Bloggers4Labour
A Bloggers4Labour meeting took place on Monday evening and it was really rather good. Yes, there was geekery – Labour geekery, computer geekery and even ale geekery – but it was all very good natured. I’m going to do a couple of posts, on Labour blogging and blogging in general,1 but what strikes me is that there is a lot of technical expertise, goodwill and commitment to helping the Labour blogosphere develop out there that bodes well for the future.
Anyway, I’m going to be doing some graphicky bits for B4L. Which is nice.
xD.
1 – Yes, I know I’ve said before that I’ll do things and don’t get round to them. This time, I think I may actually get round to it…
April 25th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Yes, i do think we need a bigger Labour blogosphere. At the moment, online political discourse seems to be dominated by the shrill voices of the Right and of right-wing ‘libertarians’.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
I’m not entirely sure.
For some reason, a lot of attention has been paid to Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale. The latter I can understand – he is a former chief of staff to David Davis and parliamentary candidate. Fawkes appeals more to the Heat magazine tendency and you can see how, particularly on a slow news day and for the people who live entirely within the Westminster bubble, he would have appeal as gossip or an easy story.
A lot of the stuff that goes on in the Blogosphere could be termed right-wing, but isn’t necessarily Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines pseudo libertarianism. There is some decent stuff out there, both within the right and from the right attacking the left and it behoves the left to respond more effectively.
However, there is stuff on the left that is good. One of the biggest blogs is the Daily Kos and the Euston Manifesto, which whether you agree with it or not is part of the left, comes from the blogosphere.
I’m going to come back to this at greater length in a post, but the (UK) Labour blogosphere needs to look at three things –
1. Developing blogs as a genuinely effective means of communicating with (non political hack) voters both during and outside of election time.
2. Using the blogosphere to influence the national media-political agenda. This can take the form of independent, individual research into a given issue that can be picked up by whatever major outlet and used as part of the background or principal argument.
3. As parts of the Conservative blogosphere have successfully done, use the blogosphere to develop arguments that are only really going to be engaged with by political hacks but that add to the debate. For instance, a good online campaign about the fourth option on council housing that makes the case very strongly, referring to point two, and that demonstrates that there is considerable support for that might mean that it could be included in the next general election manifesto and even – horror! – acted upon.
xD.