Does Political Blogging matter? was the question put to Sunny Hundal, Mick Fealty, Paul Staines and Jonathan Isaby by Nick Cohen. This provided a great excuse to meet up with Travelgal and have a few (ok, a few more than a few) bevvies. But not before some interesting points were raised and discussed.

The charge that the readership of the political blogs is minute. If you're reading this, you're one of about a thousand or so compared to millions for a Newspaper. We are not doing anything other than commenting on the output of newspapers, and have not replaced the investigative journalism which is dying out in the mainstream media.

All the panellists denied the charge that blogs are not breaking stories - Sunny bleated on about nit-picking Boris Johnson's team, Mick talked about a commenter on So'T who broke a story about something to do with Northern Irish politics, Guido allowed the 'Brown's bonkers' line of attack and of Con Home getting Hunky Dunky kicked off the front bench. Jonathan Isaby noted Conservative Home's publishing of the now-defunct A-list of candidates.

I don't think this charge stuck. Nor, did the charge that there is no money to be made from blogging. Without money, there can be nobody knocking on doors, asking questions. Ignoring the journalistic vanity for a minute, what does it matter who does the digging?If concerned citizens have a story, they have a platform to get it out there - a blog, comments on blogs, e-mailing a blogger, that didn't exist before. There is no need for legions of paid journalists - citizens acting in their community's self interest will do the trick. In any case, journalists do not do the reporting, Reuters and AP do it, and the papers merely churn the release from the wires with a little re-writing. The near identical copy in the Times, Telegraph and Grauniad testifies to this. The Mainstream media therefore differentiates by opinion, and Polly Toynbee, for example, is certainly no better at this than the best bloggers.

If bloggers aren't doing the investigative journalism, then neither are the papers.

If there is something that makes political blogging matter it is the audience. Everyone in politics reads Con Home, Guido, and if you have any interest at all in the Province, Slugger O'Toole. The figures are better than for the papers. It doesn't matter if you only have a couple of thousand readers, if those readers are MPs and captains of Industry.

What is more important is the Movement politics - you can gather a group of like-minded people: a few thousand libertarian, tens of thousands of socialists or conservatives and speak, discuss and interact. This allows Con Home to put pressure on the leadership in a way not yet managed by any other party's grass roots website.

Whether political blogging can be as revolutionary as the printing press, and disaggregate decision making (as Douglas Carswell's wiki bill, or the Conservatives' 'wisdom of crowds' prize hint at) allowing for politicians to develop an individual following, bypassing party structures and reinvigorating representative democracy; as blogging's most fervent supporters hope, is at best an aspiration. As is the hope that blogging can become a platform for policy development. Nevertheless, it has certainly reduced the power of the party centres by giving the activists a voice that the leadership can hear. It is Gordon Brown's deafness to this which is his main failing - still stuck in the smoke-filled rooms of Scottish Labour politics and possessed of a tin ear to the electorate which will ultimately loose him the election. Contrast with the Conservative engagement with the electorate - webCameron is imperfect but better than any Labour effort - his engagement with the activists will help get the boots on the ground in an election campaign.

Will blogging change the result of the next election? No. Not yet. But there is no doubt that it is part of politics for good.

Watch this interview with Jim Devine (soon to be ex) MP. Most English people will see a spectacularly incompetent man who's been caught with his fingers in the till, wriggling on the hook. Most Scottish people, it seems, will see a working-class Scot being bullied by a middle-class Englishman.

This is why Scotland still prefers Gordon Brown to David Cameron. They would rather see one of their own, no matter how useless, than one of the hated other tribe of Britain in the top job. Until Scots demand higher standards of their MPs than accepting whining "the shop-steward made me do it" when caught, the sooner Scotland will cease to be a second-world hell-hole.

is up over at Charles Crawford's place. As he mentions, the hosts (of which I am one) have been...

...bellowing primaevally among themselves about what and how the Roundup should round up. Only one death so far…

Which is a shame, for the host we've lost is the one who has done the most work in nominating and sparking discussion. For my part, I try to give the round-up a narrative, rather than make it a boring list of posts. The aim, as I see it, is to drive people to the links rather and stating that you don't agree with them does that as effectively as saying that you do. Inclusion is the watchword - you have to include all nominated posts*, but you don't have to be impartial about that which you include. I have offended people in the past, and that is not my aim.

Needless to say Charles doesn't offend anyone this time, as befits a diplomat.

I was remiss at not linking last week's, so here it is, at Suz' Blog.

The other thing this process needs if it is not to become tedious link-whoring, is that all the hosts (and I am remiss in this regard too. Mea Maxima Culpa), and those who enjoy reading the roundup is to NOMINATE - not huge lists, but one or two a week from lots of different people. Especially if you come across a new blog. You're allowed ONE self-nomination a week - use it! The hosts will add a few of their own selections to impart their voice onto the roundup, otherwise the same people writing at the same blogs get the links each week, and it gets incestuous.

It's Trixy next week, so give her something to work with by nominating a couple of posts, and the best of your own, by emailing the link to Britblog [at] gmail [dot] com. Let's keep the weekly carnival something worth reading!

