Online curtain twitching

My passionate views merit passionate responses. That’s to be expected when talking about the subjects with which I deal.

What is hard to deal with is an on-line stalker. Imagine if you had a deranged neighbour who spent their time watching your every move and then writing about it, simply because you once had the temerity to disagree with them on an ideological basis. Imagine if your stalker wrote a blogpost naming you, calling you insane and divulging personal details about your children.

This is what happened to me when I was pregnant. A fellow twitter user published a blogpost in which she dismissed my support for the scrapping of EMA and my tentative support for tuition fees as being rooted in self-interest and lies because apparently my daughter goes to private school, paid for she kindly noted, by someone else and because I have private trust funds for my children so will be able to provide for their education.

The first is true, it was my ex’s express wish that our daughter attends a private school and therefore he picks up the school fees. My other children will not attend as we cannot afford it. Secondly my children do not have trust funds other than the accounts that all children were given upon birth. They may have been topped up by birthday and baptism gifts but that is all. My share of equity from my former house which was hardly significant was put into a savings account in my daughter’s name. I am not going to state the amount, it is nobody’s business as indeed my finances are nobody’s business, but my ex can clarify that it is not enough to be called substantial nor indeed does it qualify her as a trustafarian. This was my money, gained from the sale of a house to which I contributed 50% of the mortgage. It was implied that I had no moral integrity in that I allegedly profited from the breakdown of my relationship. I did not profit, far from it.

I shouldn’t have to publicly discuss this, however when someone blogs public untruths about your family’s finances and how they may impact on your views, and names you, as she did, then I have little choice.

My finances have no impact on my views. To blog about an individual and their private circumstances and their children from a snippet of information one has gleaned from a baby forum is as low as the recent News of the World scandals. I will resist with tit for tat reprisals, and in fact as a gesture of good will I offered to donate to charity the fee I had received for writing an article as my fellow twitterer claimed to be a Christian. She said that there was no need for this as she was going to  delete what she had said anyway. As a gesture of good faith, I donated the fee to charity anyway.

I then protected my twitter feed, particularly following the hate attacks from the so-called liberals who couldn’t cope with the idea that I might not actually be a homophobe and who also thought it acceptable to drag my daughter’s name through the mud.

I recently unprotected in order that I can engage with non followers. Since then every single tweet has been under scrutiny. I had a piece published on the Conservative Home website and she published a blog analyzing every single one of my tweets, savaging my choice of the word “nuance” and making facile comments about my data and research, “look how clever I am with my fancy charts”.

I ignored: I could not help but think that the poor woman must be mentally ill if she feels the need to obsess over my every word and devote whole blog posts to me. She tweets things to deliberately get into my timeline to provoke, hence she is blocked, She doesn’t seem to understand my distress at her thinking my family and my finances are fair game for her to publicly lie about. I do not as she states, have a private income. That is a libel. We receive help from a charity set up to aid former Anglican priests who find themselves homeless and jobless. To suggest that we would defraud them by having a private income is a vile slur which I must disabuse.

Today she has accused me on a CIF thread of obsessively stalking her and affecting her family. I have done no such thing, I have attempted to ignore her and not give her the attention she craves.

I won’t name the woman, but I would like her to exercise some honesty. She referred to my blog on a CIF thread, quoted from it, yet didn’t have the courage or integrity to name me.

I am a mother of three young children who has neither the time nor inclination to online stalk or pursue a vendetta. I blog and tweet for relaxation and evangelisation. I am passionate about the pro life cause and will defend against the anti natalists whilst I have breath in my body.

What I am not prepared to accept is lies or broadsides against my family. They are not fair game.