This sort of daft behaviour doesn't predominantly damage the SNP. Like other worse scandals of the type, it mostly damages the reputation of blogging, and more seriously, the reputation of politics in general. Getting abusive while anonymous online may feel cathartic, but it tends not to help your cause, even if you don't get caught on the eve of the boss's big day.
For a more forgiving perspective, Jeff has more.
To be fair James, the earliest warning that the SNP should sort this stuff out came from yourself. Ironic that it turned out to be the eve of referendum paper's publish that it turned round to bite them on the bottom.
Shooting fish in a barrel comes to mind.
Feel like being facetious and asking how anything could possibly damage the reputation of blogging, seeing as how it's lower than dirt already?
But being more serious,Jeff was incredibly wrong, especially when he wrote:
"In amongst hundreds of blog posts I guess it just takes one to fall wide of the mark before you can fall foul of journalists and/or opposing parties and lose your job. That's a very tough standard to set for oneself." (ooh, what a martyr. my heart bleeds...Bill Hicks' response to an LSD death seems appropriate - "Hey, we lost a moron!")
This (thankfully sacked) idiot ran a long-term, one-man campaign of defamation, and quite probably deserves court action.
Now we're well rid of him, if only we could just do something about that bog-awful statue, too...
On the contrary Andrew, I think I'm 'incredibly right' when I say that it just takes one blog post to be wide of the mark before you can find yourself in the papers.
You could have a point that I was seeming to suggest that 'Montague Burton' had one blog post that was outside of the acceptable parameters. I would be 'incredibly wrong' if I was suggesting that, which I wan't trying to.
I agree that the blog was idiotic and he can have no complaints if court action is to follow.