*Abuse of this rule will not be tolerated.

Unity gets it spot on with a defence of "the Judges" in our common Law system. Now if we could just get our politicians to stop muddying the water with a new law a day, then the judges can get on with dispensing justice and interpreting that law.

So Apparently, if Andy Coulson, the Tories #3 gets his way, the first Queen's speech under the Tories will contain no Legislation (apart from possibly a great repeal bill). This indicates to me the Tories ARE going to be different, very different to the Government which has showered the country with legislative diarrhoea for nearly 13 years, Giving rights where none are needed (under common Law, you have a right to do anything you like that isn't prescribed - no positive right to breast feed in public is needed, for example) Perhaps they understand the principles of common law and are not, as Unity puts it

"ignorant, mouth-breathing moron[s] who knows nothing of this country’s history and even less about its legal and judicial system"

Perhaps they are on to something. Perhaps Unity will thus describe his fellow LibCon blogger Don Paskini and tell him

"just this once I want you to listen up, numb-nuts"

Or Perhaps not.

In a shock Development, Shyster, Swindle & Pratt, lawyers acting for Chris Mullin and Alan Plater sued minor British blogger, A Very British Dude for trademark infringement, arguing that people searching for mr. Mullin's 1982 Novel or Mr Plater's screenplay first aired on Channel 4 in 1988, both titled 'A Very British Coup', might be confused by this Blog's title.

They further argued that they sought to limit the use of the phrase "A Very British..." to only those instances referring to the book or screenplay, unless prior permission is granted in writing (apply to Shyster, Swindle & Pratt). They made further allegations concerning content, suggesting that the blog's title was itself subversive, noting the Pseudonymous author's military experience and dislike of the present Government.

"whilst I am not suggesting that mr. Jackart is planning a military coup against the Labour Government, it cannot be ruled out. Can you be too careful in times such as these?"

he added. Peter Mandelson was seen leaving the building shortly before the press conference.

Naturally I am referring messers Shyster, Swindle & Pratt to the answer given to the plaintiff in the case of Arkell vs. Pressdram.

As is Tory Politico in a similar case. I wish him luck.

I've seen some pathetic stuff from Sunny Hundal, over at Liberal Conspiracy in my time, but this is the most egregious. He's trying to ask us to believe there's something wrong with Eric Pickles asking the broad church of the Tory inclined blogosphere to do some work countering Labour's lies.

For the Record Mr Pickles rejected a daily memo or a Coordinated line for Tory bloggers to take, suggesting (rightly) that we're too bloody-minded to take it on board anyway, and he praised the independence we showed. "Conservatives", he said, "do not want to control everything. We'll leave that to the socialists".

Instead someone fed us booze, and the survivors were forced to listen to me sing. My rendition of Mr Big's 'To be with you' was emphatically not some plan to torture the blue blogs into compliance, however it must have seemed.

This is how it should have sounded.

Personally, I don't think it will be. But via a comment in a Political Betting thread, I come across a Blog called The Tap.

Does anyone know whether this is a tinfoil hat wearing, socially inaquate conspiracy theorist who bashes away at a keyboard in his underwear at his parents' house where he still lives, between extended masturbation sessions to 'StarTrek the Next Generation'. Or is it a beautiful piece of satire?

He's been added to the reader pending a decision.

I'm often asked why I'm voting Tory. Those to the right of me cannot believe I haven't seen through spam Cam, and those to the left think I'm merely tribal.

Here is my reasoning. The Tories are the shit that stinks least. And by some margin.

Look at this idiocy to which a fair percentage of the parliamentary Labour party has put its name. I cannot vote for these illiterate, posturing bufoons, or anyone associated with this feeble document. Leave aside a track record of bankrupting countries, Labour are awful and ghastly on a level which transends philosophy. You could summon the best wordsmiths in the English speaking world and force them to describe the sheer horror of a Labour government, under pain of death, and they would still fail to describe fully my contempt for this bunch of Wankers. I'd commit suicide before I voted Labour.

The Liberal Democrats are loyal to their country, The United States of Europe, not my country, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And they support PR, which is stupid and self-serving. And in any case they're a bunch of sandal-wearing cunts without the guts to admit they're Socialist. I wouldn't trust them to run a public lavatory without eating the deposits, let alone a country.

Which leaves the Tories.


If we're going to continue with the fecal metaphor (and it's my blog, so I will), the Labour party are diarrhoea after a particularly savage dose of Gastroenteritis: a type 7, but with blood and intestinal lining included as your bowels prolapse. The Liberal Democrats are a loose stool like you've had a vindaloo the night before - a 5-6 at best. Not actually life-threatening, but not pleasant, and impossible to pick up.

The Tories are a firm floater which barely needs a wipe. You've tucked the FT under your arm on the way to trap 2, but you've only read the headline by the time you've finished. And you're clean after one wipe. They're not a thing of beauty, but you wouldn't be ashamed to leave it floating for the next occupant of the bog to admire, especially as there are probably one or two still-edible peanuts which can be picked out, like Michael Gove's education policy, or the one about directly elected police chiefs.

Tories. Shit, but much, much better than the alternatives.