Where Labour Minded People Come Together. A lovely vision, it has to be said. So it is a circle jerk, after all then.Even I am getting bored with commenting on Mr Draper's latest organ, but something he said in THIS article from the Guardian's Digital Technology Blog is worthy of further discussion. On Monday I wrote on CiF...
Draper plans to spend three days a week on the site. That's not enough. He needs to breathe it morning, noon and night, especially in the first six months. It's his baby and it is his efforts that will make it succeed or fail. He's got to be the inspirational driving force behind it. It needs to be updated many times a day. Just posting the odd new article will not be enough. I update my site between 5 and 10 times a day. ConservativeHome has something new on it virtually every hour. More than half of my 80,000 monthly visitors come to my site more than three times a day. I just clicked on LabourList and nothing new had been added in the last 14 hours. OK, OK, it's in beta mode, but most people judge a site from their first couple of visits. It's not good enough to plead that the site doesn't launch properly for another months. As far as most people are concerned, it's live now and that's the end of it.
The Digital Technology blog asked Draper to respond...
Draper rejected Monday's comments by Iain Dale that Draper wouldn't be able to run the blog properly just three days each week because he'd need to "breathe it morning, noon and night". "He doesn't get it," said Draper. "I'm not the sole contributor like he is, so even if I decide to lie in a hammock for a day there will still be five posts a day on the site and hundreds of comments." Draper says the "received wisdom" about opposition being stronger in the blogosphere is wrong. "Look at LabourList or look at Kevin Maguire in the Mirror - there's no problem attacking the opposition. We need a tonic to the Tory ideas and values of greed and short-termism - those are all valid targets. The idea that the progressive left has nothing to rail against is just wrong."
Derek, mate, it's you who doesn't get it. You might not be writing each post, but you will be editing, soliciting articles, cajoling, persuading and God knows what else. ConHome has two full time staff to do this. If you really think you can take such a hands off approach I tell you now, LabourList will fail, and deserve to.
I've just taken a look at the site and noticed that not a single new story appeared yesterday. Presumably that was one of Derek's days off. Incredible considering the site only launched on Sunday. And with one exception, every single post published so far has had one intention - to slag off the Tories. Websites fail if they are constantly negative and have no positive narrative.
I have wished LabourList well, and continue to do so. But the initial reaction to it has been far from universally approving, and I can see why.
This will be my last comment on this subject for some considerable time, you will be relieved to hear.
UPDATE: This week's New Statesman carries an article on Draper's site by James Macintyre - it's not online yet so I can't link to it. But it carries a quote from Derek Draper, allegedly shouted to LabourHome's Alex Hilton at a Labour fringe meeting last September after Labour Home had published a poll showing Labour supporters were very unhappy with Gordon Brown...
“If you want to wake up in March 2010 and say you were the star blogger of the election, and you got on to Radio 5 Live twice, but the price you pay for that is costing Labour votes and David Cameron in Downing Street, then you can fuck off out of the Labour Party and run your own independent blog somewhere. But the point is no one would bother reading you, would they?”
So there we have it, a tacit admission that LabourList will be nothing more than a government parrot.
35 comments:
I have to agree.
I've already given up trying to post there. I can understand they might need pre mod at this stage but to wait 24 hours to see if your comment has even been deemed worthy for the trash bin is a joke.
Waste of valuable bandwidth
Thirty contributors and no new blog posts in the last 24 hours. Has it died already?
I was expecting it to last at least a week.
It's pretty piss poor so far. Just slagging off Cameron, which various "Tory" blogs do with greater insight and skill.
Labour List has an opposition feel to it - as if it is reactionary to the "powers that be" - but it it is all about the Tories.
The words say things that suggest the authors think that Cameron and his colleague are a bunch of irrelevant no hopers; well then why bother talking about them all the day long?
Where is, for instance, the piece analysing today's loan support policy, as a candid friend - saying what is good about it, where its weakness are. Even Guido has said something good and analytical on the subject.
I go to Labour Home to listen to what some on the grass roots left are thinking, I don't often agree but I find it interesting. If Labour List keeps on going like this (and to be fair it is early days) then I will keep going back from time to time, but more more as a voyeurist than an observer.
What does this say about the editorial mindset of Labour List in particular and the milieu of the left in general - well I am not quite sure, but it gives the impression to the outsider that they might be whistling in the dark to keep their spirits up.
