Left Blogs: Will 2010 Be Their Year?

In a thought provoking article for this week's New Statesman, James Crabtree (Deputy Editor of Prospect Magazine) asserts that the left wing blogosphere will come of age in 2010 and will finally catch up with the success of blogs on the right.

I don't buy the argument that right of centre blogs have been successful purely because the right is on opposition. It may be small part of the explanation, but there is far more to it than that. Those who believe left of centre blogs will become more successful purely by dint of Labour being in opposition are both deluded and complacent.

I would argue that in terms of writing, and debating 2009 was actually the year the left came of age on the blogosphere. And indeed, I would further argue that the right made no headway whatsoever. The same faces are at the top of the right wing blogging tree who were there in 2008 and 2007. But look at the left wing blogs which made the top 5 left wing blogs in my end of year awards poll...

1. Tom Harris
2. Labour List
3. Alastair Campbell
4. Tom Watson

Two of those four started their blogs during 2009. As did Left Foot Forward, seen by many as the blog with the best prospect of rivalling the success of ConservativeHome. Left Foot Forward, LabourHome and LabourList are all group blogs, which have two things in common with each other. They are financed by outside interests. LFF receives money to fund its editor Will Straw and an assistant, while LabourHome is owned and financed by New Statesman owner Mike Danson. LabourList received initial seed funding from the trade union movement, but following the Draper debacle has found it difficult to raise funds to pay its talented editor, Alex Smith (although he tells me funds are in place which will see him through to the election).

And that's my point. Whatever the political situation after May, I think the Left's task in the blogosphere will be made all the easier if it has several group-based sites which are well funded. If they are to challenge what James Crabtree refers to as the Man U, Chelsea & Arsenals (ConHome, me and Guido) they need to break out of the blogging equivalent of the Football League Championship. Because at the moment, to use Crabtree's parlance, they may be described as the West Bromwich Albion, Crystal Palace and Derby County of political blogging.

There are also signs of some new individual bloggers raising their game, getting a profile and being quoted and interviewed in the MSM. Bevanite Ellie is one and Hopi Sen is another. Sunder Katwala's Next Left is yet another. But should that one criteria by which we judge success in the blogosphere? I would argue yes, but it shouldn't be the only one. Reader numbers are important too. And it is here that the Left continues to lag behind the three big sites on the right. None of the left of centre blogs seem to publish their statistics



Alexa isn't the best measure of traffic, but for these purposes it is good enough as it shows the trend. LabourHome and Left Foot Forward barely register. Tom Harris has the highest tradffic levels of all these sites, but I know that his traffic is about a fifth of that of my blog or ConservativeHome. I've stopped doing monthly Statporn figures but traffic continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace than before. Will Labour going into Opposition provide the rocket boost that left wing blogs need to take on the right? Very possibly, and it is here they can learn a lesson from ConservativeHome, which came into prominence during the 2005 Tory leadership contest. Crabtree agrees...

But rather than the election itself, it will most likely be the forthcoming Labour leadership election that will truly give birth to this blogging movement. The bloodletting between Labour's left and right flanks will largely happen online, where disgruntled members will duke out years of anger in blog-to-blog combat. Blogs do best when they cover subjects whose minutiae are ignored by the mainstream media, as was true on the right during the 2005 Conservative leadership contest, and more recently the coverage of selections for individual parliamentary seats.

Whichever of LabourList, Left Foot Forward and LabourHome manages to dominate the agenda will emerge as the true left of centre rival to ConHome.

James Crabtree goes on to write...

Yet if or when Labour loses the election, the latent left "netroots" will likely surpass their Tory counterparts. The spark will be Budget savings. Team Cameron will look less cuddly when their first emergency Budget is followed by bloody cuts. Activists concerned about the "Osborne axe" hovering over their school or hospital will gather on the web. Every word uttered by a Conservative in the past five years is online, making accusations of hypocrisy and inconsistency trivially easy to stand up. With campaigns to oppose every major cut likely, Osborne - a long-time admirer of online politics - will become a hate figure for progressive bloggers.

This new movement will not lack for professional help. After the election, there will be plenty of unemployed Labour special advisers (and even ex-MPs) looking for jobs and revenge. They know where the unexploded ordnance is buried around Whitehall, and how to use Freedom of Information laws to set it off. And while setting up magazines or think tanks - the staples of political renewal 1.0 - is expensive and time-consuming, founding new attack blogs is cheap and easy.

