'Fake Purnell' on the loose in Tameside

The media are all over the Stalybridge & Hyde MP James Purnell. It seems that the MP has been 'photoshopped' into a photo-opportunity at Tameside Hospital for this week's press that he didn't actually attend (dutifully carried by the Glossop Chronicle/Tameside Reporter).

And as we've been noting over the past few months, Purnell's staff love to mess with the internet. We chronicled how a member of Purnell's staff, Longdendale Councillor Sean Parker-Perry, had been behind the now dormant 'roadmunkey' weblog and was extremely active in altering wikipedia articles about his boss, as well as other articles like the Longdendale Bypass (some bright spark has begun to chronicle these edits here).

We wonder has this will all turn out for Purnell and his minions? We'll add more when time allows...

**10.30 p.m. update - the story's set to run, with Purnell employing the 'broken record' approach with Gordon Burns on tonight's North West Tonight (video below) - very reminiscent of Michael Howard vs Jeremy Paxman! Contradictions abound and Purnell is on the ropes. But will the media latch on to the equally dodgy meddlings of his underlings?

Sean of the Dead

... has been resurrected. Yes, we have received word that some bright spark has managed to bring back to life Sean Parker-Perry's weblog (aka Roadmunkey). Note the change from the original ('bypassedwarrior' rather than 'bypasswarrrior').

Now everyone can read his missives which were posted up until his mysterious disappearance from the internet last month. One interesting piece of information to add is that a wikipedia editor in contact with Sean received a reply from the Borough Solicitor of Tameside MBC on a Sunday!

Meanwhile, back on wikipedia, Sean's other alter-ego (and IP number) 83.104.50.161 has been editing again - this time James Purnell's page. Indeed, all controversy has been removed from the page, just in time for his new job as Secretary of State for Culture. How convenient...

Vanished...

...but not quite without a trace.

In this post, we drew attention to some suspicions we had formed (and also that were out there on the world wide web) about whether or not a Longdendale Councillor, Sean Parker-Perry, was the pipsqueak behind the roadmonkey pro-road weblog.

Then, last week, a long article appeared in the Glossop Chronicle about how Sean Parker-Perry (poor iccle lamb) and Roy Oldham (erm, poor old mutton) were the victims of a horrible internet conspiracy to call them potty names on the internet, specifically wikipedia. Or something.

Looking at the edit histories their respective pages (here and here), it's clear that there's been something of an edit war going on. But what's more interesting is that the one complaining loudest about editing has been no slacker himself. He outed himself on wikipedia last year, and this list of contributions by the user with the IP address 83.104.50.161 yields a lot of obsessive activity on certain pages, some of which lead back to complaints by Cllr Parker-Perry of editing on his own page. Coincidentally, the same IP address is a frequent visitor to this site, often leaving comments. Furthermore, if you plonk this IP address in an IP search engine, it comes out as the ISP demon.co.uk.

But the best bit is the page set up by wiki administrators mulling over whether Sean Parker-Perry's only other corner of the internet should be deleted. Apparently, it's not worth the hassle and he's not notable enough. We could have told anyone that...

So what a surprise that when one visits http://www.bypasswarrior.blogspot.com/ today - it's disappeared. As quickly as it appeared. One can only surmise that if it was not our Sean behind it, then surely, it would carry on. After all, roadmunkey himself said he would 'fight to the end'. Or until the local papers started digging too deep - or until he took advice to shut his mouth.

And the councillor's myspace page seems to have been also similarly shorn of all content in somewhat of a hurry.

But he's also been lazy. So look here for his Technorati page which shows parts of the blog. And the Google cache of one his last incarnations is here.

This issue is by no means over. There's strong evidence that a Longdendale Councillor has been meddling with information on an encyclopedia to make him, his colleagues, and his employer look good, as well as silence any form of dissent. Furthermore, the roadmunkey blog took vicious potshots at people known only to him and some of us, in a manner calculated to intimidate.

But he hasn't vanished - he's left his pawprints all over the web for further study and analysis. And no doubt his blog will re-appear soon (we'll let you know when).

NB - update on Friday 15/06/2007: it appears that admins have decided to delete the Parker-Perry wikipedia page and therefore it no longer exists. This also means that a log of his and others contributions to this page also no longer exist. In any effort to erase history, someone (with the IP address 83.104.50.161 again), is also asking that the Longdendale Bypass page suffer the same treatment.