If only they did come together. That would mean that they were f***ing each other exclusively, rather than screwing the whole of the damned country.
The site is pretty dire, no doubt. It's not just the fact that the layout is quirky - the approach to 'moderation' seems immature at best, and indeed having seen there were no new articles yesterday I haven't bothered going back; gave it a try for 3 days but it'll be a long time before I visit again.
Tory ideas and values of greed and short-termism
Now that is funny - if it was generosity and long-termism that got us where we are today, may I have some short-termist greed, please?
@ OH 3:27
Waste of valuable bandwidth
not very much
(but you gotta love "Gordon is right")
Iain, question for you. When you met up with Dolly Draper and he asked you various stuff about the blogosphere, did you honestly think he would take your advice?
This is quite a shame, as I think we need a strong left-wing website in the UK. The Left still has plenty to say, especially in an economic climate like this. If it had respectable contributors who know what they're talking about, if it had writers who weren't afraid to say exactly what they thought, if it was run properly, it could be a massively popular site.
Still, less opposition for you now, Iain. ;-)
tom harris is still 'the man' on the left!!!!
That site is so poor you could call it Labours Britian & why people are wishing him luck I don't know!
That site isn't going to be somewhere for a good discussion, it's going to be a Labour luvies site & Tories aren't welcome.
I don't need to hope it crashes & burns any time soon the site will do that all on it's own.
The only thing that makes me smile about that site is the fact it's taking such a slaging off :O)
My long held suspicion of Ben Brogan is fully confirmed seeing that he is quoted at length (as a trusted source it seems) on LabourList. Agree entirely with Iain, so far so abysmal.
The website is frankly pathetic. There is no cohesion between the articles, and it is sycophancy turned into an art form. They would rather eat the fecal matter of Brown rather than admit he was a disastrous Chancellor who spent hsi way into a recession and is now trying to spend his way out of it. Ever heard of the ''Brownturn?''
To paraphrase that great drama "House of Cards" ... "Come together .. sounds like a bloody knocking shop in Marakesh"
Awful site. Promoted far too early and will just drift into being another mouthpiece of labour spin. Perfect example of that was on channel 4 news on Monday the newsreader couldn't even get contact with it.
Iain, it's such a shame Draper didn't take some of your good advice, but his loss.
Pants that the latest article is posted anonymously too.
Still, I got a trashed comment - something to be proud of!!
"This is quite a shame, as I think we need a strong left-wing website in the UK."
Wot, no CiF..? ;)
Seriously though, there are decent Left-wing inclined blogs out there, such as Harry's Place, Stumbling and Mumbling, etc.
It really is shit.
A metaphor for the useless regime they serve.
Most of the people who write for Comment Is Free end up going through the shredder once people get to say what they think. If the best they can do is Polly Toynbee, the likes of Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes can sleep easily at night.
I may be missing the point entirely, but to me it looks nothing like the blogs I visit on t'internet. It looks rather more like a hastily designed leftie website with a few 'trash the tories' articles, and the promise of some 'big guns' support (monikers plastered down the left hand side) through the written word (heavily censored no doubt).
As has been said, if the tories are so flippin' awful, and are the do nothing party, then surely the do something party should have all these amazing things to write about, given their innate ability to fall in sewers and always smell of roses.
I think Gordon must be the second coming, and we must bow down before his greatness, in awe and unblinking wonder.
It truly is tragic that they cannot even create a bloody blog without making it over complex and just....bland.
God 'elp us all. They cannot be human but must be alien. And maybe it was them that crashed their mother ship into that wind turbine when Gordy was travelling on his UK tour last week?
Could it also explain the new bouffant?
Lots of hair raising warp speed?
Please send 'em to another planet post haste.
Yes the Labourlist offers nothing new. I think it has failed already - Draper is suffering a drooper on the website plan! He has gone off Half - Cocked. Given the media interest he generated - If Nick Clegg = Neil Kinnock had been in all the papers like that it would have been a real Boon!
It's not very good, end of. Or as Dolly would put it, 'its not verry god. end off.'
its so shit i wont even bother looking, cant abide anyone from the Labour party anyway
"Where Labour Minded People Come Together. A lovely vision, it has to be said. So it is a circle jerk, after all then."
Totally different to ConHome then.
Actually, Miller, as has been pointed out again and again, ConservativeHome concerns itself very much with assessing the policies and behaviour of the Cameroons in addition to those of the governing party.