Yes, it is indeed cheap to set up a blog, but it's not easy to get an audience, as many have found. Most bloggers still find it difficult to get more than a few hundred readers a day. But Crabtree's words betray a degree of complacency. Left wing blogs won't suddenly become popular just because a Conservative government becomes unpopular. Osborne is already a hate figure for so-called 'progressive bloggers'. That doesn't translate into extra readers. No, the challenge is for left wing bloggers to break out of their left wing box and attract general readers - non Labour supporters, those who just happen to be interested in politics. My blog gets a large audience because a third of the readers don't agree with my politics. I have created an environment where non Conservatives can feel at home and part of the debate. They know I'm a Conservative, but not a blind one. I'm in the Conservative Party and not run by the Conservative Party. And that's a real problem for the Left more generally. The most popular left of centre blogs (with one exception, Liberal Conspiracy) are to one extent or another creatures of or closely associated with the Labour Party itself. LabourList started off as a direct initiative of the party centrally, even if they tried vainly to hide the fact. It is true that it has now become independent of the Party but it still seems to be a cheerleader and a place for people to defend rather than discuss. Left Foot Forward may not be a creature of the Party but its editor is the son of a Cabinet Minister. That's not his fault, and while his surname may open some doors, it calls into question the site's true independence. And no matter how independent they may appear from time to time, both of the Toms, Watson and Harris, are Labour MPs and in the end there are lines which neither can cross.

Contrast that with the party affiliations of the four most popular right of centre blogs. Neither Guido nor Dizzy are members of the Conservative Party. Tim Montgomerie is completely independent of the Party and isn't afraid to disagree with the Party line. I may have political ambitions (hanging by a thread!) but I hold no office within the Party - either elected or appointed. The point is that only the blinkered could really seriously believe that any of the four of us take any kind of instruction from Conservative Central Office. Kerry McCarthy genuinely believes that we do just that - that the online fundraising campaign in aid of her Tory opponent was coordinated by CCHQ. The truth is that it was an example of internet cascading. One thing led to another. I launched the fundrising campaign, then Tory Bear (unbeknown to me) created a website and it went on from there. That's what happens on the internet but it's so difficult for some people on the left that there can never be a successful command and control in the political blogosphere. It's what Derek Draper could never get his head round. And it's why he met his political end. And it's why Kerry McCarthy just doesn't get it and is destined to fail in her role as Labour's internet coordinator.

But let's get back to Crabtree's article. He believes there won't be any shortage of people willing to fund nascent left of centre sites once the true 'horrors' of a Tory government become apparent...

Cheap though such sites might be, there will be money, after the election, to help get more off the ground. Unions, left-wing charities and bruised Labour millionaires will cast around for exciting anti-Tory projects to bankroll. Already, one such group - called 38 Degrees (the angle at which avalanches begin), funded by the estate of Anita Roddick - is trying to re-create the success of MoveOn.org, the hugely influential American group. Many other such organisations could emerge following the election, kicking off a new, blogging industrial complex fuelled by union and charitable cash.

Hmmm. It's possible, but I wonder. If I were looking to donate a large sum of money to a start up blog or website I'd want to know where the readers were going to come from. It's all very well being "anti-Tory" but that is actually just as likely to turn off an audience than attract one. Partisan hackery is rarely very entertaining. Successful blogs are those which gain a personality, whether through an individual or a group. Readers need to buy into a product. I see no evidence of any recognition of this in James Crabtree's article. On we go...

From such developments, an obvious truth will emerge: the internet is not intrinsically amenable to either left or right. Dubious theories circulate that the online world is ideologically slanted to be either libertarian or collectivist. Instead, it is most usefully understood in British politics as an insurgent technology. It's where you go when you are on the outside and you need to beat an incumbent. In this way, the rise of the right-wing blogosphere has been pegged to two forces: people who strongly dislike Gordon Brown (such as Fawkes) and people who want their government back (such as the ConservativeHome activists).

What will emerge on the left will be different. The right-wing blogs are, in truth, a top-heavy affair, with little strength below their big three. Labour's new digirati will likely be broader and deeper, reflecting the greater political power and reach of the internet today relative to five years ago, when the Tory blogs began in earnest. And while there might be no Labour equivalent of Fawkes's poisonous, gossipy attacks, those anti-government leaks will still need somewhere to go.

