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?”
Shamik Das
Rory, we’re only as good as the intelligence we receive. If you or any other readers know of failings by Labour councils which haven’t been covered elsewhere or in national media, do email us. My email is shamik@leftfootforward.org
Thanks for all your comments on this thread and Happy New Year to you all.
Anon E Mouse
Hi Shamik – Happy New Year to you.
What format do you want us to use when emailing you directly on the failings of Labour Councils? Using Haringey as an example do we break it down into sections such as:
1. General Labour Incompetence – The Audit Commission, the Government’s ‘watchdog’ for local councils, has criticised Haringey’s customer satisfaction, waiting times, and consultation methods. The move comes in the Commission’s latest report on Haringey’s e-government, customer care, complaints management and communications inspection.
2. Financial Labour Incompetence – Labour’s financial catastrophe – Council in the dock as audit commission slams council over £10 million IT overspend.
3. Inexcusable & Bordering On Criminal Labour Incompetence – Newly disclosed court documents suggest Ofsted inspectors who wrote a damning report on Haringey children’s services were ordered to delete emails relating to Baby Peter and the council, a high court judge disclosed today.
The only problem I see with this is there is not a huge number of Labour Councillors left – the vote in June 09 saw votes for Labour of 23% – the lowest vote ever suffered by a government since records began so personally I think this topic is a non-runner…
Blogging about blogging: Novelty is overrated « Though Cowards Flinch
[…] 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 […]
Bry Lipscombe
RT @leftfootfwd: Will 2010 be the year of the left blogosphere? http://bit.ly/63A8GC
Richard Blogger
@Anon E Mouse
I do not understand the constant repetition of the phrase “vote for a man they never elected in the first place”. The fact is that we do not vote for a Prime Minister. Brown was elected, he was elected as an MP. Throughout our history we have had people who became PM mid term. We have even had people who were not even MPs who became PM (OK, one example, The Earl of Home became PM in Oct 1963 and on his appointment he disclaimed his peerage, so he was still PM and yet in neither house. Then two weeks later he won the by-election in the safe seat of Kinross & West Perthshire). We do not have a presidential system (thank goodness) so really people should drop these silly ideas about Brown “not being elected PM”.
As you say, the message on “green taxes” is all wrong. As I said, above, it is wrong to blame me (or indeed you) for the rise in CO2, but that is what green taxes do.
We are told that green taxes are supposed to educate us into doing the right thing, but I think they will be counter productive. Parking fines in London often fail because the rich just treat the fine as the cost of parking. Here’s an idea. Why can’t we have labelling, showing how much CO2 was generated when making the product you are about to consume (including any transportation for imported goods)? If manufactures baulk at more label regulation then why not a government-sponsored web site with the information? Treat consumers as adults and give consumers the choice. rather than forcing people to generate less CO2 allow them to choose to produce less. I think the policy makers will be pleasantly surprised how successful such a scheme could be.