Cole campaign behind anonymous EUSAless blog

EUSAless, the online blog notorious for attacking elected officials at the Edinburgh University Students Association, was a "campaign tool" being run by several members of presidential hopeful Harry Cole’s campaign team, an investigation by The Journal can reveal.

Alastair Sloan, press officer and spokesperson for Harry Cole’s campaign, has been secretly running the anonymous blog, alongside several other contributors close to Mr Cole, since November 2007.

In that time, EUSAless has been particularly influential in undermining public opinion of EUSA sabbatical officers Josh MacAlister, Tom French and Gordon Aikman while attacking Mr Cole’s political rivals.

If elected, Mr Cole will be expected to work closely with the permanent secretary, Graham Boyack, and the communications adviser, Tony Foster, two non-student members of staff at the Students’ Association also heavily criticised in the blog.

In a statement released on Saturday, Mr Cole apologised for misleading voters, admitting to “having influence on its direction” and that some may see it “as a campaign tool.” In the statement, he claimed to have worked with the people behind EUSAless “in the past,” however, after being presented with claims by The Journal, he admitted that current members of his campaign team were writing the blog.

On more than one occasion, EUSAless has attempted to appear independent of the Harry Cole campaign. In an entry dated 12 December 2007, it denies suggestions that Mr Cole was involved with the blog, while another post, dated 5 February 2008, attempts to imply that Mr Sloan also had no involvement.

Nick Ward, a rival presidential candidate who has come under heavy fire from EUSAless in the last week, told The Journal: “I’m really sad and really disappointed in Harry and in Alastair. I think they’ve brought shame on themselves and on student politics in general.

“To be associated with something that is as vile and offensive as EUSAless says something about their characters, and it’s not positive.”

Mr Cole had, as reported in The Journal two weeks ago, encouraged his rival candidates to sign a “clean campaign pledge.” Mr Ward has since accused Mr Cole of breaking his promise.

Mr Ward said: “At the start, Adam [Ramsay], Harry and myself signed a pledge with one of the points being that we have no part in any outside websites. We asked him explicitly about EUSAless and he put his hands up and said he had nothing to do with it. He was lying to us.”

The incumbent EUSA President Josh MacAlister, another figure targeted by the blog, told The Journal: “Most students want to see their student union working to change and improve the lives of students. The people that have been involved in this care more about mud slinging and destroying people.”

Mr Cole said: “EUSAless existed to gauge reactions and gauge opinions. In order to get attention it had to be controversial. But it was a monster that was unleashed and grew to be bigger than anyone’s wildest comprehension; that tapped into a general unrest that’s really out there.

“It was never meant to be a campaign tool; it was giving voice to those who want change in EUSA.”

At its peak, EUSAless had a readership of 3,500 and was daily reading for the student politics circle.

Mr Sloan, who was a former member of the editorial staff at The Journal before leaving to run Mr Cole’s campaign, said: “EUSAless was set up as a research project to gauge students’ opinions and to work out solutions to EUSA’s problems. From the start it was against EUSA being run by a small clique of people that see EUSA as 'their' students association.”

“After Harry decided he was going to run, we couldn’t reveal ourselves as being behind EUSAless as that would nullify any impact it had.”

The Journal discovered the identity of the anonymous bloggers after an email sent by EUSAless was found to have originated from Alastair Sloan. Mr Sloan’s involvement was then confirmed by two anonymous sources close to the Harry Cole camp.

Mr Sloan denied EUSAless was a part of Harry Cole’s campaign, saying: “It’s difficult to define ‘campaign tool’. Writing a blog is not too different to journalists from Student or The Journal taking sides and trying to manipulate voters’ opinions. It’s the same kind of thing.”

He also said it was their intention to wind down the blog before the election, saying: “It’s better to be honest now that it’s coming up to the vote. It’s actually quite brave for Harry to hold his hands up before the election and put it out in public as it would be disastrous if this were to come out after the vote.”

Adam Ramsay, the front-runner in this year’s election according to a Student/The Journal poll conducted this week, said: “Harry and his team have every right to criticize me if they think this is the best use of their time. However, some of the criticism of others has been unacceptable as is the criticism of EUSA staff that shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

When asked for his view, new-comer to the race Gabriel Arafa said: “I have to say that I was disappointed to hear that Harry had been involved in this. However, I got into this race to campaign on the issues, not trade insults. My opponents seem like decent guys, and I’m just concentrating on my campaign.”