LabourList has not done so - and won't - and so it's nowt like ConservativeHome.
The leftist herd mentality is so beautifully exposed for what it is on LabourList. Free thinkers all waiting to be told what to think. Feeble.
Also, as has been said on here before, they sound desperate. Nothing but attacks on the Tories, which lends the Tories more and more credibility as Labour obviously feel that they've had it.
It's been a very sad feature of the last 11 years that the majority of Labour campaigning has involved stating what Labour feels it is not. i.e. "Not Tory thus nice, useful, competent". This fundamentally fallacious nonesense has led to so very many of the governmental disasters which have befallen the country.
Ah well, wasted breath I'm sure because the leftist mind-set admits no possibility of error. Never mind. Gordon's going to lose the next election and be hated like few people in our history.
Was there ever any doubt that it would parrot labour policy and the "attack of the day"?
More interestingly why is more not being made of Gordon Brown's inability to multiply £5 by 52 weeks at PMQs today? I make that £260, Gordon Brown thinks it is £370...
More here
Was hoping for something vaguely stimulating but zilch. Sorry, Dolly, but shan't be back.
Why would you wish it well?
They are not our friends. I don't want to debate or spar with them. I want them out of office, out of public life, out of jobs. Gone. Hanging from lampposts ideally.
Let me be clear - this is the leftist mind set (Opening quote from Karl Popper's "The Open Society and it's Enemies"):
The greatest principle of all is that nobody,
whether male or female, should be without
a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody
be habituated to letting him do anything at
all on his own initiative ; neither out of zeal,
nor even playfully. But in war as well as in
the midst of peace to his leader he shall
direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And
even in the smallest matter he should stand
under leadership. For example, he should
get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals
. . only if he has been told to do so . . In
a word, he should teach his soul, by long
habit, never to dream of acting independently,
and in fact, to become utterly incapable of it.
PLATO OF ATHENS. 350 B.C.
That's the left. Have a nice jolly chat over a cuppa with them? Wish them well. No. Way.
"So there we have it, a tacit admission that LabourList will be nothing more than a government parrot".
What no mention of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch?
Boring site is boring, it's just a Conservative attack site, nothing more nothing less. "They just don't get it"
Iain, you say: 'I have wished LabourList well, and continue to do so.'
I wish exactly the opposite. And I bet my wish comes true sooner than yours.
Finally, I bothered to look at Labourlist - I won't bother again. It is CRAP!
Does Dolly really think A List Blogs listing the left centre ones and Z list, including to their eternal shame, your own excellent Blog, is funny/controversial/down with the lefty kids?
It just drives me to spasms of uncontrollable swearing; much like GB at PMQ's!
I've read Labourlist and will be popping back now and then merely to see if it's improved or whether there is now anything of interest. However, I from what I've seen so far, Labourlist is crap. The site is clunky, badly presented, over moderated and is amateurish to boot. Labourlist has made the mistake of seeing itself as an extension of Labour party HQ-the odd article or two by Commissars of various ranks, cheered on by party hacks - anything critical or off message gets moderated out. In deed the articles I have read so far have been so vacuous, so uncritically partisan that they are boring to the point of being unreadable for people like me who have never been a member of any political party. Draper has got to understand that it's the comments that generate the most interest in blogs - the main articles only kick off the debate - so without interesting or challenging comments his blog will surely and deservedly fail.
@John Backhouse. You made some excellent important points in your earlier comments viz:
".. ConservativeHome concerns itself very much with assessing the policies and behaviour of the Cameroons in addition to those of the governing party. LabourList has not done so - and won't....."
" The leftist herd mentality is so beautifully exposed for what it is on LabourList. Free thinkers all waiting to be told what to think. Feeble."
Having regard to these points Draper's blog is possibly doing more damage than good to the Labour Party's cause. The standard of article and comment on Labourlist are so poor that it must seriously put off anyone visiting that site from voting Labour, other than dyed in the wool party hacks. Is Labourlist being 'subbed' by Conservative Party HQ? If not, they should send Draper a cheque quick to ensure it stays open.
The site has not been "launched" Iain (and others). This is a "pre-roll" which Draper's had the guts to do in public. There is an excellent post from Weds PM from Sunder Katwala and though he has other outlets this one may have more traction with the centre of the party ... as some of them are also writing for it.
Give it a bit of time. You write as if your own and Guido's and CH and so on all arrived perfectly formed and they clearly did not.
Post a Comment