The effectiveness of blogging (part 1): the Tory Stories story
In an interesting post on the internet-based campaigning, Anthony Painter says that the new blog Tory Stories, set up by Chuka Umunna and Jon Cruddas but as yet with no obvious direct contributions from them, “seems to have got off to a good start”.
In what way can Tory Stories possibly be said to be ”off to a good start”?
There have been a total of nine posts, none of them written by the two ‘names’ under whose auspices it has been set up. There are no comments, because they are not allowed.
All the stories appear to have been covered somewhere or other in the media already. None of the reports on Tory actions in local councils has been picked up again by any of the mainstream media as far as I can see; nor have the stories themselves, rather than the general site, been linked to by other bloggers.
I sent a first ‘story’ in at the weekend about my own local area in Lancashire, with a proposal for another one and the promise (this from the 2nd placed councillor blogger in the 2009 Total Politics awards) of much more to come if it was wanted. I’ve not yet had a reply. Even if they think the first story I’ve offered isn’t quite right (in fact it is), my reputation within the blogging industry should, if they’ve got any sense, mean they get straight back to their elders and betters in appropriately deferential terms.
In what way is Tory Stories, then, ”off to a good start”?
Now, I know that sounds really mean and negative, but I start like this in order to make my point (and, yeah, to attract a readership that thinks there might be a good old blogfight starting up).
Actually, I’ve got a lot of time for the whole Tory Stories thing. I take my hat off to Chuka and Jon for putting their name to a blog over which they know they’re unlikely to have much editorial control, in order to get it up and running with a few thousand hits. Even more, I take my hat off to the two young activists, Jeremy and Joe, who are committing so much time to the endeavour. The posts that have appeared so far are well-written, and the approach smacks of the determination to source all assertions which is helping to develop the reputation of what might be seen as its national level ‘sister blog’, Left Foot Forward.
And I don’t really mind that I’ve not had an answer to my email yet. I know that the blog is being run by Jeremy and Joe on a volunteer basis, and I’m happy to wait till they’ve got time.
My point is not to criticise the effort and energy behind Tory Stories, but rather to question Anthony (politely), and any other bloggers uncritically celebrating the arrival of Tory Stories and Left Foot Forward, on their assumptions about what makes an effective blog. (See here for a more critical review from the right.)
The key problem for the leftist blogosphere (I’m not interested in what problems the right blogosphere have) is that it’s becoming too self-referential. Judged by any objective measure of blogging effectiveness, Tory Stories cannot yet be judged any kind of success; even judged by Tory Stories’ own stated objectives, there’s nothing to show yet. The sole reason it’s being glorified is that it’s been publicised initially by two people who are known to the blogsophere.
Of course, promoting a blog in this way in its early days is no bad thing; it’s just a bit of hype. But underlying this desire on the part of the left blogosphere in general to ‘big up’ Tory Stories’, and indeed Left Foot Forward, is a wider malaise; quite simply, we have no real conception of what effectiveness is when it comes to blogging.
Is it about the number of hits? Is it about the number of links? Most bloggers will respond that it isn’t, that this is only a measure of reach, not of effectiveness. What effectiveness is really about for Labour-supporting blogs, surely, is reaching out beyond the tiny, tiny confines of blog readership and actually changing the frame of the debate, so that in the coming election people vote differently in the coming election from the way they might have otherwise have done. (For proper leftwing bloggers, for whom electoral success is only one dimension of the struggle, success will be measured by increased levels of general activism, and I’ll come back to that in part 2).
Perversely, it falls to Guido Fawkes (LFF) to make this clear in his comment on the effectiveness of Left Foot Forward.
LFF is, and most of the right-wing blogosphere gives you credit for this, the best new offering from the left. But what do you think you will achieve electorally? My estimate is slightly more than zero.
It may make tough reading, but he’s right.
Does that mean we should abandon all blog hope?
No, it doesn’t. I look forward to seeing how Tory Stories and Left Foot Forward develop, and I admire the talent and energy on both. I hope that they are able to draw in for a wider readership, and then for pick up by the wider press and the party’s election machinery, stories which not only compile existing information on Tory policies, but also break new, locally sourced revelation about Tory hypocrisy and incompetence-in-power.