There is no evidence to back up the assertion that Labour's new 'digirati' will be broader and deeper. In fact, what does that mean? If he means there will be more lefty blogs with a bigger audience I'd say that was living more in hope than expectation. There are more of them today, but few of them carry any weight or are thought to be of any influence or importance. That may - may - change, whether by virtue or government leak or talented writing. But it's a brave man who can predict that with any certainty.

As Guido points out, Sunny Hundal made some big claims when he launched Liberal Conspiracy back in 2007. "It will become ‘the hub’ of a revitalised left-wing blogosphere," he boasted. James Crabtree and Jon Bernstein seem to making similar claims,

Two years ago, the left of centre blogosphere barely existed. It was the Rymans League of blogging and I got a lot of flak for saying so at the time. But the truth was no one cared about any of the lefty blogs that existed and few people read them. A lot of progress has been made, and I certainly read far more left wing blogs than I used to - mainly because there are many more well written blogs out there. I don't have to agree with what they write, but they are great sources of ideas for blogposts for me to write here. Sunder Katwala and Hopi Sen in particular are blogs which, if either of the authors had the time to devote to them could become very serious players indeed. And here we come to the rub.

During 2009 I posted on average 6 times a day. It's what my readers have come to expect and it's one of the main reasons I have built up such a large readership, 50% of them visit my blog three or more times a day, and when they return they expect to see something new. Somehow I manage to combine this with my normal work. Of course blogging is not just about quantity, but it does play a part. You cannot build up a readership without regular posting. That's where group blogs will generally - but not always - be able to outdo blogs written by individuals.

Guido has posted his own thoughts, which are rather less charoitable than my own, but no less valid.

LabourList is, like LabourHome before it, a bit directionless and seems more about cheering up the troops than scaring the enemy. That might be a valid role. It is of course way better than back in Draper’s day. Boy, does Guido miss him. To match up to ConservativeHome’s influence and be taken as seriously by the host party as Tim Montgomerie is will take some doing.

• Sunny Hundal’s Liberal Conspiracy suffers from what Lenin would call an “infantilist disorder”, that is the kind of leftism Guido wants to see dominate the Labour Party in the next decade. A modernised version of the loony left of the eighties would be ideal fodder for this blog.
• Hopi Sen, Tom Watson and Tom Harris all write well, but are they really willing or able to put in the hours Dale does?
• As for Twitter, it isn’t going to win any votes and is a tool, not a means. Forget it.

The left has to get the post-election civil war out of the way first before it re-groups. Given that the online left is way to the left of the electorate, there is a good chance that the Labour blogosphere will help consign the Labour Party to irrelevance for a good while.

There is a good chance the Labour blogosphere will be as much of a hindrance to the Labour Party in 2010 as it was in 2009…

I am tempted to say, we can but hope. Joke.

Anyway, to conclude (at last), I think it's healthy that left of centre blogs are more interesting than they were a year ago. 2010 is going to be a huge year for politics on the internet. There will no doubt be some unseemly spats between right and left bloggers. But let's hope there is some cracking debate too. If not, we all need to wonder why we bother.

Hattip for graphic at the top to Guido.

2009 Blog Reader Survey

Every year I conduct a survey of the readers of my blog. Its aim is severalfold. I genuinely want to know what you like or dislike about the blog - what you think I am getting right and what I am not. In addition, it's an opportunity to find out more about you, your politics and background. It's partly because I am nosy and partly because I can then make a more accurate pitch to potential advertisers. Advertisers are taking blogs increasingly seriously, but they need accurate information about a blog's readers if they are going to pay for space. There are several sections...

1. Age/residence/job
2. Your blogging habits
3. Your views on this blog
4. Which other blogs you read
5. Voting habits
6. Media habits
7. Demographics

Anyway, there are 30 questions and it should take you about ten minutes to complete. Last year, I think more than 2,000 of you took part. Hopefully we can beat that this time.

Click HERE to take the survey.

An Association of Political Bloggers?

Evan Price is suggesting HERE that a bloggers' trade association is formed, partly because of the growing libel threats. I wondered what other bloggers might think. My initial reaction is not huegly positive, but I am persuadable. It just seems to be that blogging is such an individualistic activity, that forming as association would turn it mainstream. On the converse side, it may well be a way of protecting against cases of libel through a collective insurance scheme.

What do you think?

Bridget Prentice's Revenge on Bloggers?

It looks like the Stalinists within the government are going to try to succeed where the European Commission has failed - to silence blogs. PoliticalBetting has a story today alleging that the government intends to tighten up libel laws to make it easier to sue bloggers. Mike Smithson writes...

