I’d love Hazel to get a blog. She’d be a link sensation. What do you think of her views of the political blogosphere though?
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I’d love Hazel to get a blog. She’d be a link sensation. What do you think of her views of the political blogosphere though?
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“What do you think of her views of the political blogosphere though?”
Pretty much what the first of her targets, Order-order, and its considerably greater following than this effort, did.
Hope you get another comment soon. But as I linked from the Guardian, don’t hold your breath. I think the other reader is still arguing the Brand issue still, or is in the States ‘reporting’ for the BBC.
I think she’s bang on target. I agree 100% with her characterisation of ‘political nihilism’. I also agree with her comments on the professionalisation of politics. The old breed of MP came up knowing their constituency and constituents, having worked alongside them and maintaining that touch through surgeries and campaigning locally. The new way of doing things is through targeted mobilisation campaigns, phone banks and all that, and picking people who were weaned inside the Westminster bubble. Having said that, t’were ever thus I suspect, but the ratio of insider to outsider sitting in parliament is tipping too far the wrong way. I think the other leg to this is that I’m no longer certain what the various parties stand for (and I say that not from a point of ignorance). I’m clear they all stand for winning, that they all want to stroke the Daily Mail and the Sun, but I need a bit more please. We need some political vision. On that note, what better way to make use of ‘2.0′ than starting some new visionary political blogs? Maybe you should give classes Tom.
Hidden, but there: http://haveyoursay.communities.gov.uk/blogs/hazelblears-empowerment/default.aspx
Stop the Press, Hazel Blears speaks sense - now that’s an exclusive.
Hazel is a great campaigner, MP and activist - but often suffers from making sweeping statements on issues she cleary doesn’t know enough about.
Of course it will only be a priviledged/insider/cynical majority creating political blogs - not many have the time let alone the information and access needed to create something that will be read. But I think this is missing the point, in an age of apathy, low turnout and centrist politics - this forum for debate, information exchange and as a method of check/balance is invaluable.
We are still to understand and really harness the full capability that online offers to politics but the uninitiated are hardly in a position to question the medium.
Come on Hazel, stick to what you know, or do us all a favour and start blogging - your pearls of wisdom would soon bring a new audience to the blogosphere.
“for a politician to complain about blogs is like a sailor complaining about the sea” well it would be if blogs were read by serious numbers of people.
What passes for satire in Britain has always had a nasty streak of the public school bully about it.
Perhaps the Great British Public would be less cynical if politicians didn’t over promise, sometimes admitted mistakes or limitations and didn’t slag their opponents off (even when they’re talking sense) in such a knee jerk way. But I wouldn’t bet on it…
More to the point, what do you think of her views?
I’m not going to comment in detail until I have seen what she actually said, but I can make two points now:
1 I just came off the phone to the Hansard Society and this talk about reengaging with people outside the political bubble is not being streamed online. Why not, when that can be done for free?
2 A talk about blogs briefed to the Mainstream Media looks at first sight to have the shape of an attempted mugging aiming to establish a media narrative. I cannot find a press release with the text, nor can I find any attempt to communicate with ordinary people - which I thought was the idea.
I’ll review this when I see the text, but I suspect you have some education to do in reaching out to people using the Internet, Tom.
[...] Tom Watson has some interesting debate about this on his post. [...]
As Matt says, it’s difficult to comment without knowing what she said but from reading the Guardian article, I’d say she has a point about mainstream political blogs.
Many are simply aimed at reinforcing their audiences’ prejudices, just like the mainstream media they claim to replace. In this respect, they are no more or less ‘corrosive’, ‘nihilistic’, ‘partisan’ or ‘cynical’ than most traditional media commentators have been for many years. They just have fewer readers, thank goodness.
Hazel seems in danger of over generalising though and I think it’s time we had a new range of terms to replace the inadequate catch-all labels, ‘blogger’ and ‘blogosphere’.
There is little shared ground between the long, deliberately controversial but normally carefully crafted posts of some of the opposition bloggers on the one hand and the link + invitation for user comment that (for example!) busy ministers might post on the other.
We are looking at two utterly different publications with vastly differing aims and approaches (both totally valid) that just happen to use the same technology. Tabloids, broadsheets, books, leaflets, pamphlets: they are all publications that use the same technology -printed paper -but they have different aims and we have different words for them.
I think Hazel therefore, by criticising the blogosphere in this way, risks simplifying things and is in danger of tarring all people who use digital media to participate in the political process with the same broad brush.
That said, her other points warning about the disengagement from the political process of large sections of society are well made.
I’m cynical about our political process in this country. Certainly not because I’ve been reading cynical blogs though, although I like having an outlet for my own frustration.
Blogging actually provides quite the opposite, the chance to engage in a meaningful way with political views across the spectrum.
Full text of Hazel Blears speech on mt site here:
http://tinyurl.com/hazelblears
Someone’s playing silly buggers with political blogs: she is nearly as rude about the Commentariat.
I’d love Hazel to get a blog; on a daily basis she’d be ‘fisked’ to within an inch of her life. There’s only Jacqui Smith that’d be more popular. I’m sure a cyberspace ‘queue’ would form ; with eager bloggers keen to share their ‘erm’ opinions on the political ‘nannying’ gushing outward from the pair of them…
You don’t mean like this blog?
I partly agree with the comments regarding Guido, but I’m afraid Hazel’s speech comes across as someone who’s scared of genuine free speech in a format which New Labour can’t control i.e blogs are ‘off-message’.
If we want to talk about ‘dangerous corrosion in our political culture’ how about starting with the Labour Party who have made spin their middle name. For example: Jo ‘good day to bury bad news’ Moore, obsession with headlines, triangulation, focus groups, policies designed purely for partisan advantage i.e 10p tax row, empty promises designed to grab the day’s news but never implemented, the list goes on and on.
As voter I have never felt so remote from the political process or helpless as I do now.
Political blogs at least give me a chance to read what gets left out of the mainstream media (the EU Referendum blog is particularly invaluable) and the ability to comment and engage on issues that concern me.
I think this freedom of information and discussion is the real reason why New ’spin’ Labour dislikes them so much.
Thats not a blog; its more of an online diary! looked for something to savage ferociously, but it was considerably more sleep inducing than rage inducing.
she hasn’t really got the ‘gist’ of it has she?
she seems to save all the shredworthy authoritarian stuff for speeches or TV appearances!
She’s slightly right. But not much. But at least she’s no longer holding the smoking Cluedo starting pistol in the WCM Library. Half of Guido’s stuff and 95% of his comments are nihilistic, corrosive stuff. And a goodly proportion of his “proper” stories aren’t really. But there is no future in critting political bloggers for investigating politicians. It’s just that Guido is illogical, unprofessional and vendetta driven.
No matter what Hazel or anyone else thinks, bloggers are here to stay and the blogosphere continues to expand daily.
I say ‘get used to it’.
I think the big issue that she missed is perspective - it’s a small minority of people that read blogs. And it’s a small minority of people that read blogs that read the sort of blogs she’s talking about. And I’d never heard of Guido Fawkes until some political journalists mentioned him a while back, and I saw him interviewed on something, and he seemed like a smug, self-important nobody, and I was annoyed that they gave him the oxygen of publicity and fed his ego. And now I’m annoyed that Hazel has done it too.
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