Will Straw Fails To Understand The Tory Blogosphere
February 5th, 2010 | This post was written by David SkeltonI’m a fan of Left Foot Forward. It is amongst the list of ‘must read’ blogs. But in an article a few days ago, they completely misunderstood the nature of the Tory blogosphere.
Sam Coates et al arranged a fairly informal get together for bloggers on Tuesday, at which Eric Pickles gave a short and very entertaining speech. The normally excellent Left Foot Forward added a blog based on a fiction. According to LFF, the disparate and varied Tory blogosphere will now be marching with the discipline and unity of a well drilled battalion – apparently driven on by 7 AM briefings that they will be expected to parrot. This is, of course, totally untrue. Nothing even remotely of the kind was said at the event. In fact, the independence of the blogosphere was loudly celebrated.
There are two important points here. The first is that what Will Straw alleged was said absolutely wasn’t said. The second is that it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the Tory blogosphere. The truth is that the Tory blogosphere is highly independent and highly diverse. The idea that blogs from the progressive centre such as this one will start singing from exactly the same hymn sheet as some of the blogs on the right wing fringe is absurd.
What Straw fails to note and comprehend is that internet and the blogosphere has resulted in the greatest proliferation of sources of news, information and opinion for centuries. Not since the time of the likes of Cobbett’s Political Register and Marat’s L’Ami Du Peuple has such a range of political opinions (from the sensible to the crackpot) been able to reach a wider audience.
In such an uncontrolled environment as the internet and the blogosphere, central control verges between difficult and impossible. As Joe Trippi’s brilliant ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ makes clear, the internet and the blogosphere are, by their very nature bottom up rather than top-down. It is part of the left’s misunderstanding of the blogosphere that they think any kind of central control is even being considered.
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Tags: Blogosphere, Living in Britain
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February 5th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Hi David,
Thanks for the kind words about Left Foot Forward.
I agree that the blogosphere is bottom-up rather than top-down and indeed edited a book last year for the Fabian Society (”The Change We Need”) which makes exactly that point.
In relation to your charge, I think you, like a number of other Tory bloggers, have misread the original article.
The article detailed allegations from an anonymous source but in the following sentence said, “Shane Greer, who was at the event, denied that bloggers were offered morning emails.”
The headline of the article and body of the piece relate to Eric Pickles remarks, corroborated by a number of people including Greer and Harry Cole, about the Tory blogosphere’s role in rebuttal.
The Tory blogosphere proved this point by jumping on a tweet by Sam Coates minutes after the post was published. The comments thread on the original post detail this very clearly.
All the best,
Will
February 5th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
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