My understanding is that a green paper will be published in the New Year setting out plans to make it easier for people to sue for defamation. The idea is to cut down the disproportionate costs of bringing a libel action and there’s even a suggestion that there could be a small claims court for libel.

The move is bound to be seen as a way of dealing with government irritants such as Guido and to a lesser extent Iain Dale.

It could have serious consequences for PB as well. The ability for people to publish comments instantly is one of the things that makes this site. If everything had to be moderated before going out then PB could not exist in the form that we know at the moment.

Nor could this blog. This all seems to have emanated from a debate on libel in Westminster Hall on Monday. Winding up the debate, the Justice Minister Bridget Prentice (who has figured on this blog HERE and HERE in recent weeks) said...

We will publish as soon as possible in the new year a consultation paper on defamation and the internet, and later, as part of the proposed consultation, we will also seek views on the abolition of criminal libel in respect of defamatory material. On the issue of conditional fee agreements, some important points have been made about opportunities for people with very little means, and we are therefore very keen to ensure that the current situation continues. We are also concerned about the disproportionate cost of defamation proceedings, we are considering whether additional measures might be necessary to control those costs, and we will consult on that shortly.

Should we be worried? Well, let's not go over the top until we see the consultation paper, but anything which it makes it easier for people to sue for libel will certainly have an impact on how independent and privately run blogs operate. A good thing too, some might say. But in any change to the law, the government must bear in mind that individual bloggers are not in a position to get legal advice and have to be their own editors. Sometimes they may make errors with no malice intended. All this means that MSM bloggers will become even more powerful as they have the backing of large organisations if something goes wrong. And it means that blogs like this may have to operate in a much more 'vanilla' environment where no risks are taken.

If Labour want to stop me blogging, this is exactly the way to go about it, I guess. But I would hope that even they would in the end see sense. We shall see.

A New System of Commenting on This Blog

The Comment threads on this blog have not quite descended to Guido-esque levels yet, but it seems to me that's where they are heading. Eighteen months I carried out a short-lived experiment with Comment Registration. This meant that readers could still post anonymously but had to register a Google account first. I didn't carry on with it because it seemed to discourage a lot of people from commenting. However, things have moved on apace since then.

The number of comments this blog receives has gone up exponentially as the number of readers increases. I sometimes get 300-400 comments a day, sometimes many more. It is increasingly difficult to moderate all those comments properly. If I am out for a few hours a block of 40 or 50 build up, which I then sometimes have to approve en bloc without having the time to read them all. You can imagine the inherent dangers there.

It's also a bar to realtime, live discussion when comments remain unapproved for any length of time. But I simply cannot harness myself to my laptop or Blackberry 24-7.

In addition, the number of anonymous comments on some threads make it impossible to follow who is saying what. Indeed, sometimes, I wonder if some of the anonymous commenters aren't in fact the same people, pretending to be different people. That was quite apparent on some recent George Osborne related threads.

So, what to do?

Blogger has now also made registration easier, in that now, if you have a Wordpress, LiveJournal, AIM or Typepad account you can log in under an Open ID system. It's a way to authenticate user comments without requiring readers to have a Google Account. For example, let's say your name is Brady and you have a LiveJournal profile, but no Google Account. With OpenID, you can now comment on here using your OpenID credentials and identify yourself as the owner of http://brady.livejournal.com, instead of commenting anonymously.

The whole point of this is not to prevent people commenting anonymously. I know there are quite a few politicians and civil servants who comment anonymously for wholly understandable reasons. I do not want to discourage such comments at all, and this system won't do that. All it requires is that you take one minute to set up a Google account with a username and password. The username can be anything you like. However, try to make it something unique to you, rather than just call yourself Robert or Jane. You shouldn't have to type in your username and password each time you want to comment if you have cookies enabled. Blogger will remember the information.

I want the comment threads on this blog to be more welcoming and less intimidating. Strong views and strong language are fine, but insults and intimidation are not.

Initially, I will allow all comments through unmoderated, as that is the best way to enable real, live discussion. Hopefully, this new system will filter out the nutcases and trolls who have infested comment threads here in recent months.

If anyone has trouble understanding the new system or registering a Google account, email me by clicking the CONTACT button at the top of the page.

Let's see if this works. If it doesn't, we'll revert to plan B (not that I have one :). I won't put a time limit on this experiment, but I need to give it longer than I did last time.