They need to get beyond the facts and figures, and develop a message for wider consumption about the real effects on real people of Tory rule, and in so doing start to get more people out on the doorstep and on the phone to voters.
The job of the blogs is not to counter Tory policy as an end in itself, but to use the information to encourage activism, albeit an activism currently restricted to a narrow electoral purpose (see part 2) amongst members and supporters, and especially the group of people who are disaffected with New Labour but horrified enough at what the Tories might do that they can still campaign for Labour as a less bad alternative.
What these blogs shouldn’t fall back on is a reassuring but ultimately pointless growth in hits and links, if all these hits and links don’t make a difference beyond the self-containment of the blogosphere.
Beyond that, there’s a more important job for the left blogosphere to do, and one which hasn’t yet started: to bridge the gap between writing about systemic injustice and activism to do something about it. But that’s for part 2.
2 out of 26 aint’ bad
I’ve not much to say on the current HewittHoon nonsense that’s not been said by Dave.
What did surprise me a little, though – at least before I realised I shouldn’t be so surprised – is how many MPs speaking out against HewittHoon yesterday were content to take at face value the call for a secret ballot as a way of deciding whether Brown should remain leader.
I did a quick look through all the MP responses collated in two different posts at Labourlist, and only 5 of the 26 I looked at made any mention of the fact that any idea of such a ballot was totally outside the rules of the party.
Only two MPs – and hats off to David Heppel and David Clelland - actually bothered to mention Labour party members. David Clelland puts it best:
It [the plot] also reveals a complete ignorance of the constitution and rules of the Party – drawn up for very good reasons – to think that the PLP could hold such a ballot in isolation from members and affiliates.
The rest, one way or another, seemed to assume that the decision on party leadership is the PLP’s, and the PLP’s alone.
I’m no media expert, but surely a consistent line that HewittHoon are utterly ignorant of the rules of an organisation in which they have been senior figures – indeed Hoon was Chief Whip with responsibilities for keeping stuff within the rules – and that any talk of a ballot was simply nonsense, and that no further discussion need be had, would have been more appropriate than protestations of loyalty, however immediate or delayed.
Woodward: turmoil in the cabinet my arse
Not dreaming of a White Christmas
I feel soiled somehow. This morning listening to the Today programme on Radio 4, I suddenly realised I was vehemently in agreement with Shaun Woodward. Having just finished my breakfast, you can imagine the uncomfortable position this put me in. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a member of this cabinet sound so righteously ‘on message’ just when it felt like what was needed, rather than being utterly disingenuous.
Allow me to backtrack and explain. Everyone will have heard by now that Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon sent an email around the PLP wittering about a secret ballot on the leadership. Naturally no one touched it. In fact it has been received with almost universal derision on the Left, despite the attempts of all sections of the Press to parlay it into something more serious than it is.
The argument runs that, because cabinet ministers waited a few hours before putting out statements of support, it may be that the ‘coup’ was more serious than it at first seems. Indeed the BBC seems to have got hold of information that half a dozen cabinet members tentatively supported the ‘rebels’, but they ‘bottled it’. Woodward was little short of decisive in crushing the rumour and putting focus back where it belonged.
He called into question the judgment of Hoon and Hewitt – rightly so – and then returned to Brown’s masterful hammering of Cameron at PMQs yesterday, on the continuing failure of the Tories to have a consistent economic policy (or a consistent answer to the same question when it’s asked three times on the same day for that matter). The sad little coup, of course, gives the Right-media the excuse they need to miss this out.
“Has Labour got a death wish? Two ex-cabinet ministers mount abortive coup, inflicting yet more damage on the PM” is the headline on the Mail online today, and though I missed the full details, the dead tree copy is running something similarly hyperbolic. Below the headline, Peter Oborne’s article is called, “Labour is now so riven by poison, we’re being run by two rival governments. And neither cares about Britain”. Subtle stuff.
