Labour blog New Direction is confirming a rumour I heard a week or so ago that the new owner of the New Statesman, Mike Danson, is about to pump money into LabourHome, to try to enable it to rival the success of ConservativeHome.
Interestingly, I understand that LabourHome turned down a rival funding offer from a right of centre source. UPDATE: Guido is naming PoliticsHome...
Contrary to what some left of centre bloggers have been saying (HERE and HERE), I actually welcome this as I think it is healthy for each political viewpoint to have a powerful online presence. Most sensible people on the left recognise that their blogging efforts have not received the same attention as those of us on the right. The advent of blogs like Liberal Conspiracy have liften the profile of the left of centre blogosphere, and despite their unbalanced antipathy towards me personally, I think that can only be a good thing for blogging in general.
The question now is whether LabourHome can live up to Mike Danson's expectations. Jag Singh has the undoubted technical expertise to develop it into a great site, but Danson will surely have questionmarks over the ability of Alex Hilton - a selected Labour Party PPC (yes, I know, I know) - to make the site work editorially in the same way that Tim Montgomerie (who has no electoral ambitions) has made ConHome work. Can he, as editor, be as controversial as he would sometimes need to be? Admittedly, when he was on GMTV with me a few weeks ago he stated that Gordon Brown had only two weeks in office unless he pulled it around, so maybe those fears are ungrounded.
Anyway, I wish them well.
UPDATE: Guidoreckons it's not a cash injection, it's a sale. He speculates that if LabourHome is worth a five figure sum, blogs like his and mine must be worth seven figures. I think not. No one's worth anything without a buyer, and
I am not sure either of us would relish emulating Cristiano Ronaldo and becoming 'slaves'!
Strong reports that Alastair Campbell is going to 'help out' Gordon Brown.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Surely Alastair Campbell is a 'has-been' too?
Why can't British politics move forward - into the 21th century?
I'm so bored by Gordon Brown and this Labour government ...they are always looking backwards...
We need a new leader and a new government.
Not Alastair Campbell.
I see Politics Home failed to buy Labour Home then.
ReplyDeletePresumably you have also written to John MacDougall to (a) apologise and (b) wish him well?
ReplyDeleteAlastair Campbell or the like would turn round what is currently one way traffic for the Tories. How on earth are they getting away with sleaze story after sleaze story and almost no digging on any of them?
ReplyDeleteNot to mention distortion and misery on good news stories even where they are not about clear party political metrics. Just good news. Like on crime for example.
Where are the Ray Lewis exposes? Why is Alan Duncan getting such an easy ride on all the oil money slushing his way? Spelman? Those MEPs? Some of those other funders.
Those links to LC and Bob don't suggest that you'd have a problem with leftish blogs getting stronger do they? But they do suggest that apart from a few front runners on the right the other 99% of the blogosphere is fairly even with mid and low traffic blogs of all persuasions. So that your narrative tends to exaggerate the right's alleged dominance of the blogs.
I certainly think reducing the voting to 10 rather than 20 picks will tend to concentrate the blogs voted for in your annual survey.
"Anyway, I wish them well."
ReplyDeleteYou're a kinder man than me then. Frankly what I wish on anyone who supports these socialist scum is unprintable on a polite blog...
Z.
The first link is to Tom Miller's excellent "New Direction" which used to go by "Newer Labour" ... not Labour Outlook who run the story with a correct hat tip.
ReplyDeleteSeven-figure sum indeed.
ReplyDeleteGuido really is the most ridiculous share-hyper.
There's only one thing guaranteed to get Left wing bloggers of their arses, A Tory Government.
ReplyDeleteLabourhome is the pits. Why they are keeping Alex Hilton is beyond me. They can tart up the website anyway they like, but if you are selling sh*te in a pretty box, its still sh*te
ReplyDelete21st century too
ReplyDelete(See what happens when you try to work and type on blogs at the same time!? TYPOs... Blogs are such a distraction!)
:)
Iain,
ReplyDeleteTotally off topic, and you may already know, but I have just discovered that one can purchase Zimbabwe bank notes on eBay for vastly more than they are actually worth. It is almost as if they are now souvenirs.
Thanks for the link Iain, but I didn't say anything to the contrary. In fact I said your lists "provided a valuable service to political blogging and helped to raise people's awareness of the range of blogs 'on the market'."
ReplyDeleteI also provided a link for people to participate in the ballot if they so wished, so please don't deliberately misrepresent what I actually said.
I gave my reason for not participating the fact that you encouraged left bloggers to get involved, and then later rubbished them. Particularly your comments:
On January 7th…
Maybe it (The Independent) should just turn itself into a good, readable lefty blog. Let’s face it, there isn’t much competition.
and on May 4th…
If anyone needed proof as to why the left wing blogosphere is so rubbish, this is it.
I think that was dishonest, and as I had spent quite a bit of time assisting you to compile the 'left' list I was annoyed to see them trashed in that way. So that is why I decided not to bother myself. what others do is entirely up to them.
Doubts about Alex Hilton?? Anyone in their right mind would have doubts about that bile-spewing, ignorant moron. The fact that he is/was a selected PPC says rather more about the Labour Party however!
ReplyDeleteShare-hyper, moi? Guido offers excellent investment advice. I think Danson has had a bargain. U.S. sites are trading on 20 to 30 times revenue.
ReplyDeleteArianna Huffington sold $12m of advertising last year....
despite their unbalanced antipathy towards me personally
ReplyDeleteOh come on Iain, I have nothing against you personally. But it does annoy me when you rubbish left blogs as if there's nothing useful or intelligent out there at all.
If you're allowed to slag off left blogs, aren't we allowed to slag you off? All's fair?
Anyone who has followed Alex Hilton's Recess Monkey Blog (which he has had for quite a while now) will have noticed that it has ceased to be interesting, funny or especially accurate. It used to be all of these things and also carried stories that were not in Labour's best interests too and was usually worth a read.
ReplyDeleteHowever all it is now is a boring and often inaccurate series of nasty personal attacks upon individual Conservatives for not thinking the same way that Hilton does.
If he continues to be allowed to run Labourhome.com then it has little, if any future, except as an unread and uninteresting mouthpiece for a Government that no-one trusts, listens to, or wants in power any more.
Iain has actually done the reader the favour of linking to the posts he's riled about (a departure from normal practice) so that those who can be bothered can read the criticism for themselves.
ReplyDeleteIf I read the posts correctly, both were posted before news of the Labourhome deal broke, and so cannot have been commenting on Iain's presumed position on it: even though in his post he seems to suggest that they have. Both posts make a broader point about Iain's claims to impartiality in organising a poll of political bloggers, given his partisan attitude to the blogosphere in the past.
Oooh, get you Mrs Angry.
ReplyDeleteThe left won't play so I'll trash them all in the same petulant way. And you wonder why half the blogosphere couldn't care less about your poll?
I wonder where Guido heard those rumours? Surely not in the same office he shares with Jag.
ReplyDeleteThis wouldn't be hype, would it?
Sunny said...
ReplyDelete"as if there's nothing useful or intelligent out there at all."
On a rare day perhaps. Still won't be interesting though. Or funny.