Stephen Harper

#cpc Conservative Party of Canada

#ctvelexn CTV election coverage

#cv11 Canada vote 2011

#demreform Canadian democratic reform

#elxn41 41st Canadian federal election

#emayin Social media campaign to get Green Party leader Elizabeth May a place in the leadership debate

#fed2011 French-language Canadian election tweets

#gpc Green Party of Canada

#ignatieff Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff

#layton NDP Leader Jack Layton

#lpc Liberal Party of Canada

#momthevote Moms' discussion of family-related election issues (see this blog)

#ndp New Democratic Party of Canada

#p2ca Progressives in Canada

#pmharper Prime Minister Stephen Harper

#pmsh Prime Minister Stephen Harper

#poli politics -- append it to another term to localize it, eg, #niagpoli (Niagara), #canpoli (Canada)

#ppca Pirate Party of Canada

#ptndp New Democrats

#pttory Canadian Tories

#roft Right of Twitter (Canadian Conservative bloggers)

#voteabc Vote anyone but Harper

#votecompass CBC Vote Compass

#votemay2 Vote on May 2nd

#votepirate Vote Pirate Party of Canada

Geographical 2011 Election Hash Tags (Ridings and Regions)

#niagpoli Niagara
#saultelx Sault Ste Marie

Please tweet me or add a comment here if you have a hash tag to add to the glossary.

St Catharines Municipal Election: My First Canadian Voting Experience

Despite being a Canadian citizen, I haven't ever lived long enough in Canada as an adult to be able to vote in an election. Today, at the age of 32, I participated in the democratic process for the first time in my native country, voting in the St Catharines Municipal Election.

I probably wouldn't have voted at all if I hadn't run into St Patrick's Ward candidate John Bacher at the downtown Farmers' Market on the weekend. I thought I'd left it too late to register as a voter, but he advised me to go along to the polls with as much ID as I could gather and exercise my right as a citizen. So I did.

This afternoon, I phoned City Hall to confirm that I could just show up with proof of citizenship and residency. Some gremlins interfered with the line, and I got cut off before I could ask where to go to vote. Ah well, I figured the information would be readily available online. I checked out the City of St Catharines website, but found the interactive map rather unwieldy. Nevertheless, I decided the polling station was St Catharines Central Library, and set off on foot this evening.

An hour later I was still wandering around downtown trying to find the polling station. No one was around to ask--Niagara Police Headquarters was shut, City Hall was empty, and the only people in the street were pushing around shopping carts or scouring the sidewalks for cigarette butts. Oh dear.

I gave up and returned home to recheck the details, discovering that the library was in fact the advance polling station, open over a week ago, and the actual polling station was in the school directly behind my apartment building. I suppose I should be rather proud to have endured a two-hour merry chase, all told, to take advantage of my democratic rights.

I voted only for mayor and ward councillors. (The ballot also included regional councillors and school board trustees.) Even then, I had difficulty remembering who was who. In the UK, local councillors almost invariably represent a political party, so you know whose box to tick depending on whether you're a lefty, a righty or a moderate who can't make up his mind. Here, it depends on knowing each councillor and what they stand for.

The municipal website wasn't overly helpful in my decision. Most of the candidate descriptions were full of fluff that didn't tell me much. For example:

During the past term of Council we have put into place broad plans for economic, social and cultural renewal. Over the next 4 years the detail of these initiatives must be developed to build the foundation upon which our success can grow. I bring to the residents of St. Patrick's Ward 4 and the City at large, a commitment to address these challenges with a sound business sense, a creative approach, with openness and transparency, and most of all, a strong vision for the future!

Which tells me what, exactly? That there were plans, that the candidate is going to build on the plans, and that he thinks he's good and honest. Well, fine, but what is he actually going to do?

Another candidate wrote:

I want St. Catharines to be a place of opportunity for all of our children. Our city is at a crossroads and smart, well thought out growth has to be our priority. I want to help lead that growth.

Sure, but tell me something concrete that you're going to accomplish.

Still another:

Times are changing and we need fresh new ideas and outlooks. As well many serious issues are not being looked at with the importance they need to be, and I plan on addressing these issues.

Oh dear. All the right words, but what are these mysterious issues? (In fairness, he later mentions poverty, sustainable income and economic development, but these are vague, and I'm still left asking what, if any, policy is being suggested.)

Tonight, many people in St Catharines are bemoaning the low turnout at today's election--little more than 30 percent.