It is the media who will inflict the damage on Brown, rather than the ‘abortive coup’. By leading off with headlines on the subject, stressing the divisions within Labour and how important they are – and no doubt repeating the Tory meme that this makes Labour unelectable – the press will be propagating a story that is damaging but clearly has little relation to the reality within the PLP, which for once seems broadly united.
Trying to read the tea-leaves of why David Miliband didn’t issue a statement of support for Brown for a few hours is simply not an acceptable replacement for real journalism. Even if everyone was lukewarm, there’s not going to be a coup. If the government simply absorbed the shock and replaced cabinet ministers in the premature June 2009 ‘coup’, and then took a crushing election result on the chin, a few windbags mouthing off in an email, even with cabinet support, is hardly going to make much of a ripple.
What journalists don’t seem to be flagging up, however, is that it’s the same faces involved in these ‘coups’. Blairites and ex-Blairites, maybe a few Brownites who haven’t adjusted to the changed economic realities of higher taxation and higher expenditure levels. Not people, it must be said, who have much respect in the Party, having long since fallen from grace. Certainly not a lot of respect amongst members.
I’m not a supporter of Gordon Brown or New Labour, but the vulturous attacks of these discredited, demoted fools – time and again from wings of the Party even less in favour than Brown – are just sickening and embarrassing. Bearing in mind that Labour’s defeat is still assumed to be all but inevitable, we can only hope for a pro-Labour hung parliament – these antics are thus far from helpful. But we must not get sucked into Press attempts at clairvoyance and second-guessing who loves Gordon Brown and what real or imagined policy differences there are..
The key thing to focus on is policy; Labour is terrible, the Tories are worse.
Let the Iris Robinson who is without sin…
Happy families or staged hypocrisy?
And so. It turns out that Iris Robinson, that fearless bible-wielding scourge of homosexuals everywhere, has been coveting her neighbour’s ass. Or at least some other parts of him. The news came amidst a tear-filled confession that Iris Robinson had tried to take her own life, as a result of the affair.
How ironic that such a bigot should fall from her pulpit, a human victim of ’sin’, ’sin’ which she castigated so freely from her public platform, comparing gays to child molesters.
The bitter part of the irony, of course, is that such attitudes to sex and the guilt attached to it by extreme Christian religions could well have contributed to the woman trying to take her own life. Indeed, ironies abound, for Iris Robinson once held a portfolio that covered youth suicides, some of which, in Northern Ireland, are driven by the repression visited on those who are gay, or who otherwise do not conform.
Needless to say she held this portfolio whilst retaining the view that homosexuality was a choice people could receive psychiatric treatment to recover from.
Any sympathy I had, and briefly I had some, evaporated when I read of Robinson’s subsequent comments that, “I grieve that I have damaged my profession in Christ but I am comforted that He was able to forgive even me…I do not deserve a second chance but I have been given one.” Rarely have I seen scripture and religion put to such self-serving uses as a public statement that Jesus has forgiven someone for being a total hypocrite.
How convenient for her. I’m sure she’s right and that she has been forgiven, that she has repented honestly. The God I grew up learning about was a forgiving God, though I have long since ceased to believe myself. Yet to push it into what is essentially a political press release? A tad sickening. One wonders if, beyond repenting for adultery, she has repented for casting aspersions at other supposed ’sinners’, which I recall Jesus having something to say about.
For another individual in the public eye, I might have expressed support. So far as I’m concerned, the public have no business knowing what goes on in the private lives of our representatives. People should be free to make their own choices, on the basis of their own moral codes. I find it distasteful to watch politicians airing their laundry in public.
A squalid affair and a tragic attempt at suicide are unremarkable in many ways, the prurience of the media, and the Currie-esque braggadocio or faux prostration of the politicians involved is usually worse. Yet (another irony) I can’t help but feel that Iris Robinson is being genuine.
Nevertheless, genuine or not, this was an individual who use a high-profile platform to spout such bitter anti-gay bile, in the name of the Almighty, in a country where homophobic attacks are far from unheard of. One might almost think Fate or the Divine (if you believe in that sort of thing) had a sense of ironic justice. Her disarming honesty can’t undo what she has done.
