Friday, May 04, 2007

Elections 2007: The View from the Blogs

First of all, a few awards. This was the first time blogs have played a part in getting the results out quickly. On our coverage on 18 Doughty Street we were able to get results out sometimes half an hour before the BBC or Sky because we were trawling blogs and getting tipoffs from people on the ground. So here are a few accolades.

LIVE BLOGS OF THE NIGHT

ConservativeHome and Ordovicius. ConHome had just the right mix of fact, interpretation, gossip and commentary. im and Sam did their readers proud. Ordovicius hasn't slept for 20 hours. His regular and accurate updates were invaluable in giving us news from Wales.

BLOGS OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Arsembly, Blamerbellbriefs and Wales Elects 2007 were the three must-read blogs of the Welsh election. Arsembly is billing himself as the Welsh Guido. Sadly his performance on election night itself was a complete letdown. He went AWOL. Matt Wardman emerged at the latter end of the campaign as a leading political blogger. He even created a chatroom on election night. Tartan Hero provided good insight from Scotland, along with Scotland Votes and Mr Eugenides.

ELECTION ROUNDUP FROM THE BLOGOSPHERE

A typically honest analysis from top LibDem blogger Stephen Tall. He apologises to the Conservatives. The Dissenter's Voice is the only other LibDem blog seemingly able to smell the coffee. Blamerbell Briefs reckons the LibDems are the boggest losers of the Welsh Assembly elections. Liam Murray blames voters in Scotland for being stupid. Mark Pack is a LibDem whose honesty I have a lot of time for, but in THIS guest blog on the New Statesman he clearly enters the world of delusion. He seems to think the LibDems, rather than the Conservatives, have emerged as today's winners. And if you think he's got it bad, just flick through the posts on LibDem Voice or LibDem Blogs. Hilarious. Matt Wardman is a fan of Andrew Mackinlay. Stephen Pollard reckons we know today what we knew yesterday. Matthew D'Ancona reckons the Tories haven't done well enough. Kerron Cross becomes Howard Jones and reckons No One Is To Blame. And Kerron explains why he didn't couldn't vote Labour. Recess Monkey is an election free zone. Wonder why.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

875 Conservative gains, as at 23.42

Just how bad does it have to get for all the NuLab trolls before they are prepared to admit that:

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning"

Goodbye Tony...

Anonymous said...

Thank God for the blogs, where would our freedom be without them?

Which is perhaps one of the many rueful thoughts nulab are having right now. Hence this topic - bad news burial? - on BBC's Have Your Say...just at this time when we are all preoccupied with the election.

"How important is free speech on the internet? Should people be able to say what they like on the web or should there be restrictions?....How far should free speech go on the net? Is it fair to place certain restrictions on what users can publish? Would limits stifle the internet or make it better?"

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

Stirrer said:

Goodbye Tony

Yes, goodbye to him and goodbye to all that.

And goodbye Gordon

Auntie Flo'

Fitaloon said...

Funniest part of the Election Coverage must go to you Iain at about 11ish this morning, whilst listening to the audio feed on 18DS you announced you needed to go and left your fellow announcers rather rapidly, sounds of them carrying on but in the background sound of walking , door banging and thunk then loud, long fart and a good groan and we were off and thank god you were cut off in your prime, anyway couple of minutes later you arrive back in studio, say you had call of nature, One of the guests says "hope you turned your Mic off"

You hadn't!

Anonymous said...

You're not at all interested in Tim Ireland's victory over two nasty homophobes in Guildford?

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2007/05/ladies_and_gent.asp

Is "not linking to Tim Ireland EVER" going to be a rule you actually stick to no matter what? Or is this a Tory bias thing?

Doesn't a high profile blogger picking and choosing what he does and doesn't report from the front make himself a "self appointed Police Force"?

As a gay man aren't you at all interested in seeing scum like this rejected by the voters?

Will you be reporting this on 18 Doughty Street?

Sorry for the questions, I know you don't like them.

Anonymous said...

OK. My provisional summary posted.

What happened to Scotland Votes - it looked all singing all dancing, but on the night they did nothing, and very little since?

Did it just go tits-up?

Embarrassing for PR company to cock-up your own gig, if that is what happened. I would hate to be the second in command on Tuesday.

Anonymous said...

I lasted till 4:30 last night and I would just like to say a special thank you to ConHom for all things tory and PB.com for a general overview.
Special thanks to Tartan Hero and Mr Eugenides who really brought the Scottish elections alive, and became a must check blogging duo during the night.
Biggest raspberry goes to the BBC coverage and their "take" or "overview" of the results, this time I think the blogsphere outperformed them on getting the results out and giving a more honest view of the situation for individual parties.