I suspect the voter apathy is partly the fault of a system that makes people really work. (Even harder than I did in my quest to find the polling station.) Of course, in an ideal society, everyone would take the initiative and go out and find out for themselves who's running and what they stand for. But most people just don't have that level of political interest. They want to be able to pick up a leaflet or log onto a website and see in black and white what the candidates stand for and what they plan to do for the city, and make a decision there and then who to choose.

If voters have to turn to a dozen different sources to cobble together information for themselves, they probably aren't going to make the effort. Perhaps that's sad, but it's the reality. Make the information relevant, useful and accessible, and maybe people will vote.

James Delingpole's apology

Following the atrocious debacle of the weekend, in which a member of the public was harassed after having his name and address published at the Telegraph Blogs website, climate change denialist* James Delingpole has offered something of an apology.

Predictably, he can't help but use the opportunity chiefly to sneer at The Guardian's eco-friendly commentator George Monbiot, who called attention to this bizarre behaviour.

Here's the actual apology:

And why did I pull [the article]? Because I made a stupid mistake, that’s why. When I posted up the letter quoted above, I neglected to remove the sender’s name and address. This was careless but not, I promise, vindictive. And I deeply regret any distress or hassle which may have been caused to the person I named. When I read some of the comments below my blog and realised what I’d unwittingly unleashed, I removed the person’s name from the blog; then later, all the comments pertaining to the person; then later, I pulled the blog altogether – embarrassed, ashamed and rather wishing it would all go away. Thanks to Monbiot it hasn’t. But what I would really like to say to the person I named is: I’m sincerely, totally and unreservedly sorry. (And if it’s any consolation, you should see some of the hatemail I’ve been getting from Monbiot’s Guardianista chums).

Fair enough.

I am still unconvinced by Delingpole's explanation of his outrage, however. The charge is that similar (but not exactly the same, I believe) letters were sent by different individuals to 200 different Conservative MPs and parliamentary candidates, which Delingpole thinks is evidence that a global warming lobby is behind the letters. Highly likely, but I am not convinced that is the problem Delingpole wants us to think it is. And it is a huge problem for him. Significant enough that he suggested it was "nauseating," a case of "stalking" by "eco-bullies," and the work of a "disgusting eco-fascist organisation." He even proposes "f--- off" would be the best response from Edwin Northover, the Tory PPC who received the email.

I don't buy his defense of his hysterical overreaction. To explain, here's how I replied to his blog on the Telegraph thread:

James, I have great difficulty believing you would get so hysterical (and you appear not to know how blatantly hysterical and unhinged your rants sound) were it an anti-AGW who had sent a letter as part of a campaign by an anti-AGW group.

The letter itself was so innocuous, the charge of bullying and stalking is just ridiculous. Unless MPs and PPCs are really so thin-skinned, in which case they’re in the wrong business.

I can’t help but see a parallel with last week’s ruling in the US that corporations should be free to provide unlimited finance to political parties. The argument I heard from the political right was that a corporation was protected by the First Amendment (free speech) just as surely as an individual. Every group is made up of individuals. An individual pressing a PPC or MP for answers is valid, but several individuals making a coordinated effort to press for answers is bullying? It was very clear in this weekend’s debacle who was bullying who.

Granted, Monbiot has a political axe to grind with all this, but even if he’s a broken clock… you know the saying.

*Denialists, feel free to educate me on the appropriate inoffensive term for someone who denies anthropocentric global warming.

Why is the Daily Mail still here?

While browsing the website of the Press Complaints Commission (in relation to James Delingpole's appalling behaviour at Telegraph Blogs this weekend - I haven't lodged a complaint, but I don't doubt many people have), I noted the following regulation:

The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

How on earth are the tabloids still going?

'Climategate' arguments take nasty turn

There has been invective on both sides of the climate debate, and never more than since so-called Climategate, the scandal rather euphemistically dubbed the "Climactic Research Unit hacking incident" by Wikipedia. The scandal is that climate researchers at the University of East Anglia were caught manipulating data in an effort to bolster scientific evidence for anthropocentric global warming.

In the immediate aftermath, the media was full of environmentalists, global warning campaigners and scientists trying desperately to downplay the controversy, alongside climate change deniers having a field day hailing the revelations as a harbinger of the wholesale collapse of the man-made global warming theory.

Neo-conservative commentator James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph blogs has emerged as one of the most popular (and vitriolic) online voices decrying climate change and keeping Climategate alive. His tone is generally both strident and nasty, if tongue-in-cheek - not just on this, but on any politically charged subject.

