'No comment' about our racist bloggers but...

The-Latest contacted My Telegraph's Shane Richmond for a comment about our story that he had allowed a British fascist leader to write inflammatory anti-immigrant blogs on the website he edits, writes Deborah Hobson. We have yet to hear back from him. But he did find time to write an angry response to The Guardian story based on our front page exclusive (below).

Jews who support Israel are "false Jews", Condoleezza Rice is an "Aunt Jemima on the Bush plantation" and Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe is no worse than that of Ian Smith. These are just some of the views that Shane Richmond says can be found on the Guardian's Comment Is Free website.

Seeing The Guardian's article about The Telegraph's reader site My Telegraph as an attack on the integrity of the website, Richmond defends it's decision to allow BNP councillor Richard Barnbrook to publish his views on their blogging platform.

Richmond states  'that while The Telegraph's position is that readers should be free, within the law, to express their views, The Guardian in contrast  'eliminates as many as one in 10 posts, which they consider to unsavoury'.

In an examination of The Guardian's Comment Is Free blogging space, Richmond cites a number of posts which he believes would not be readily endorsed by Guardian editors although they can still be viewed on the website.

He refers to an article on the site in March and states that Guardian readers railed against Israel and  'Zionists', their codeword for 'bad Jews'. He says that from almost 500 comments posted on the article, almost 10 per cent were edited or deleted by Guardian moderators but that still left room for readers to complain that  'no Jew can do any wrong', accuse the US of  'murdering' al Jazeera journalists and describe Britain as a  'murderous, nasty country' that has killed  'more Muslims than Israel'.

Richmond asserts that one reader wrote: "Do Jewish leaders in this country ever criticise Israel or do they only march and make their voices heard when supporting bombing campaigns, like that in Lebanon in 2006?"

He went on:  "The contempt in which Guardian readers hold George W Bush's leadership of America spilled over into racism following an article in November last year. Readers continually referred to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, as President Bush's Aunt Jemima, a derogatory reference, taken from a food trade mark, that is meant to portray Ms Rice as obsequiously servile to white Americans."

Other readers apparently accused her of "mass murder" and "being a reactionary puppet for whites who need to showcase a black face to disguise their racism".

According to Richmond, controversial opinions expressed by Comment Is Free participants on the vexed issue of Zimbabwe and its President Robert Mugabe as well opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, have also been left, uncensored, on The Guardian's website.

In continued defence of The Telegraph's position on BNP Richard Barnbrook and their other bloggers, Richmond says:  "when you have an open platform, whether it's My Telegraph, Comment Is Free, or the internet itself, then you have to accept that a multiplicity of views will be expressed on it and that some of those views will be unpalatable to some people.

He added: 'If the Guardian's attacks on our site are motivated by genuine concern, then they should look closer to home first. However, I suspect that this sustained criticism has more to do with sour grapes over recent audience trends.'

* Shane Richmond is Communities Editor at Telegraph.co.uk