Matthew Harris: Can I quietly, respectfully and judiciously suggest that you are DEAD WRONG? All best wishes, Richard...

Matthew Harris (who has an excellent blog) has written a couple of blog posts (here and here) criticising me and several other bloggers who wrote up accounts of 'that' conference call on the proposed Snooping legislation.

Do read the posts in full to get the whole picture - and so Matthew's views can be properly understood. But in summary, the first post criticises the fact that the details of the calls were reported (he uses a West Wing analogy to suggest it should have been kept in the family) and the second post to suggest at the very least a sanitised report of the call would have been more appropriate. As I say, do read the full posts to ensure you don't think I am being unfair.

Anyway, here's my reply (which I have also posted on the second article on Matthew's Blog):

I'm sorry, no disrespect Matthew, but I find both your posts a bit daft.

(Full disclosure - I was one of the bloggers on the call, and I referenced shouting in my post)

This was a call arranged by the party with bloggers, (ie people who write about what's going on in the party), specifically to get this debate out there. It's hardly the same as leaking a confidence to a journalist. People in the party tell me stuff off the record all the time and I always respect that. This was a very different thing.

It's true that on this issue I have not 'toed the party line' and done so in a fairly strident manner. Well, that's because I don't agree with the party line. I think its wrong. In fact, it's not even the party line (see Conference Motion approved in Gateshead). Nor is it the Government's line (check out the coalition agreement). It's a line cooked up by Theresa May, the police, MI5 and the NSC. So no, I'm not going to 'play the game' and nod along. I'm going to shout very loudly that I think this is wrong.

Funnily enough Labour and the Tories leak a lot more than us. That's because they try and control things from the centre. It is to our great credit as a party that we don't do that and that conference calls like this are arranged in the first place.

I hear what you say Matthew - that you are not against these calls but you feel we should report them in a more judicious manner . That's your opinion and I respect it. I just don't think it's very liberal...