How terrible a person I am for thinking and saying such things, and I await the attempt to seize the moral highground by those who are nowhere to be found when Robinson or the Conservative Cornerstone Group of Faith, Flag and Family are making their fatuous, bigoted pronouncements in parliament.
I love the smell of hypocrisy of an evening.
My my, Lord Carey’s bigotry is thinly-veiled these days!
It never fails to surprise me how much attention people like Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, get every time they indulge in utterly predictable rants. Compare, for example, the sentiments behind these remarks at the accession of Gordon Brown in 2007 about immigration, 2008’s sentiments about immigration and last night’s little rant.
On one level, they’re very similar. You have the general theme about the effects of immigration on public services, you have a sop to the anti-racist crowd in comments about poverty being disproportionate amongst young Muslim men (as if that’s a fault of immigration!) and then you have the sting in the tail: the attack on non-Christian immigration and the demand that people must integrate by kowtowing to British values.
And by British values he means Christian values. And by “attack on non-Christian immigration” I’m not extrapolating, Carey himself said he would prefer Christian immigrants, and has stressed the “importance of Christian identity” to the UK.
“What I think I’m concerned about is not saying we must put a limit on people who are non-Christian populations. That’s not the point. We welcome everybody and that’s always been the generous spirit of the United Kingdom.”
But, he said, immigrants must “understand” the UK’s culture, including parliamentary democracy “which is built upon Christian heritage”, “our commitment to the English language” and an understanding the country’s history.
The system should not “give preference to any particular group”, he said, but added that points-based immigration could take these cultural aspects into consideration. (BBC News)
So while protecting himself by saying he doesn’t favour purely Christian immigration, it seems a curious form of dog-whistle politics to then say the opposite, through his points-based immigration system that takes into account the ‘cultural aspects’ he mentions – i.e. our ‘Christian heritage’. He has essentially attempted to connect Christianity with what we expect immigrants to understand and be willing to integrate with. Which is hardly fair for the vast majority of the world’s population, who aren’t Christian.
It’s hard not to agree entirely with Simon Barrow of Ekklesia in a previous retort to the former Archbishop:
“Playing a misleading ‘numbers game’ leaves unaddressed the real problems behind changing patterns of migration – war, instability, massive inequality, displacement and climate change. Many people uproot because they are forced, and turning a few rich Western countries into policed states will not change that.”
Indeed I would go further. Lord Carey despite his recent woolly remarks, has previously attempted to foist the blame for any number of occurrences on to immigration, as well as seeming to regard those of British provenance as somehow above the requirements that might be placed on immigrants (in a moral sense, rather than a technical one).
“With a turnover of a million people in one year, no wonder many people sense that the glue that binds our society together is weakening…It takes time for people of different cultures to get accustomed to each others’ ways and, regrettably, not all newcomers are committed to integration. Some are not even sure about the democratic values that are the very foundation of our society.”
Not all Britons are sure about said ‘democratic values’; certainly not the Christians that keep bleating about a secularist conspiracy (this means you, Dr Sentamu). Pass over that. The ‘glue that binds our society together’ is being weakened by any number of things utterly unrelated to immigration. The passage of once-democratic powers to Quangos or the private sphere are a good example; local health decisions to PCTs and school powers from LEAs to Academy boards.
There’s also the assumption that Christian immigrants will be somehow better at integrating into British culture, or that those who are good at integrating are more likely to be Christian. Is not such an assumption pure bigotry, to assume that one religion – which is far from monolithic – is less prone to violence, extremism and so on than another, irrespective of the complications of comparing different social and economic circumstances? I would say any attempt to connect religion with immigration is utterly bigoted.
More worrying still, and what someone with the intelligent and political nous of George Carey should have been better prepared for, is the wave of pretty naked racism that is following his remarks, no doubt amongst groups like EDL and the BNP, who are already trying to stake a claim to the ‘Christian heritage’ Carey drones on about. Yet this is also happening in the mainstream media no less. Take Telegraph blogs editor Damian Thompson for example:
“Good old George Carey! I never thought I’d write those words, since he talked so much nonsense when he was in office, but in recent years his contacts with the evangelical world have opened his eyes to the shared anti-Christian agenda of multiculturalists and Muslims.”
