Against McCarthy, Against Dale

Dale's got a campaign going:

Over the next 12 weeks I will be highlighting Labour's Dirty Dozen - the twelve Labour MPs I'd most like to see kicked out of Parliament at the next election. Only 12, I hear you ask? Well, I'm going to concentrate on those who have majorities in excess of 5,000 and encourage my readers to help the Conservative candidates in that seat to win - either by making a small campaign donation or helping their campaigns in other ways.

Fair enough. Tory blogger launches a campaign to unseat Labour MPs - hardly a ground-breaking or particularly controversial proposal there, then. Until you consider who the first candidate for attack is:

I'm starting off the Dirty Dozen with Labour's self styled Twitter Czar, Kerry McCarthy.

See, I reckon I'm someone who knows quite a bit about UK politics, and here's what I know about Kerry McCarthy:

1. She's tedious
2. She's left-wing.

Which is hardly surprising, given her status as a Labour MP. She's not the person I would ever want to get to know in any way, but equally she's hardly the worst of the Labour MPs in the current parliament. Which does beg the question of why Dale has selected McCarthy for the first target in his Dirty Dozen campaign. His reasoning is there, but it is hardly convincing:

Kerry McCarthy has demonstrated that she isn't fit to be an MP. All you have to do is follow her online acitivites, especially on Twitter, to see why.

For those of us who couldn't give the first fuck about Twitter (which, mercifully, remains most of the population), complaining about activities on there is a lot like complaining about bad behaviour at some specialist internet club for geeks. Most people don't care about the club; of course they aren't going to care about people's conduct with in it. Yes, you can argue that how someone behaves on Twitter is a good indicator of how they behave in real life, but as soon as you mention Twitter to anyone who can't be arsed with it, they've stopped listening.

See, I think there is another reason as to why Dale has selected McCarthy as his first target. And I think it might have something to do with his recent online spat with her. Which is a perfectly understandable reason for targeting; however, we should be honest about the reasons behind the campaign. It isn't about getting the Dirty Dozen, it is about Dale pursuing a personal vendetta with the help of his readers. And I hope they have fun with it, but it leaves me cold.

As irritating as McCarthy appears to be, the truth is that there are no shortage of MPs to target in this Parliament - which does seem to have a bumper crop of bastards within it. And it isn't just Labour MPs who should be targeted; there are Tory MPs who are just as bad as those in the ruling party. Before targetting someone like McCarthy, I would want to see someone like the terrible Nadine Dorries lose her seat. But a Tory like Dale won't target someone like her; at heart, there is a (possibly understandable) party political bias to his selection criteria. Therefore, a genuinely independent campaign to cull the worst of the current ruling elite is something I could get behind; this campaign against McCarthy is something I most certainly cannot support.