On Sunday, George Monbiot of The Guardian reports, Delingpole overstepped the mark severely by publishing an email correspondence from a member of the public to a Conservative Party parliamentary candidate, along with the name and address of the sender. The email was described outlandishly as "nauseating," and a case of "stalking" by "eco-bullies." He suggests a suitable response to the email would be "f--- off," and asks which "disgusting eco-fascist organisation" might be sponsoring the emails. According to the article, several Tory candidates have received "similar" emails, suggesting they were part of a campaign.

Delingpole's description alone is worrying. Stalking? Bullying? Disgusting? Nauseating? Eco-fascism? Worthy of an F-off? All conclusions extracted from one email? You might be surprised how placid and inoffensive the actual email was:

From: XXXXXXXX
Date: 2010/1/22
Subject: Conservation Query
To: XXXXXXX

Dear Edwin Northover,

I was concerned to note the results of a survey of 140 Conservative candidates for parliament that suggested that climate change came right at the bottom of their priorities for government action.

I hope you can reassure me that you recognise the importance and success of climate change action by the UK government at home and internationally.

Can you clarify that:

You accept that climate change is caused by human activity?

Do you support the target to achieve 15% renewable energy by 2020?

Do you support the EU imposing tougher regulation to combat climate change?

Kind Regards,

XXXXXXXX

I am quite dumbfounded. Regardless of the scientific rights and wrongs of climate change, why such a wildly disproportionate reaction to a person exercising his perfect right to ask some questions of a potential parliamentary candidate? Perhaps it was part of a campaign. And? Is this illegal? Is it morally objectionable? Is it deserving of such an unfettered attack? He later says his concern is that it may be "concerted campaign by a green lobby group, masquerading as the work of concerned individuals." However, the two are not mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible to be a concerned individual and join a collective campaign in a course of action.

But, of course, it gets worse. Delingpole published the name and address of the email's sender. A Google cache of the article shows the name and address missing, but this is a cache of a later version. Only a few lines down the thread, the first comment to mention the identity of the correspondent assumes everyone already knows it from the article. Further down, another commenter quotes from the article, and the name and address remain intact. Eventually, Delingpole himself says he published the details, but later removed them.

If you spend any time at Telegraph Blogs (personally, of the political commentators, I've only found one author I respect), you'll have noticed that no matter how objectionable their content, the commenters the site attracts are far, far more extreme. In my experience, the average commenter votes BNP and would happily set back gay rights to some time in the 1950s.

So it is unsurprising that a disturbing and vicious attack followed from Delingpole's irresponsible post. Within a couple of posts, a commenter had identified the address on Google Maps and posted a photograph of the emailer's house. If I were that man, I would feel very threatened by this. I imagine Delingpole would feel similarly intimidated if a bitter enemy had posted details of his address and photographs of his house online.

Soon his phone number too was posted, and other commenters were posting other personal details.

Ironically, amid all this, someone chimes in to condemn the email as "intrusive and abusive lobbying."

Within a few hours of the post, a commenter was claiming to have personally telephoned the man in question:

I tried to telephone XXXXXXX on the number helpfully posted in this blog, but he’s out until tomorrow. Perhaps he is out ‘tackling climate change’? – anyway his missus didn’t seem to know where he was.

Delingpole later interrupts:

It’s a bit late but I’ve taken out the bit where the sender of the email is named. And I really think it’s wrong to ring up the chap or bother him. It’s not him I was getting at. I’m after the green organization which encouraged all this mass letter-writing.

Did Delingpole not notice that half his followers were unhinged enough to abuse the information he'd so carelessly published? Anyone to the left of Enoch Powell could have predicted this outcome.

Eventually, the entire discussion thread and the original post were removed.

I find this very worrying. James Delingpole, who has the affront to make hysterical claims of bullying, fascism and stalking, is himself engaged in a very nasty piece of bullying.

And how did he get hold of this email sent to Edwin Northover, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Leyton and Wanstead? Did Northover himself pass this on?

I have read the Telegraph daily since the mid-1990s. I've always found the quality of the journalism very high, but the shrill, hysterical, increasingly extreme right-wing tone of Telegraph Blogs has left me with much less faith in the newspaper. Delingpole's outrageously misjudged, vindictive post has finally stepped over a line. The Telegraph ought to ask some serious questions of this incident.