Multiculturalists and Muslims, mark you, are necessarily anti-Christian. That’s news to me. Could it be, rather, that young Damian just doesn’t like uppity agnostics and other religions objecting to the privileged position of the Anglican church? Or to the state-led imposition of religious values? Might he find it easier to dismiss all such as “multiculturalists and Muslims”? Never mind that this plays right into the hands of the BNP narrative on the same subject.
That is the danger with what Carey is saying, and no doubt MigrationWatch and the other think-tanks will be cashing in on this news cycle as a result of Carey’s remarks. For good reason; whereas Rowan Williams is often considered and attempts conciliation in what he says, Carey in his remarks demonstrates a blatant feeling of Christian superiority over the other religions, which have played their part in the history and culture of this country – and this easily lends itself to racism, since in the UK, most Muslims – the new target group post 9/11 – aren’t white.
He needs to be told this is not acceptable.
Prospects for Son of No2EU?
According to an article published by the AWL, and re-posted at Socialist Unity, the Railway, Martime and Transport workers’ union (RMT) has voted not to support the Socialist Party-Communist Party of Britain-Alliance for Green Socialism lash-up on a national level at the incoming General Election. The AWL article assumes that this means the prospects for the performance of a son of No2EU are poor.
Before one renders judgment, there’s a fair amount of information to gather in – information which the Socialist Party and its erstwhile partners have not published. In how many seats, for example, any Son of No2EU would plan to stand in. Dave Nellist standing for his old seat in Coventry is almost a given, and I hope he wins it. Plus there are other areas where struggles have recently forged new activists and leaders of the working class – which any potential Left electoral coalition should seek to support.
Whether or not that means endorsing some Respect candidates, or some Green Party candidates is irrelevant to the fortunes of No2EU, as I doubt very much if the organisation was planning to stand additional Left challengers in seats such as Brighton Pavillion or in Birmingham. On that basis, I’ll pass on without stating precisely which organisations I would or would not endorse (though it’s well known that my desire to see John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and Katy Clarke re-elected is nigh unconditional).
It is with the re-election of these, and other members of the RMT Parliamentary Group (of Labour MPs), that the RMT is most concerned. However that doesn’t mean that local RMT branches won’t have their say. In Scotland, some may still work with the Scottish Socialist Party. In Wales, some are reported to be working with a rather odd group called Forward Wales. Thus in England, outside of the constituencies like Hayes and Harlington, which Left-Labour MPs are defending, local RMT groups might still back a Son of NO2EU.
Some local RMT branches, such as in Portsmouth, have already decided to stand candidates on the basis of the People’s Charter. Personally I’m all for this; it could lead to powerful local networks of activists, provided it is pursued democratically and with a view to bringing in new people, not just Union full timers and members. In such instances, pulling in support from groups like the FBU shouldn’t be difficult either, and SP should have internal discussions about committing local activists to such campaigns if they live too far away from areas the SP will be contesting.
On the other hand, however, the People’s Charter doesn’t have any concrete national organisation that I can see – and for the purposes of managing the platform and democratic accountability, this makes things difficult. The Son of No2EU idea, as explained by Dave Nellist at the 3rd RMT Conference on the future of working class political representation, was to be federally organised, with decisions taken consensually, as befits what would be a short-lived alliance between different groups, each of which appeals to people to the Left of, and fed up with, Labour.
There was some talk about the creation of a People’s Charter steering committee, to arrange to stand or endorse candidates all around the country, with the idea supposed to go before the RMT national executive, but no news has yet emerged on the subject. This leaves Son of NO2EU in a rather difficult position, ahead of a general election that is not six months away. If it is reduced to its core areas, then it will have little trouble getting local support. Voting for Dave Nellist is pretty uncontroversial in socialist circles.
Yet the ambiguity with what is being done on behalf of the People’s Charter makes moving beyond this strategy a bit risky, and more lilkely to lead to conflict between the groups in question. On the other hand, restriction to the core constituencies reduces the chance of making contact with new votes, which potentially represent new activists.