EU Mounts Another Attempt to Regulate Blogs

Some time I ago I warned that that the EU had aspirations to regulate blogs. I suppose in the back of my mind I didn't really think it would amount to anything. Sadly I was wrong. Dan Hannan reports today that a group of Euro MPs has issued a report. Paragraph O states...

O. whereas weblogs are an increasingly common medium for self-expression by media professionals as well as private persons, the status of their authors and publishers, including their legal status, is neither determined nor made clear to the readers of the weblogs, causing uncertainties regarding impartiality, reliability, source protection, applicability of ethical codes and the assignment of liability in the event of lawsuits.

They don't seem to like blogs or even understand the concept of blogging, do they? Recommendation 9 says...

Suggests clarifying the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs and encourages their
voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and
interests of their authors and publishers;

We all know that 'voluntary' soon becomes 'compulsory'. My label is the title of my blog. That is quite sufficient, and I don't need some faceless Eurocrat to tell me otherwise.

Dan Hannan says...

Bruno Waterfield recently reported on a secret Commission report about the danger posed by online libertarians: "Apart from official websites, the internet has largely been a space left to anti-European feeling. Given the ability to reach an audience at a much lower cost, and given the simplicity of the No campaign messages, it has proven to be easily malleable during the campaign and pre-campaign period."

The EU's solution? Why, to regulate blogs! Back in June (hat tip, EU Referendum), MEPs began to complain that unlicensed blogs were "polluting" cyberspace with "misinformation and malicious intent". They wanted "a quality mark, a disclosure of who is writing and why".

At the time, I dismissed it as the ramblings of a single dotty MEP. Not even the European Parliament, I thought, would actually try to censor the internet. I was wrong. We now have the full report and, sure enough, it wants to "clarify the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs", and to ensure their "voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and interests of their authors and publishers".

With a glorious lack of self-awareness, the Euro-MPs behind the report elaborate their motives: "The report points out that the undetermined and unindicated status of authors and publishers of weblogs causes uncertainties regarding impartiality, reliability, source protection, applicability of ethical codes and the assignment of liability in the event of lawsuits. It recommends clarification of the legal status of different categories of weblog authors and publishers as well as disclosure of interests and voluntary labelling of weblogs."

This way lies madness. I'd rather give up blogging that co-operate with these wretched, obsessive regulators. Of course, I wouldn't have to give up at all, seeing as my blog is hosted in America. They really don't understand the internet, do they?

Europhiles will now, no doubt, accuse me of scaremongering, and point out that it's only a Parliament proposal and has now to be agreed by the Commission and the Member States, and in all likelihood won't get very far. I'm too old to fall for that old trick. Perhaps I'd better start lobbying Tom Watson!

The Third Most Shaggable Blogger in Britain...

The Witanagemot Blogging Awards have been published today HERE. Modesty forbids me mentioning how many awards I won, but the one I have most pleasure in telling you about is this. I came third in the MOST SHAGGABLE BLOGGER category, albeit joint third with Devil's Kitchen. We were pipped to this most prestigious of awards by Trixy and Bethan Jenkins AM.

So I guess this mans Chris Mounsey and I can lay claim (titter) to the title of Most Shaggable Male Bloggers. It does make one wonder how partially sited the electorate were in this competition, doesn't it?

PS Anyone who suggests that the photo on the right looks like Peter Mandelson will be summarily executed. Isn't it amazing what the ravages of 25 years have done? :)

New Attempt to Regulate Blogs Won't Work

The Telegraph tells us this morning that a new regulatory body is about to be set up to police blogs and social network sites. The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee will make the recommendation in a report to be published tomorrow. According to the Telegraph...

Under the proposals, the new internet watchdog would operate in a similar way to other industry bodies such as the Press Complaints Commission, which enforces a code of practice for the UK newspaper and magazine industry, covering accuracy, discrimination and intrusion. The watchdog would not have any statutory powers to impose fines but would investigate complaints and most likely publish its decisions in instances when its guidelines have been breached. It is understood that it would also be able to order bloggers and social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace to take down offensive messages or photographs.

A source who has seen the report said that the committee wanted to give the public "a form of redress" "At the moment consumers don't know where to go if they want to complaint about something they have seen on the internet," the source said. "The absence of any industry body is leading to a great deal of confusion and to widely differing practices.