And the Conservative Party should be asking some questions of its candidate Edwin Northover to determine his part in this farce.

[Edit: In the thread, Delingpole admitted to publishing the name, but not specifically the address. However, the user theunbrainwashed posts what appears to be a direct quote from the article, which includes an address. This still suggests Delingpole was the first to supply the address.]

[Later edit: This thread confirms that both were published. I am really baffled by this. Either Delingpole had a deliberate aim in publishing the man's name and address, or he experienced a spectacular lapse of judgment. What journalist overlooks such details as a private name and address?]

First Things and its strange Calvinist bedfellows

I'm not sure what First Things thought it was getting when it signed up a couple dozen mostly Reformed conservative evangelicals to blog on its pages.

First Things is an American journal of religion and public life with a reputation for being Roman Catholic - although I was informed by one of its own editors that it is actually ecumenical. The Catholic association probably owes a lot to its former editor, the late Richard John Neuhaus, who famously converted to Catholicism from Lutheranism. I've never been a regular reader, but on the few occasions I've read it in recent years, it has had a decidedly neoconservative, "culture wars" bent.

Evangel is one of a few new blogs to be hosted on the site. Its authors include Frank Turk, Jeremy Pierce and David Wayne, all well-known voices in the Reformed blogosphere. We're talking hardline Calvinists, what the folks at the vaguely evangelical Boar's Head Tavern call the Truly Reformed - the TRs - on account of their unswerving dedication to smoking out anything that doesn't conform to Calvin's Five Points. (I'm caricaturing here, but there's more than a kernel of truth to it.)

When Evangel opened for business a few weeks ago, it puzzled me what First Things thought it was going to achieve. Were they going to have an ecumenical dialogue? No chance. It is obvious by now that few of the most prominent Evangel authors even believe in ecumenism, although those familiar with the Reformed blogosphere knew that already. Most don't believe the Roman Catholic Church can even be called Christian.

It wasn't long before Frank Turk revealed his discomfort, asking whether it bothered anyone else that the site had banner ads for a movie about the visions at Fatima and (steel yourselves) books by the current pope. The guy accepts an invitation to blog at a place well known - perhaps chiefly known - for its Catholic allegiances, and is then surprised that he has to share the site with Catholic content?

So if First Things wasn't looking for ecumenical dialogue, what did it want? Allies in the neoconservative war on liberalism? Perhaps. But I think what it mostly ended up with was just the same Reformed blogs writ large. The same Reformed-centric voices continue to have the same Reformed-centric discussions and reach the same Reformed-centric conclusions. Judging by the comment threads, they appear to be attracting the same Reformed-centric, anti-Catholic audiences they attract on their own blogs.

To be fair, there are a few writers in there that don't fit the mould. There's Jared C Wilson, for example, a BHT fellow who early on conflicted with co-authors and readers alike. But it seems dominated by the same Reformed types preaching to the choir.

Hey, I don't really care that there's another culture-war/Reformed blog out there. I'm just confused what First Things expected to get from it is all.

Hate crimes: treading the thin line

There's a narrow line between prosecuting for inciting violence and prosecuting for speech, thought and so-called "hate."

I am torn on the issue of "hate crimes." Like Ed West of The Telegraph, I shudder at the idea of prosecuting someone merely for saying something homophobic. I believe in free speech. Causing offence, in and of itself, should never be a crime. Yet I cannot bring myself to dismiss hate crimes legislation wholesale, as Ed appears to, for it seems to me they identify an important element of a crime that warrants a different or more severe treatment.

The element is intimidation, threat or violence directed towards an entire community or group of people. A common argument against hate crimes is that a murder is no worse or different simply because the victim was gay or black, say. It devalues a life, say critics, to punish a racially motivated murder more severely than any other murder. Is one person's life more valuable than another's?

This might be a valid criticism if it understood the reasoning behind hate crimes legislation, but I think it misses the point. A hate crime is not punished more severely because one life is more valuable than another, but because it has - and was intended to have - more victims. If a murder can be shown not only as an attack on the immediate victim, but as an assault on an entire community, intending to cause wider fear and intimidation, then why should it not be punished more severely? If you kill two people, you get a harsher sentence than if you killed just one. If you steal $1 million, you get a harsher sentence than if you stole just a dollar. If a crime has multiple victims, the punishment is more severe.

This, to me, is the basic principle behind the concept of hate crimes.