If there is to be a Son of No2EU, and it decides only to stand in the constituencies the SP would contest anyway, then personally I would prefer if the SP stood under its own name, with smaller partners in support, as part of a broader attempt to shore up and gain working class socialist representation. It at least has a decent profile thanks to its activist work, and the name has socialism in the title. Everywhere else, it would then be free to endorse any candidates standing on behalf of the People’s Charter, as well as the de rigeur endorsement of Left-Labour MPs.
Step by step guide to ‘cutting the deficit, not the NHS’
So Cameron’s banging on about ring-fencing NHS spend but still slashing the deficit. There’s even 1,000 big posters gone up to say so. Giles at Freethinking Economist thinks they make an impossible promise.
Nah, course not.
Increasing NHS spend signficantly while actually spending less money is a piece of piss, if you know how to go about it. Both parties know that. It’s just that Cameron’s team look like they may be better at cheating.
Here’s how you do it.
1. Admit, as the health secretary did in December when pressed by the Health Service Journal, that funding for most or all adult social care will be transferred from local authorities to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in the NHS, but keep it quite quiet in the official documentation, referring only obliquely to a
‘need to reform adult social care services, improve integration with health and make services more preventative in nature, while delivering a funding model that is fair and affordable for the state and for individuals’ (para. 2.83).
2. This allows you to transfer funding straight from democratically elected local authorities to the PCT quangos. This funding is pretty big money. For example, in Lancashire the Adult Social Care budget takes up 23% (£415 million) of the overall revenue budget of the £1.78 billion. If all this is transferred it will add £415 million to a total PCT budget for the County area of roughly £1.9 billion (based on a quick look at last year’s annual reports for the three PCTs covering the area).
3. So, if you were to transfer all the money over, heh presto, you’ve just added a whacking 22% to the NHS budgets (most money for hospitals is channelled through PCTs via their commissioning arm). That’s something to stick up on a big poster.
4. But of course you don’t have to transfer it all over. Swipe 30% off it and you’re still adding to the NHS budget by about 15%, and you don’t have to tell anyone that it’s not really additional money at all, and that what in fact you’re doing is making massive cuts.
5. You also get to make massive cuts to council budgets like you said had to be done, because everyone knows that councils are totally wasteful, run as they are by crappy, corrupt councillors, and none of their spending is important enough to ring-fence. After all, who actually knows that nearly a quarter of budgets goes on what is effectively a part of the overall health and social care service?
6. With all this ‘additional’ NHS spend, no-one will notice all the additional millions being spent on consultants called in to advise on the process of organisational restructuring that will be necessary to transfer some of the money from one bank account to another, in a way which only allows for the quiet making of cuts which directly impact upon the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the country.
Yeah. Protecting the NHS while bringing down the deficit is a piece of piss. Both parties know that, but the Tories worked it through first. No wonder they’re so keen to talk about the NHS now.
Who is the imbecile: Rod Liddle or nutcase suicide bombers?
He's a sensitive guy really.
Truly I can’t decide. In his latest oeuvre, Mr Liddle is up to his usual tricks of being an insensitive twit and being wrong. All this in one tightly worded, badly proof-read package. This time it’s about people trying to blow themselves up, along with a plane full of passengers – everyone’s idea of a hoot, I’m sure. Though at least this time he’s not in danger of breaching the law with his shit-filled rhetoric.
How can we best help them, these angry young Muslim imbeciles who want us all dead, but are too thick to do anything about it?…The remarkable thing is that time after time these half-wits are foiled not by government driven security measures, or the perspicacity of our secret agents, but by their own forlorn IQs. Or might it be that Allah is trying to tell them something?
Religious bigotry aside for a moment, actually Liddle’s underpinning premise is factually mistaken. Both Richard Reid the Shoebomber and Abdul Farouk Umar Abdullah, both cited by Liddle as being too stupid to blow up their targets, were prevented from blowing up planes by the quick action of stewards and other passengers, including Jasper Schuringa, who risked his own safety to subdue the Nigerian syringe bomber.
Other examples given by Liddle, such as the 2007 Glasgow Airport bombers were prevented by official security measures, such as the concrete bollards which prevented the Cherokee jeep from being able to break through the front doors of the airport. Similarly, the people responsible didn’t ‘forget’ to set off the carbombs in London, days before the Glasgow attack. The bombs failed to go off, as bombs often do.