"The idea is that a self-regulatory body like the Advertising Standards Authority would be set up to make sure that members, including, internet companies and search engines, subscribe to the code and abide by rulings."

I'd be interested in your views on this. In my view, self regulation works perfectly well. If someone makes a complaint to me about an abusive comment - or something I have writen which they believe is incorrect or offensive - I look it up and then decide whether to remove it, amend it or leave it as it is. If people don't agree with my decision they don't come back to my blog. It's a simple, free market, and it works. How on earth would this body seek to regulate avowed swear blogs or attack blogs like Devil's Kitchen?

The truth is that without a statutory base, any regulatory body which is voluntary will be toothless from the start. I cannot conceive that I would sign up to a regulatory code and I doubt many other blogs would. Because in the end, we would all ask: what possible benefit to us could there possibly be?

Barack's Boring Blog & Blog Trouble for McCain

Newsweek has an indepth article looking at the blogs of Barack Obama and John McCain. McCain is revealed as a huge Abba fan. Maybe he will get my support, after all! The article says that Obama's blog is a bit boring while McCain's is much better - and that spells trouble for McCain's campaign. Read it HERE.

Where the MSM and the Blogosphere Become One

I have never been someone who believes the blogosphere and the mainstream media should be at each other's throats. I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I, seeing as I earn my living from various MSM outlets nowadays. There's an increasing overlap, whereby bloggers are now writing for and appearing on the MSN with increaed regularity and mainstream jourbalists are now blogging. It's very interesting to read Guido's post today on the subject of the number of people who visit various websites. Guido is more of a confrontationalist on this than me, as you will see in his post HERE.

I must say I do find it incredible that one man bands like him and me seem to be getting higher or equivalent numbers of readers (based on absolute unique visitors) than big MSM companies like ITN or the main political parties. Guido got 102,000 last month and I got 72,000. According to ComScore this is what other sites achieved during February...

• BBC News UK Politics 1,090,000
• itn.co.uk 96,000
• theyworkforyou.com 69,000
• Guardian Politics 67,000 (excl CiF)
• barackobama.com 56,000
• conservatives.com 40,000
• bnp.org.uk 37,000
• democraticunderground.com 32,000
• labour.org.uk 29,000

Obvously those figures may have increased since February, but the trend is clear. Now all we need to do is generate direct income so we can market our blogs better.

Does Size Always Matter ... In Blogging, I Mean

The Press Gazette has published a league table of the number of unique visitors for the biggest mainstream media news sites for January 2008.

BBC News 9.77 million
The Sun 4.54m
Guardian.co.uk 4.49m
Telegraph.co.uk 2.66m
The Times 2.65m
Mail 2.59m
New York Times 1.74m
Sky News 1.61m
CNN 1.44m
Independent 1.08m
Mirror 1.08m
Financial Times 0.86m
Manchester Evening News 0.54m*

When you consider that the top three most popular political blogs (Guido, ConHome and yours truly) get between 0.25 and 0.35m unique visitors a month, you have to say that's not bad considering we're all more or less one man bands, compared with the journalistic and marketing resources all the above organisations have at their disposal.

Frankly, the only way individual blogs will ever really compete for traffic with the MSM is to ally themselves with one of the MSM sites. But if they did that they would lose their unique identity, I suspect. The difference between here and the US is that the big US blogs tend to be group based blogs rather than individual ones. Some are even attracting venture capital. I can't see that happening here as the only really successful group blogs have been started by MSM organisations.

Strnagely, I do not see blogs as competing with anyone. Some may compete with each other, I suppose, but it is facile to suggest that an individual like me or Guido can truly compete with a blog run by a major corporation. But what does 'compete' actually mean? Does it purely mean blog traffic, or does it mean quantity and quality of writing? I may get higher traffic than the Spectator Coffee House but I cannot compete with them for frequency of posting or indeed quality of writing. And in the end, that means their traffic levels will, one day, overtake mine, I suspect.

