Notably Limited Personality

Before she met me, my wife hadn't a clue about the things I write about here.

Before she met me, my wife hadn't a clue about the things I write about here. She still struggles to accept quite a lot of it. But I know something is changing when she points things out to me that even a few months ago would have gone unnoticed.

On this occasion, it was in an interview with the Prince of Darkness on Channel 4 news.

"This is really weird," she said, "the interviewer is speaking normally, but it's like Mandelson is trying to hypnotise everyone."

The reason this brought a wry smile to my face was that I had, just that day, been digging into Mandelson's links to the murky world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming - that "leadership"/change/personality-splitting technique used by the likes of Common Purpose.

I'd been digging because a friend had pointed out to me what happened if I typed http://www.petermandelson.com/ into my web browser of choice.

As you can see if you click on the screenshot above, the site I was taken to was, in fact, NLP Connections, run by a guy called Chris Morris.

So who, I wondered, is the registered owner of the petermandelson.com domain name?

Registrant: 4d Media Limited Room 632 24 St Leonards Road Windsor, Berkshire SL4 3BB United Kingdom Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Domain Name: PETERMANDELSON.COM Created on: 13-Dec-01 Expires on: 01-Jan-10 Last Updated on: 04-Oct-08 Administrative Contact: Domains Manager, The domains@4dmedia.co.uk 4d Media Limited Room 632 24 St Leonards Road Windsor, Berkshire SL4 3BB United Kingdom 8456442800 Fax -- Technical Contact: Domains Manager, The domains@4dmedia.co.uk 4d Media Limited Room 632 24 St Leonards Road Windsor, Berkshire SL4 3BB United Kingdom 8456442800 Fax -- Domain servers in listed order: NS1.CHRISMORRIS.COM NS2.CHRISMORRIS.COM

And here's who owns the 4dmedia.co.uk domain:

Registrant: 4D Media / Chris Morris Registrant type: Unknown Registrant's address: Ground Floor Interpower House Windsor Way Aldershot GU11 1JG GB Registrar: Fasthosts Internet Ltd [Tag = FASTHOSTS] URL: http://www.fasthosts.co.uk Relevant dates: Registered on: 14-Jun-2000 Renewal date: 14-Jun-2010 Last updated: 16-Jun-2008 Registration status: Registered until renewal date. Name servers: ns1.jupiterhosting.com ns2.jupiterhosting.com

One name keeps cropping up in this affair - Chris Morris.

Here's what Chris Morris has to say about himself:

"I originally became interested in the field of hypnosis as a student studying psychology and then later I returned to it when I was working in professional politics. It seemed clear to me that a politician could present the exact same argument in many different ways, and some of those ways would be greeted with great enthusiasm while other ways would be harshly rejected. As a speechwriter, I studied the language in thousands of speeches and began to notice more and more that the most persuasive politicians use many of the same language patterns that hypnotists use, and I became curious about that."

Hmmm ...

So I decided to write to the dark Lord himself, and ask him, "what gives?"

(via writetothem.com)

Lord Mandelson House of Lords London SW1A 0PW Dear Lord Mandelson, I was interested to find that when typing the domain name petermandelson.com into my web browser, I found myself at a website called NLP Connections, run by a Mr Chris Morris. I was wondering if you are aware of this situation? Are you a supporter of Neuro Linguistic Programming? What is your relationship to Mr Morris? In the hope that you can shed light on this matter, I'd appreciate it if you would, if possible, reply by email. Yours sincerely, etc, etc.

That was on the 29th October. As of today, I have had no reply, but a visit to http://www.petermandelson.com produced this:

So, there you go. I suppose that's some kind of result.

Here's what we know:

• petermandelson.com was registered by Chris Morris in 2001.
• For a couple of years afterwards, Peter Mandelson ran a genuine website, as can be seen by looking at the Wayback Machine's archive. The site was run by Chris Morris.
• At some point, probably about the time Mandelson ran off to Europe, he stopped running his website, and for some time the petermandelson.com domain name pointed at a 4dmedia.co.uk placeholder page.
• At some point, Chris Morris misconfigured his webserver, either deliberately or by accident, so that anyone typing petermandelson.com into their browser is taken to Morris' NLP website.
• Morris has suddenly fixed his "error."

As a result of all this, and my wife's observation, I'd like to know:

• Was Chris Morris ever employed as a speech writer to Peter Mandelson?
• Are Chris Morris and Peter Mandelson friends at all? Have they ever been?
• Did Peter Mandelson know of the "misconfiguration" of Morris' webserver?
• Did he support the use of his name in this way?
• Has Peter Mandelson ever had training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming? If so, how much, and at what level?
• Has Peter Mandelson ever had any association with Common Purpose?

Maybe I'll still get an answer to my letter. If I do, I'll post it here. In the meantime, please feel free to get in touch if you can help shed any more light on these questions.