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Britain's Conservatives Scrub Speeches from the Internet

Posted by Unknown on from the history-is-no-more dept.

An anonymous reader writes news of an attempt to erase a bit of history. From the article: "The Conservative Party have attempted to delete all their speeches and press releases online from the past 10 years, including one in which David Cameron promises to use the Internet to make politicians 'more accountable'. The Tory party have deleted the backlog of speeches from the main website and the Internet Archive — which aims to make a permanent record of websites and their content — between 2000 and May 2010."

5 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. And let's not forget why: by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 5, Insightful

    because they broke almost all of their pre-election promises.

    The most important thing to learn about the Tory party in the UK is that, contrary to popular opinion, it is not the party for the responsible, the capitalists, nor the hard-working (except in the sense that they want most people to work hard for them). It is a party representing a few wealthy individuals, and their mission is not small government, but privatised government, where nothing happens without their masters getting a cut.

    Sorta like a mafia.

    1. Re:And let's not forget why: by roninmagus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The main issue that conservatives (at least in the US) have in their thought process (trust me, I am one) is that they believe "responsible," "capitalist," and "hard-working" actually leads one to become one of those few wealthy individuals.

      Unfortunately this is usually not the case at all; the responsible, capitalist and hard-working ones only lead those wealthy few to become more wealthy.

      This is a truth I think conservatives should realize and embrace, so that we can actually come up with real solutions to problems.

  2. 1984 by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

    “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, 1984

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  3. Re:Doesn't that kinda defeat the point of the arch by uncle+slacky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, but the Wayback Machine always respects takedown requests. Note that the British Library maintains an archive of UK sites, and still has the speeches in question (from April 2008 onwards):http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20080410100951/http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.speeches.page

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  4. Re:Where's the torrent file? by d3m0nCr4t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I dunno, but I'm guessing none of these politicians have ever heard of the Streisand Effect.

    I dunno, but I'm guessing none of these politicians have ever heard of 1984.

    Oh they have, but instead of feeling appalled, they just get a hard-on.