In the end, what makes a blog succeed is its uniqueness. Is it doing something that no one else is? Is it filling a niche? Does it have a 'personality'? Look at all the most successful blogs and those are the criteria they meet - Guido, ConHome, Dizzy, PoliticalBetting, John Redwood, - the list goes on. Perhaps this is the reason why so few blogs on the left have 'made it' outside their own milieu - because they have failed in the uniqueness and personality test. Those that do meet it still fail to attract a mass audience. I'd put Hopi Sen, Dave's Part, Quaequam, Cicero's Songs, Bob Piper and NorfolkBlogger in this category, but I doubt whether any of them get a four figure unique visitor count each day. Does it matter? Not really in the short term, because a good blog is a good blog, no matter what level of readership it has. But in the long term people start asking themselves why they are bothering if few people are bothering to read what they have to say. They shouldn't. Most politicians would give their eye teeth to give a speech to an audience of two hundred. So if you are a candidate with a blog whose readership amounts to only a few hundred, that's the fact you should comfort yourself with! It really is a truism in blogging to say that it isn't always size that matters.

Nine Lords a Blogging...

Nine members of the House of Lords have started a group blog valled LORDS OF THE BLOG. It's a six month experiment, arranged by the Hansard Society. Barry Griffiths, the man behind the project says...

Nine Peers have come together from across the House to make short regular entries providing an insight into the business of the House of Lords and to talk about their own activities in and around the Chamber. Members will write and upload material and moderate user comments themselves. Find out why Lord Tyler decries the myth of a golden age of political reporting; Baroness D’Souza’s definition of a crossbencher and what Lord Norton has to say about Iain Dale’s request for nominations for the most fanciable political journalists. For the next six months the Hansard Society will evaluate the pilot, capturing data about the audience of the blog in order to assess its reach and value.

The pilot is funded by the House of Lords and will run for six months initially. The blog has been running on a development site since January to help get the contributing members up to speed. All the posts published during this test period will be available to read. Contributing Members include:

• Lord Soley
• Lord Norton
• Lord Tyler
• Lord Lipsey
• Lord Dholakia
• Baroness DSouza
• Lord Teverson
• Baroness Young of Hornsey
• Baroness Murphy

Spectator Recruits Two Leading Bloggers

The Spectator has recruited Stephen Pollard and Clive Davis to abandon their own blogs and blog under the Spectator banner. They can now be found HERE and HERE. Andrew Sullivan started it by joining up with Time Magazine in the US. I wonder if this will start a trend. There's no doubt that joining up with a major news publication will boost their respective hit rates, but will it mean that their independent views are compromised in any way? We'll soon find out.

Three Definitions of Blogging

Stephen Tall comes up with three definitions of a blog in an article on blogging he has written for the Parliamentary Monitor magazine.

Blog (n.): an online journal written by publicity-hungry politicians and self-opinionated journalist manqués, commenting on current political affairs with scant regard to fact or fairness, and accountable to nobody save their small band of obsessive readers.

Blog (n.): an online journal written and/or read by anyone in the democratic world, providing them with a platform to address issues of concern to them, and which is transforming the relationship between modern citizens and the traditional governing and media elites.

Blog (n.): my space to write about whatever’s delighted or annoyed me that day, forcing me to arrange half-formed thoughts into something semi-coherent for public consumption, keeping my thinking fresh and up-to-the-mark.

Discuss.

Who do so Few Candidates Have Blogs?

My friend Tracey Crouch has set up a blog. She's recently been selected as Tory candidate for Chatham & Aylesford. It set me thinking. Only 10 Tory candidates, out of around 110 selected so far, have blogs. Why?

I think it's quite simple. There is a real fear that blogs are dangerous. That you can write something which either might come back to haunt you later in your career, or that you will inevitably write something which the Party hierarchy disapproves of. This is very short-sighted. Blogs provide candidates with a cost-free way of communciating with their electorate, when they want, how they want, as often as they want. They can't replace printed literature and more traditional ways of voter communication, but they can compliment what candidates already so.

In my view there is a smple solution to this. CCHQ need to make clear that they positively encourage candidates to have blogs. I think there is a real recognition by Francis Maude that the positives of blogs far outweigh the negatives. There is no single best way to do a blog. Look at the examples out there and there's a tremedous variety. Here are the 1o Tory candidates with blogs. If I have missed any, let me know.

Andrea Leadsom, Andrew Percy, Brandon Lewis, Deirdre Alden, Kevin Davis, Esther McVey, Marcus Wood, Nick King, Trevor Ivory, Tracey Crouch.

PS Well, it's snowing in Washington. Off now on a second hand bookstore trawl.

Egyptian Blogger Jailed for Insulting Mubarak

Just as well I don't live in Egypt.

