Election kicks off with cyber-squatting spat

The Conservative candidate for Winchester has registered the domain name of his rival, the Liberal Democrats' Mark Oaten, in an attempt to direct users to his website.

George Hollingbery, who is the closest rival to Shadow Home Secretary Oaten, has bought the 'www.markoaten.co.uk' domain and is using it to redirect web users to his site. Oaten uses 'www.markoaten.com'.

"It's a silly thing to do and rather annoying for people who are trying to find my website when they find they are looking at a Tory site," said Oaten.

"I guess they feel the only way anybody would visit their site was to trick them into it via mine. I would like my name back and I hope they cancel the trick as soon as possible. It is pretty pathetic."

Hollingbery defended his actions on his website. "Mr Oaten is an experienced politician and he should have bought all his own web addresses. He's had eight years to do it," he said.

"I think I would be failing in my duty not to try and reach out to any potential Lib Dem voters and lead them back to the path of common sense policies like locking up murderers for life, something Mark Oaten doesn't believe in.

"And if they don't want to read my site all they have to do is type in the correct address and get Mark's face and not mine. It's not like I am pretending."

Oaten's office stated that the ruse was not taken seriously enough to consider starting a case at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

Oaten has a history of unusual election experiences. When he won the seat in 1997 it was by two votes, the smallest majority in the Commons. In a subsequent rerun of the election following irregularities he won with a 20,000 majority.