First of all, Pickled Politics don't give any indication of the nature of their source that I can see. It seems like post-facto rationalisation out of a dislike for the conservative backlash, which would not be surprising coming from a left-leaning website.

Secondly, the complaints Orange were responding to referred to Islamophobia, not cynicism, as their theme.

Thirdly, "consultation" is only one word in a range of pr terminology, and the application was to a political situation rather than a corporate one. Since the reference was political- Red Ken's charging system- I'd imagine a clever guy like Wilson would easily be able to swat it away on the grounds that it was a political point.

Finally, what person unaware of the irony of some time-buying terms like "consultation" would be any good in the pr world anyway?

MPAC are exercising their FOS speech in drawing attention to Inigo's comments. If you try to deny them that right then you are as guilty as you allege them to be.

I have repeatedly made out that PR bloggers are looking into the actions of eg Inigo and Orange from a PR perspective. This isn't to say that FOS isn't an issue (although in my view it isn't), but in the context of a PR/reputation debate FOS is not an element.

Stuart has provided legal evidence to suggest that Inigo's justified Orange's decision to suspend him.

I don't want a philosophical debate on the concept of FOS what I do want (and got) is a debate on the issue from a PR perspective (reputation management) using established beliefs and professional experience and a context to the affair which is established by the current legal frameworks which Stuart highlighted.

Thanks

it is specious to theorize that mpac was only an agent of inevitability in this case. we can suppose that others may have read the entry and undertaken a similarly bold campaign of vengance, but we may also suppose that frogs spontaneously emerge from pond scum if we were inclined to disregard what is in evidence.

wilson's piece was posted on the 2nd. it remained there without controversy for better than a week, having rolled inconsequentially off conservativehome's front page by the 11th, when mpac "senior acrtivist", ali-gation, posted the results of his investigation into wilson's background with a call for mpac members to contact not he, but his employer, with their disagreements. its not that nothing happened within that span which would have made wilson's piece wider news: it was on the 8th when mpac administrator, musab, posted an appeal for mpac members to seek out targets for their "islamophobia" campaign. the appeal stated…

"So, if you spot an Islamophobic article, watch an Islamophobic report or hear an Islamophobic interview please put it up on this forum… and [we'll] be ON it."

…and events followed accordingly.

we can suppose with greater integrety that the alleged "racism" and "extremism" percieved in wilson's piece was and is chiefly in the eye's of mpac, regardless of what convenience mpac's legwork affords others eager to suppress tory views for whatever reason.

i'm finding that a new rule for public discourse is being forged here which we should not be so eager to accept simply from schadenfreud: employees have an obligation to their employers to maintain anonymity or silence as citizens.

i suggest hopefully that this dirty work was left to mpac because other britons who may have read and disagreed with wilson's piece did not regard it as "extreme", which it clearly isn't, and recognized the anti-speech implications of the sort of action which was nonetheless taken. hopefully.

As a result two different conclusions can be – and are being – drawn. Both have been played out here and over at simoncollister.typepad.com

It's also worth pointing out, MPAC is accused of intevening to whip up this story. It is nonsense to say that without MPAC's actions the affair wouldn't have happened. As soon as Inigo put his name to the article at CH it was only a matter of time before someone online got wind and forced him to face his critics.

Imagine if someone at Orange had seen it first and advised Inigo his comments might not be appropriate. All this could have been avoided.

As countless PR people are finding out the internet, web 2.0, social media etc can be a big challenge, but it also offers significant opportunities.

that was my observation: wilson didn't associate himself with orange at all. the only manner in which inigo wilson's political opinions came to be associated with orange telecom is through the intervention of an mpac-organized effort. specifally, they sought to punnish political speech with which they disagreed by anonymnously investigating the speaker's livelyhood and leveraging their employers against them. granted, technology made the stalking of wilson back to his employer easier, but is it an acceptable practice?

completely aside from secondary and tertiary considerations (such as an employer's right to terminate an emloyee), orange would be ratifying this practice by following through with terminating wilson.

so it is something of an inversion to say that free speech issues are a red herring in this case.

or perhaps not quite; perhaps both mpac's provacative attack on a citezen's political speech and orange's rights to terminate employment whatever the circumstances are germane. it could be that it is instead a choice orange must make of which value of theirs are they willing to act on: their devotion to their rights as a business or their devotion to all citizens rights to freedom of speech and concience.

orange asserted anti-censorship values with an anti-cesnsorship campaign. will they reverse those values?

Jummy, Inigo states in his article he works for a major telecomes firm… plus there's Google to cement the link!

There is absolutely nothing in his excellent article that should make him think to post anonymously – quite the opposite – that is the point.

how was it that inigo wilson's political writing became associated with orange telecom?