Bloggers at the G20

Both ConHome and Tom Harris have been muttering about not being invited to the Bloggers tent at the G20. This sparked off something in my memory so I have just been trawling through my Deleted Items, and came across an email from Oxfam on 16 March, which invited me to ask my readers to nominate bloggers to take part. It was, however, part of an email which was about something else altogether. It's an Oxfam initiative rather than a government one, although Wee Dougie Alexander seems to be claiming credit.

Oxfam has initiated a 'bloggers tent' at the upcoming G20 London summit. We are inviting the blogosphere to nominate 50 influential bloggers (a mix of high profile bloggers, those with a focus on poverty/climate change and bloggers from the developing world) to attend the G20 summit and engage with policy makers there. It's an exciting opportunity for Oxfam (and other NGOs) to work with a variety of bloggers and make sure world leaders and delegates at the G20 hear the voice of the developing world.

Given your expertise in this area, you may wish to take part in the nominations or ask your readers to nominate you. Nominations end on Wednesday afternoon. You can find more details at: http://www.whitebandradar.org/en/g20voice

To be honest, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes rather than be put in a tent in a remote part of East London with 50 other bloggers with nothing to write about, so I didn't take them up on their kind offer. But it seems they didn't contact any of the other reasonably well known bloggers.

Tom Watson felt lonely. He asked where the 1,000 bloggers were, he was expecting to attend. Might have helped if he had emailed any of us, I guess. An invitation from the government might have carried more weight than a competition from a charity.