The Conservatives have attempted to erase from the internet a record of all party speeches given in the decade before they came to power, it has been reported.
Computer Weekly said the party had not only removed its archive of speeches and press releases from 2000 to its election in May 2010 from its own website, it had also struck them from the record of search engines such as Google.
The party was said to have used a robot blocker to force the Internet Archive - described as the public record of the web - to remove the entire record of speeches and news it had collected in 1,158 snapshots from the Conservatives' website since May 1999.
The magazine said: "The erasure had the effect of hiding Conservative speeches in a secretive corner of the internet like those that shelter the military, secret services, gangsters and paedophiles." [Sounds about right]
Computer Weekly said that since it had raised the issue with the San Francisco-based Internet Archive, some speeches had re-appeared on the site.
A party spokesman said that it wanted to keep its website as easy to use as possible.
"We're making sure our website keeps the Conservative Party at the forefront of political campaigning," the spokesman said in a statement.
"These changes allow people to quickly and easily access the most important information we provide - how we are clearing up Labour's economic mess, taking the difficult decisions and standing up for hardworking people."
The Independent