I’m sure there are examples of stupid bombers out there, but this is just badly researched swill, with the crass moral that we should support the terror of the Israeli Defence Forces because at least they can kill people efficiently, unlike Al-Qaeda, in the view of the article.
Nice to see that Liddle continues the finest commentariat traditions of attacking the good old British idea of just getting along though:
I suppose, in a spirit of diversity and tolerance, we could set up training camps somewhere in the Pennines suicidal Muslims could learn to blow themselves up and then, in a final, glorious coming out parade, actually do so, perhaps watched admiringly by the Home Secretary or a minor royal.
Yes because diversity and tolerance must always mean tolerating the right of terrorists to kill innocent people. Unfortunately it does mean that Rod Liddle can go on and on, day after day, with this rubbish without being run out of the country as though he were Left-wing, gay, black or a non-Christian. Shame.
David Cameron and the phantom of ‘national unity’
"In the time I've been speaking, the national debt has increased by...um..."
In between searching out the wisdom of crowds (i.e. the political centre-ground), rather than the wisdom of principled ideas, it seems that David Cameron has been speechifying and coming up with nice soundbites about national unity. The leadoff hitting idea was announced yesterday:
Conservative leader David Cameron announced his cross-party war cabinet plans “in the spirit of unity, of a greater purpose than the simple pursuit of politics”.
He said: “If we win this year’s election, I will invite leaders of the main opposition parties to attend the war cabinet on a regular basis so they can offer their advice and insights.
“When a nation is at war, it needs to pull together. I am determined that with a Conservative government, it will.”(BBC)
As a member of the nation in question, I personally don’t feel much of a need to pull together in order to fight the war in Afghanistan. In any case what Cameron is talking about are the Westminster politicos pulling together. Quite a different matter, though it makes for an interesting definition of ‘nation’. I also wonder why Cameron thinks he might find Gordon Brown’s view so valuable when he’s spent so much time attacking it.
It seems to have been casually accepted on ConHome that the measure is intended to nullify potential opposition on the prosecution of the war from Clegg and Brown, should Cameron form a government. I suspect there’s also the question of elevating Cameron to the appearance of statesman, in the face of the commentariat-recited meme that Labour is somehow fighting a class war, regardless of the real evidence.
The real thing nullifying New Labour opposition to the war is more likely to be the fact that New Labour started it. Just a thought.
Tomorrow is the date set for publication of the first chapter of the Tory draft manifesto. Over the coming months I look forward to hearing how Cameron’s Conservatives intend to go ahead with their plan to cut the main rate of Corporation Tax and other taxes, whilst maintaining all the spending promises they’ve made on things like families and the NHS. As Cameron mentions in his speech, at least one element will be forcing people to work beyond sixty-five. Thus is the cost of recovery foisted on to working people.
This what Cameron means when he talks about the nation ‘pulling together’. He means the wealthy getting a tax break and the rest of us working for longer.
I certainly look forward to seeing how Cameron plans to implement the “pupil premium” and concomitant structural adjustments in education, whilst slashing spending. Or how he intends to stand on this particular plank of his platform seeing as it is just continuing the Labour practice of trying to foist schools off on the private sector. Not to mention the indications that the Guppyfish Gove’s favourite policy doesn’t work.
But hey, when ‘national unity’ is at stake, just about any old rubbish will fly.
Blogging about blogging: Novelty is overrated
Following on from Phil’s blogging about blogging post, I wanted to offer a few thoughts of my own as 2010 gets properly underway, heralded as the year the Left blogosphere might make itself felt, the year of a General Election, and the year the Tory blogosphere might actually have to indulge in some navel gazing of its own, once their party gets into power and fails to live up to its billing of all things to all men.
The first thing I’d say is this: novelty is overrated. Currently on the internet there exists, in one form or another, everything that could make blogging relevant for the Left. Sharp looking and easy to navigate web-design, an audience, a connection to the real life of the people of the UK and talented writers and editors. We don’t need to add anything new per se, we simply need to reorganise what there is.
