Liberal Democrat Voice draws attention to the views of Hazel Blears on political blogging which are so out-of-touch that they would be funny if they didn't come from a key figure in neo-Stalinist New Labour. (Lord Lester, that long-time defender of liberty, has given up his advisory rôle in the administration, be it noted.)
Yes, Guido Fawkes is the most widely-read blog (though his frequent restatements of this fact, and his putting-down of Iain Dale and the Telegraph, reveal a certain nervousness). Yes, he is a high Tory by inclination. But he is required reading because he exposes corruption in high places, in the Conservative as well as the Labour parties. And he is readable.
That is also true of virtually all the liberal and democratic blogs. In addition to the ones linked to in the first paragraph, there is the superb The People's Republic of Mortimer* from which you can link to so many others I don't have the time to list here (though I must pick out Steph Ashley's "Dib Lemming"). Top of my list is, of course, Peter Black, one of the earliest and still the best Welsh one. Glyn Davies would no doubt protest against being described as a liberal, but he is not a rightwing Conservative in the sense that Blears and her ilk use the term. And he is informative, and readable.
This is more than can be said of the average Labour blog, and this is probably what has caused Ms Blears' expression of sour grapes. Too often I have seen the announcement of a new Labour blog, only to find that it is merely a feed from the Labour PR machine. There is only one Labour MP's blog which I head for when a view from an individual socialist is required, and that is Paul Flynn's (again, a long-established one).
If by "left-wing", Ms Blears means "radical", then there are blogs a-plenty. Very few of them are Labour blogs, though, and one cannot see the situation changing when the Labour party goes into opposition.
*though I still can't quite forgive AM her occasionally-expressed metropolitan prejudices.
1 comment:
Don't worry, I don't really forgive myself. I have a love/hate relationship with London and am (in my defence) currently trying to leave!
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