The first thing that struck me about the "bully" story

[lathany]

When I read this story, the first reaction I had was: is Christine Pratt breaking a confidence here? If I rang a "bully" helpline, I'd expect my concerns to be treated in confidence. Is this breaking a confidence or have the staff member(s) given permission for her to come forward?

I personally find that at least as interesting as the details of how Gordon Brown behaves towards his staff. Am I the only one?

Comments

[marjory.livejournal.com]

You are not the only one. There is a somewhat logically-suspect dirty tricks campaign going on here.

A further question for me is why these helpline people know the identities of those calling them/downloading factsheets in the first place, let alone can recall that there have been a certain number of calls made. That's either a bit big brother or else someone has been calling up *saying* they work for Gordon Brown. That would be very odd indeed.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, do they track and locate the IP addresses of everyone who downloads a factsheet? There's clearly an appreciable difference between "three or four calls over the past three or four years" and "several inquiries over recent months".

If this is a genuine attempt to slam Brown (as against just being Rawnsley and the Observer wanting to sell more copies) then I think it's misguided. Unless they can actually get someone to testify openly to a bad experience, a general mood of "he's tough on his staff" will probably more gain him grudging respect than stir up horrified loathing.

[condign.livejournal.com]

I would assume (or at least hope) she's gotten permission, although the press report doesn't suggest that there's any publicly-identifiable information that has been released. Brown's office isn't that big, and so the number of people who might have called the hotline is relatively small. The "downloading fact sheets" thing is a bit ridiculous, however: I might download a fact sheet to know what a given policy is, not because I think the policy has been broken.

[condign.livejournal.com]

I would expect they get the standard server logs, which would allow you to find this out, wouldn't it?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

You assume the story is real?

We've got an election coming up. Google the woman in question and her prior connections to Cameron are easily found.

That the identities of the alleged callers must be protected is perfect for her, because it means she can cause as much trouble as she likes and can't be caught lying.

Strategically, alleging multiple callers was an error, because it greatly reduces the plausibility of the claim. Had she claimed a single victim only I'd likely never have got as far as investigating her.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_alanna/]

That was my reaction too.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they do, but there are purposive steps required between collecting server logs and identifying the offices responsible for downloads (let alone doing so publicly).

And to take those steps is, it seems to me, to deliberately invade the downloader's reasonable expectation of being treated as anonymous -- particularly in what (clearly) might be a very sensitive area.

I analyse my own businesses' server logs for things like geographical spread, distribution over time, relative popularity of pages, sources of incoming links, etc: but I've never used them to identify where individual visitors work; that seems to me to be none of my concern.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, someone agrees (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8527881.stm)!

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I was going to post that!

Once the case started to bother me... ooh!

[lathany.livejournal.com]

(For info) I don't know how much of this you've been following today (I suspect it's less of interest to the US press), but some updates are:
- The allegations made by said callers were not about Brown (which she failed to say in the first place!)
- Two of the charity patrons have since resigned because of the breach of confidentiality due to the small number of people at least one of her comments must apply to (not obvious from the original article).
- Labour are calling it a political move and the Conservatives are requesting an inquiry.

[condign.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I should have prefaced the earlier comment w/ "assuming there is any meat to this story at all." It looks like that may not be the case.

Anyway, my assumption was that no one would be silly enough to make a pronouncement like that without getting permission. In that, I was clearly wrong. And in hindsight, was assuming competence where I ha no basis for doing so.

Still... Wow. She didn't get permission? Who does that???

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Still... Wow. She didn't get permission? Who does that???

Yes - that struck me too.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Who does that???

According to the interwebs (http://torytroll.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-are-national-bullying-helpline.html), the same kind of person who runs a charity which just so happens to work in the same area as the company she owns, and which just so happens to recommend her company's services to those who contact the charity.

Quite possibly that's an exaggeration or lie, but it does start to look like she and her husband don't quite withstand public scrutiny, but for whatever reason took it on themselves to make an attack on Brown which the Tories will not thank them for.