But it doesn't end there. I'm undecided whether hate crimes legislation is the way to deal with this difference. First of all, "hate" is a regrettable misnomer. All sorts of murders are motivated by hate, regardless of the victim's ethnicity or social group. Hate - which implies thoughts and emotions - never can be a punishable crime in and of itself.

Second, does the presence of a racial motive (for example) necessarily suggest intent to target a community, rather than an individual? Does it automatically result in the victimization of a whole group of people?

The law must be realistic. If a crime has multiple victims, the criminal should be treated accordingly. Just as we cannot let the fear of racism and discrimination stifle debate on immigration and multiculturalism, so we can't let fear of political correctness, or of a future police state prosecuting for thought crimes shut down debate on racism, homophobia and hate crime.

Licence for prejudice: You died young... and you're gay

Jan Moir's column about the late Stephen Gately is an ugly and infuriating display of prejudice, even by the Daily Mail's standards.

Moir's tack put me in mind of the character of Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) in the 1997 comedy As Good as It Gets. Intimidated by Frank Sachs (Cuba Gooding, Jr), Melvin shouts for the police and threatens, "Assault and battery," adding with triumph, "and you're black!"

Analyzing the circumstances surrounding the untimely death of pop singer Gately, Moir pieces together a few apparently suspicious details before revealing the clincher: And he's gay.

What were those suspicious details? Gately and his civil partner Andrew Cowles had been out clubbing; they returned to their apartment with Georgi Dochev, a young Bulgarian man; Cowles and Dochev went into the bedroom while Gately remained in the living room. Gately had "at least smoked cannabis" that evening.

Quite slender details on which to hang a concrete theory, but Moir gives it her best shot, jumping from the few available facts to the statement "Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one." To do this, she discounts the results of the post-mortem, and reveals an astonishing medical ignorance: "Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again." Even I know this is not true.

The byline refers to the "sordid details" of Gately's death. Moir says that its circumstances are "more than a little sleazy." Gately and Cowles "took" the young Bulgarian to their apartment (how suggestive a little verb like "take" can be) and "a game of canasta ... was not what was on the cards." She ends boldly: "[Once again] the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see."

Sadly, this ooze has seeped only out of Moir's imagination. That's not to say the scenarios she suggests are not possible, but how does she leap from possibilities to such certainties? Aha. With the all-important final detail: And he's gay.

It is clear Moir already has a chip on her shoulder about gays, and in particular the idea of civil partnerships. She betrays this with her assumption that if they are to be legitimate, civil partnerships should be held to a higher standard than straight marriage:

Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

There is no more a happy-ever-after to civil partnerships than there is to heterosexual marriage. But for Moir, the failure of a handful of celebrity couples in the public eye somehow throws the whole concept of civil partnerships into question.

Few other people are held to such high scrutiny or expected to maintain such high standards in order to earn legitimacy. No one holds up OJ and Nicole Simpson as reason to question interracial marriage. These blacks, always going on about tolerance, but just look at OJ and Nicole. What about Jade Goody and Jack Tweed? Cervical cancer? We all know what's going on there. I'm sure there are some very happily married chavs out there, but you can't help but ask the question whether these sort of working-class, council estate types should be allowed to get married in the first place, eh? Jade and Jack was one thing, but now there's Jordan and Pete.

The folly of this kind of reasoning speaks for itself; its underlying prejudice is obvious.

Moir thinks that Gately's relationship status warrants a more intrusive kind of coverage. She complains that the story was reported "as if Gately had gently keeled over at the age of 90 in the grounds of the Bide-a-Wee rest home while hoeing the sweet pea patch," and protests that the "sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath."

Why is it so imperative that Gately's death be reported in more detail? That the "bitter truth" (remembering that this bitter truth is so far just speculation) be revealed? Clearly it has nothing to do with a general ethical principle or a journalistic standard that applies to young and old, straight and gay alike. No, this is for one reason: because Gately was gay.

Gately was gay: therefore otherwise negligible details become suspicious; therefore his negatives - not that she has any firm evidence for their existence - can be applied to an entire community and used to put an entire group of people and their relationships under public scrutiny.

Gately's sexuality is the one fact that, for Moir, sets his death apart from others. It is the justification for innuendo and contrivances that reveal only the prejudice of their author.

Update: The Daily Mail website has changed the headline from "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death" to "A strange, lonely and troubling death...". The byline in the sidebar was changed to "Jan Moir on the tragic end of Stephen Gately" from something I can't remember exactly, but which definitely made reference to the "sordid details" of Gately's death.