One of the most bizarre pieces of fallout from the criticism of the Le Web conference was the suspension of Techcrunch UK and Ireland and the sacking of its editors, triggered by the handling of a comment on the site by Le Web organiser Loic Lemeur.

The who-said-what-to-whom is irrelevant, but it says a lot about so-called journalistic standards in the Web 2.0 world that a proprietor can sack two excellent editors (Sam Sethi and Mike Butcher) without recourse and for reasons that seem slightly spurious.

So, we are no longer allowed a Techcrunch. Michael Arrington has been racking up the advertising revenue with no effort, whilst Sam and Mike tried to drive the development of a strong UK Web 2.0 scene. I am sure Arrington couldn't care less, having built a successful business on re-writing press releases and leveraging his contact book. But let's be clear: this is not even close to journalism, which for all its faults at least has some basic ethical principles, even if they are not always honoured.

Incidentally, this affair had nothing to do with Loic, and he was as shocked as everybody else by Arrington's arrogance.

Anybody fancy doing a more intelligent Techcrunch for the UK and Ireland? We have a few friends who have the potential to do something brilliant (perhaps even with Mike and Sam): the Shiny Media guys, Custom Communications and the forthcoming blog "The Daily Social". Who fancies Techcrunch UK's ad revenue?