For example, there are various socialist, grassroots email lists plus sites like Indymedia, where information about activist events, high quality photographic content and first hand accounts of important events of concern to the Left can be gathered. This type of information gathering should be expanded, and in that area various attempts have been slow to begin, only partially successful or are too new to comment on.
Liberal Conspiracy, Left Foot Forward and Tory Stories all deserve comment on in this regard. Each have attempted either to break news stories in addition to commentary, or to provide accounts and evidence-based research on Tory policies. These are substantive contributions to the Left blogosphere, providing ammo to the arguments of skilled bloggers who can tie many themes together to make their point.
Indeed it’s probably because of efforts like these, which have been replicated in a less high-profile way on other blogs, that people can talk about a Year of the Left Blogosphere in 2010 without it looking vaguely ridiculous. I don’t think this will happen for quite some time, because the structure of the Left and Right blogospheres are and should be very different. The Right can survive on mainstream narratives. We can’t.
We shortcircuit those narratives by reaching out to the real world, by connecting to and organising activists. This isn’t new either. Some of the sites mentioned already attempt it. Labour Members’ Net attempted it, there was just no critical mass, it was an impenetrable site and the lack of editorial controls drove off many bloggers.
What we lack is continuity, and this is related to scale of the endeavour. When speaking on a national level, a lot of information is out there in the ether, to be gathered in. But on a local level, on the level of one business, or important issues which don’t receive national attention? It may seem contradictory, but the more local one tries to focus, the more resource- and personnel-intensive the endeavour will be.
There are a few bright sparks who’ll attempt it, and self-organisation is coming on leaps and bounds to aid us. Within hours, for example, of the Visteon or Vestas strikes and occupations, the workers had created internet sites and many of us were attempting to direct traffic their way from our own sites. There are ways this could be improved, even when dealing with run of the mill situations that lack the explosive energies of workers on strike.
Most banal of all is a centre of information on what the key Left parties (Labour, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers’ Party) are doing in various cities, towns and rural areas around the country. If someone logs on to a computer, feels strongly about a national issue and wants to do something about it, there should be a self-explanatory system of linkage, guiding people from inchoate anger to activism aimed against Right policies around the country. Framing the debate and setting the narrative are good aims, but activism must take place once we’ve established that narrative, or it will be for nothing.
This needs to be done on a local level, because it’s of no use me knowing what’s going on in Liverpool or Edinburgh and wanting to help out if I can’t afford to travel the distance to be active on the ground. Which I can’t. Most important for me is Canterbury and Kent generally. There are a number of excellent bloggers from this area, including local councillors, but unless you already know about them, one is unlikely to go looking.
Second most banal is a discussion of the methods and means of that activism. Once we’re all fired up, what then? A protest? A stall? Frankly I’ve never been very imaginative in this regard (and always hated doing stalls – much prefer the one to one of the doorstep, or talking to a crowd in a hall) and we can all benefit from examples given from other quarters – examples which will increase in quality and quantity as the internet assists people in linking up.
As this happens, we might begin to reverse the transition from political activism to civic activism* which was aided by the Thatcherite policy of creating civic elites through the funding of third-sector groups, a policy perpetuated to this day. That reversal is utterly vital; politics must equate to political parties, as these represent the only hope of collectively controlling representatives and being fully heard.
None of this escapes the continuing structural weakness of the Left blogosphere instantaneously. The mass media make mega-bucks by being educated gossip mongers, effectively, and this has had a long time to make itself felt in the national political discourse and ways of looking at things. Certain liberal-left elements might succeed in that, but the core proposition of the socialist Left is the recrudescence of working class activism and concomitant ways of challenging the status quo. Gossip mongering about Westminster has no bearing on that.
Yet we can be sure that if through our online efforts we can pull in a new layer of people to real-world activism, in addition to or instead of them populating the comment section of CiF, this will in turn have it’s own effect on the number of people reaching out for Left answers to the problems that confront them in every day life. And good sites (with room to improve) like LEAP or our own dear Though Cowards Flinch will be waiting.
*If you don’t have a feel for what I mean by this, hang around as I think it’s important to hammer one out. Read more…
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