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29 August 2007updated 05 Oct 2023 8:00am

Being Norman Lamb

The Lib Dem health spokesman gets faked on Facebook

By Owen Walker

In an unprecedented turn of events, the blogosphere was focused on East Anglia for much of this week.

Recent reports of identity thieves finding a rich resource on Facebook were highlighted in the ongoing saga involving the profile on the social networking site of Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb. A brief history of which is covered at Lib Dem Voice.

The same IP address was shown to be responsible for tampering with Lamb’s Wikipedia entry and also uploading an anti-Lib Dem video on YouTube. Various Conservative comments have been made from the same IP address across the internet and there have also been 12 comments from eight “different” people on Lib Dem Voice.

After much href=”https://www.libdemvoice.org/who-was-the-person-who-faked-the-norman-lamb-…“>digging
around in the murky world of internet fakery, Mark Pack believes he has found the culprit.

The permutations of the affair rippled across the blogosphere. The Bloggerheads blog pointed the finger at an unspecified Tory. While, Iain Dale, Lamb’s North Norfolk opponent in the 2005 general election, was keen to condemn the culprit and distance himself from the debacle.

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As href=”https://duncanborrowman.blogspot.com/2007/08/who-is-82118116193.html“>Duncan Barrowman and the href=”https://norfolkblogger.blogspot.com/2007/08/flushing-out-fake-norman-lamb…“>Norfolk
Blogger stepped up the hunt for the illusive 82.118.116.193, Nich Starling concluded: “It is in everyone’s interests that whoever is behind this is exposed.”

Lamb had had to apologise last week to Norfolk and Norwich hospital after his claims about kitchen hygiene turned out to be unfounded. He was not the only MP apologising for false accusations about Norfolk’s hospitals. On the first day of David Cameron’s fight back he published a list of 29 district hospitals which would have to close their maternity wards due to funding cuts.

One of which was in fellow Tory MP Henry Bellingham’s Kings Lynn constituency. Bellingham then claimed the allegation was false and apologised “unreservedly” to staff at the hospital. In Nich Starling’s post about the incident he backs up Bellingham’s claims despite Cameron reiterating his original statement.

Following the incident, which has been termed the “Dodgy Hospital Dossier”, Mike
Ion
lists the various responses from hospitals refuting Cameron’s claims.

A week I’m sure the Tories would like to forget as they came out less popular in East Anglia than Alan Partridge following his comments about farmers.

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