Anonymous said...

You're right. Arsembly was shit. I notice you say he was billing himself as the Guido Fawkes of Wales, whereas all he ever talks about is the fact thaty you say that about him.

Manfarang said...

And the view from Councillor Ian Lucas's blog?

Anonymous said...

Blair's legacy is an insecure voting system. I cannot think of any election at local or national level, where so many ballot papers have been declared invalid, then I started reading about the results in Scotland. Add on the shambolic 'reformed' postal voting system, and one wonders why MSM say so little on this. Am staggered that Cameron and other Conservatives are not making a bigger fuss over the 'weaknesses' in the electoral system.

Blair's party have allowed this shambles to develop, and it has to be sorted out PDQ. What is your view Mr Dale?

Anonymous said...

I can't beleive you give arsembly the anount of coverage you do. fucking Labour spin machine that's all it is. And you've been sucked in.

Anonymous said...

The articulate young man who completely dominated the 18 Doughty St. discussion after 10pm last night also thought that the Conservatives had done poorly.

Anonymous said...

Ordovicius hasn't slept for 20 hours

Actually I hadn't slept in 31 hours, but thanks for the kudos ;-)

Richard Havers said...

Thanks for nopt mentioning me Iain after I tipped you off about the BBC web site being incorrect about Scotlamnd for several hours!!

Here

http://haveringhavers.blogspot.com/2007/05/bbc-election-coverage.html

and here

http://haveringhavers.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

The highlight of the election was hearing Iain take a shit after he forgot to take his microphone off, and then see him walk back onto the set and say, 'call of nature'.

Anonymous said...

Followed by "Oh dear, I hope Alice remembered to switch my microphone off".

Anonymous said...

Information commissioner's decision over at www.iraqdossier.com. Should be the spade that hits labour across the back of the head and buries it.

Anonymous said...

Good coverage on 18DS Iain. I think if you repeat this in future, it'll quickly become essential viewing for us election nerds.

Anonymous said...

You have missed out Craig Murray's take on the elections, which concludes with the following paragraph.

Finally, I tend to cock-up not conspiracy on the spoilt ballots debacle. The Labour Party probably suffered worse as their supporters are by definition more stupid. Indeed many of them apparently need someone else to fill in their postal ballots!

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/05/election_result.html

Ralph said...

Labour said they would have a meltdown, and now are trying to present their Three Mile Island as a success. Of course the media laps it up.

Anonymous said...

Well, after sleeping from around 17:30 yesterday til 09:00 today, Ive finally posted my round up analysis of the Welsh elections HERE

and interestingly enough, Peter Black rules out a Lib-Lab coalition Here

Go Rainbow Coalition! Do it for Glyn! (It's my new slogan)

Kerron said...

Yes Iain, you know when I said no-one was to blame I may well have been being just a little sarcastic.

I would have thought the picture may have given that away.

That and my general views on this matter!

Anonymous said...

Ordovicius was excellent on the night much better than Blammerbell
Arsembly what a laugh he never got off the starting blocks
There were a few brave souls who tried to stay the course and the only woman valleysmam lasted until gone 4 am. I enjoyed the blogs far more than the media

Nich Starling said...

Whilst the tone of The New Statesman article is too upbeat for the Lib Dems, it is correct about the marginals and lib Dem held seats (Taunton, Solihull, Westmoreland, Watford, Portsmouth, lewes, Vale of White Horse, Rochdale, Chesterfiled, North Norfolk and even Colchester (the parts in the sonstituency of Colchester and not Essex North).

Anonymous said...

fr said...
The articulate young man who completely dominated the 18 Doughty St. discussion after 10pm last night also thought that the Conservatives had done poorly.

May 05, 2007 8:36 AM


I don't know what's more surprising - 18DS having a guest who was able to intelligently but entertainingly question the other guests or the fact that one person single handedly won an argument against 4 open Tories (presenter included) on issues he shouldn't have been able to win in a million years.

This type of programming is good for 18DS as it looks like less of a mindless Toryfest. The only problem was that this one person dominated the discussion so much and so well that he puts almost all 18DS guests that have been on since it started in the shade.

Chris Paul said...

Interesting round up Iain. But was anyone as accurate as moi on the number of Labour losses of seats. I said 450. Totally overestimated the Lib Dems and the minnows who chucked 300+ more seats to your team that I'd have expected.

But I was pleased with the 450. Worth a mention I'd have thought. Just as some of my news to your morning show was worth a mention too.

You were right about IDS of course. The quiet man was the foolish man. But the main story of the night for me was that Labour losses were running at around 50% of the expected. Scotland and Wales are still in play and Labour may continue to command both, or quickly get control back.