Let the Blog Wars Cease

Over the last few weeks a huge amount of damage has been done to the British blogosphere. Blogwars have broken out between various parties which have made us all appear like obsessive schoolschildren who have nothing better to do with our time than flame each other. It's developed into a pitch battle between left and right and emerged out of the investigations into the Smith Institute. It's time to call a halt to this before it all gets out of hand and writs are issued. The latest spat over the weekend where a group of bloggers accused another one of wanting in the past to aide the BNP was a spat too far.

I have been repeatedly accused of lying. I have not responded to these accusations because I have felt that if I do it will merely exacerbate the situation and prolong the torture. At times over the past fortnight I have felt what it is like to be the victim of stalking. Believe me, it is not pleasant. Some will say that by sticking my head above the parapet on certain issues I have only myself to blame. Maybe they're right, but what a sad situation we have got ourselves into. Others say that being attacked by left wing blogs on an issue where they feel vulnerable is an accolade. I do not share that view.

The British blogosphere has always been a community where people with different views and agendas have a common interest. I happily link to people on the left and they happily link to me - not just in sidebars but on real stories. Over the last few weeks this has changed. We're now in a situation where people who I have always regarded as sensible people, even friends, have decided that certain bloggers on the Right are their mortal enemies who must be destroyed. This must stop. If bloggers turn on each other we merely give fuel to the arguments put forward by Yasmin Alibhai Brown yesterday.

Guido has this morning 'outed' himself for the first time and confirmed the identity which anyone with a remote knowledge of how to use Google could have done for themselves months ago.

In the spirit of reaching out to those who seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with me I say this. I refuse to get dragged in to a war with you. You can keep sending over the missiles but I'm not firing back.

To XXXXX - and this is the first and last time I will be addressing him - I say this. You accuse me of calling you a 'nihilist'. I emphatically did not. The tape shows that someone else called Guido Fawkes a 'nihilist' in a discussion about your spat with him and I asked the question 'isn't XXXXX one too'? Until I looked back at the tape I couldn't even remember saying it. Now, I accept that you could draw the implication from that that I believed you to be one too but as I have said before, I actually had to look up what the word meant. If you really take offence at the question then I am happy to say sorry. But I am sure you have been called worse, as have I. I do not normally demand apologies or go to the lengths you have to get one.

XXXXX has also accused me of lying about my Wikipedia entry. He says I have written that I was not aware of the page until last week and provide a screenshot of edits on the page. When I wrote "I was not aware of this page until today" I was referring to the DISCUSSION page, linked to from my entry on which I wrote those words. Of course I was aware of the main page. I am not demanding an apology from him. It's an easy mistake to make. All I ask is that he accepts he was wrong. If he does indeed accept that, he will then presumably agree to remove the entry from his blog.

I have said all I have to say on this now. I won't entering any dialogue about it. Either this is accepted at face value or it isn't. If it is to be the latter. the feuding will continue to be very one sided, because I won't be playing. The reaction of my accusers will go a long way to demonstrating whether the British blogosphere moves beyond its tendency to self-obsess or not. As XXXXX might put it. Iain has spoken. End communication!

Is Yasmin Right? Does Blogging Impoverish Democracy?

I don't mind admitting I enjoyed myself yesterday on Sunday AM. The only other time I have been on the programme I did a paper review with Polly Toynbee and was extremely nervous. I remember locking swords with her on the Iraq war and her looking shocked that I should dare to disagree. Anyway, the point of this post is to draw your attention to a post by Oliver Kamm (blogger turned Times columnist) who thinks that Yasmin outargued me and that when she said that blogs are just a giant echo chamber and 'impoverish democracy' she was right.

Harry's Place comments: "So why does the rightwing Dale defend the messy but
essentially democratic and egalitarian nature of the blogosphere while the
ostensibly leftwing Alibhai-Brown sniffishly compares bloggers to 'bores in
bars'?"

That question seems to me less important than the debaters'
conclusions; Dale's are wrong and Ms Alibhai-Brown's right. There are good and
bad blogs, but the medium overall impoverishes our democracy. So far from being
"democratic and egalitarian", the proliferation of political blogs narrows the
range of opinion presented in the public square, to the extent that blogs are
taken seriously as an intermediary for debate.

So, is he right? You can guess my view. We'll talk about this more on Blogger TV on 18 Doughty Street at 9pm tonight when I'll be joined by Stephen Pollard, Ben Sherreard, Devil's Kitchen and Rachel North.

If you want to see the piece on Sunday AM click HERE. It's 28 minutes in.

UPDATE: Slugger O'Toole brings some sanity to the debate HERE.