A spate of articles in recent days herald the growth of the left blogosphere. The next year and the general election will be make or break for many blogs.
Left Foot Forward has been quiet over the last week enjoying our Christmas break but we have come out of hibernation to highlight a few stories that relate directly to the left blogosphere.
We were very flattered by Tim Montgomerie’s piece on Sunday for Conservative Home about how the “British Left is developing better and better online products” in which he described this blog as “an intelligent blog that examines all Tory policy.” This morning, James Crabtree of Prospect has an article on Labour List trailing a longer piece in tomorrow’s New Statesman about the rise of the left blogosphere. Both pieces make several references to Left Foot Forward including describing this blog as “one of the most important nodes between the progressives and the media.”
Meanwhile, Labour List reported over Christmas that 305,000 people have visited its pages over 2009 making it the second most influential political blog of the left after Liberal Conspiracy. Both Crabtree and Montgomerie also highlight the creation of Tory Stories, a new blog from Jon Cruddas MP and Chuka Umunna (Labour PPC for Streatham), which aims to act as “as a depository for evidenced articles on Conservatives in local and regional government, showing that, once in office, the party’s actions consistently fail to match its rhetoric.” Alongside Next Left, Go Fourth, Alastair Campbell’s blog and the sites of Labour MPs Tom Harris and Tom Watson plus lesser known sites like Political Scrapbook, Hopi Sen, and Left Outside, the left blogosphere is looking a lot stronger at the start of 2010 than it did a year ago.
The next year and the “watershed election” in March or May will be make or break for many blogs. If a Labour defeat is followed by a leadership election it will provide a second opportunity for Left-wing sites to make their mark. How will each site compete for space with the mainstream media? What unique services will each blog offer to make them indispensible to activists, floating voters, and journalists? How will bloggers interact with one another to share interesting information while avoiding navel gazing (perhaps this article falls short on that front)? And, crucially, how will bloggers make a living if they aim, as Left Foot Forward does, to work full time?
In November, I made a speech to the Future-democracy 2009 conference in which I highlighted three areas where I felt there was potential for growth in the British blogosphere: the use of video, integration of twitter into blogging platforms, and coordination between online campaigning groups like 38 degrees and blogs. Guido Fawkes has already shown how witty/acerbic videos can reach a larger audience than 300-word blog posts while Tweetminster has innovative ideas about how to aggregate tweets.
These are exciting times to be involved in the interaction between technology and politics. The challenge is to make our blogs increasingly relevant and useful.
47 Responses to “2010: The year of the left blogosphere?”
lord stansted
what are you left off? – just a thought.
willstraw
Thanks again for the comments. A few responses.
On the SNP: First, I don’t think it’s fair to say that we dislike the SNP but we have pointed out a number of administrative failings of the SNP including their plans for an independence referendum which were attacked as “half baked” by a former SNP member, and their u-turn on class sizes. But we have also highlighted their concerns about the leaders’ debates and their attempts to address cheap booze.
The administrative incompetence section focuses on Tory councils for the simple reason that they now control most councils!
In relation to the concerns that we are too close to the government: We actually have taken the Government to task for a number of issues including Trident, the third terminal at Heathrow, the FCO’s complicity with torture, and the Digital Economy Bill. These are non trivial issues. But whenever we do so, people accuse of us of being loony lefties. You can’t have it both ways!
And just to be clear: had we been around when the 10p tax decision was made we would have hammered it. Ditto the nonsense investment vs cuts stuff in June. And the VAT tax cut, although broadly stimulative, was a waste of £12bn which could have been used more wisely on US-style rebate cheques and green investment measures. And we certainly would have had lots to say about John Hutton’s days at BERR and Defence but he had gone by the time we launched.
But that’s not to say that we have had every call right. In retrospect we should have been more critical of Ed Balls’ lack of strategy in DCSF and also provided better coverage of the Chilcot Inquiry.
But we are a centre left website so it is hardly surprising if lots of Labour policy (and that of the Lib Dems and Greens) finds favour with us. Unlike many in the media we were broadly supportive of the PBR (especially the tax on bankers’ bonuses) and have praised much of Ed Miliband’s work at Climate Change Secretary while also finding support for other parties’ policies such as Vince Cable’s Mansion tax policy.
Anyway, it’s only been three months since our launch (a bit longer since we first started posting stories) and we’re very grateful to be in a position where people are debating our strengths and weaknesses.
So thank you all for visiting our site, please keep coming back, and a happy new year to one and all.
Will
Anon E Mouse
Richard Blogger – Two things. You’re right about it being a trivial point but I voted for Blair assuming Labour would have a referendum on Lisbon.
If you’re not going to do it don’t say it. Same with Cameron, he is now no different.
Secondly though, what’s wrong with Euroscepticism? The place is a disgrace regarding democracy – who the hell is Baroness Ashton and how can I vote her out?
What about the financial accounts in Europe? Why the hell should we continue to be a net contributor to a system mired in fraud? Irrespective of the misinformation peddled on this site by one of the moderators, the place costs us a damn fortune and we should be able to vote on it.
Interestingly I know several Tory voters who’d go with the YES vote but if you know that the majority of the British public would vote NO and you do it anyway you’re acting in your interests and not theirs.
Cameron knows with the vote next year split with the UKIP he is not going to get the easy ride he could have. He’ll pull a stunt at the Leadership Debates I reckon and Clegg and Brown will spend three weeks being reactive and trying to criticise the Tory comments and oblivion will follow.
Richard Blogger
Anon E Mouse,
“Secondly though, what’s wrong with Euroscepticism?”
I was not makinmg a comment about euroscepticism per se. (And yes we do need a discussion about making the EU more democratic, I would start by throwing away the horrible d’hondt system that everyone – except the Irish, South and North – use to elect MEPs).
My point was that ConsHome is very eurosceptic, but Conservative party policy is generally in favour of the EU (they bluster about “repatriating rights” but we all know that there is nothing they can do without withdrawing from the union). So I conclude that ConsHome is not in tune with the Conservative party, and the Conservative party is not influence by ConsHome. That was the only point I was trying to make in my comment.
Derek Wall
Lenin’s tomb gets something like 700,000 or 800,000 hits a year so you still have some way to go, you also need to decide if old labour is to be the new labour of 2010s or not.