Speech on the future of political blogging

I made a speech at the Future-democracy ‘09 conference on Wednesday on the topic of “The future of political blogging”. For those interested, a copy of my speech is here.

1. Richard Blogger says:

   November 27, 2009 at 7:13 pm

   Will, interesting speech. First, a minor correction, you say that you intend to show videos by the start of 2009, I guess you mean by the start of next year!

   My main question concerns the lead-in time from establishing CAP and the blogs they created becoming influential. We have just 6 months until the election, is that enough for the left-leaning blogs you mentioned to gather enough momentum? And if so, what are the most important actions that need to be done?

   I have to admit I was pleased to see the establishment of LeftFootForward as a site that provides real evidence to counter the claims of the right.

   I would like the site to go one step further with a list in the right hand side categorising the most important articles in terms of general headings (economy, health, europe etc). I know there is the tag cloud, but lists generated from the tag cloud give all articles on an associated subject. It would be helpful to have a handful of the most important articles (ie a human decides the importance of an article). (Also, do you have any statistics of how often people click on the tag cloud, it is certainly not a facility I would choose first.)

   I would also like to see a list of the (at the moment scant few) Tory policy documents and an analysis with the most important rebuttal points.

   If implemented, those two suggestions would be very useful facilities.
2. Anon E Mouse says:

   November 29, 2009 at 12:53 am

   Will – I read this speech. It was coherent, well presented and was obviously heartfelt. It was a good speech.

   Richard – Don’t expect the Tories to produce too many policy documents – remember how Labour pinched their inheritance tax idea and doubled it to £600,000. Good. It’s bad enough being taxed when you’re alive let alone when you’re dead.

   But the point is after 12 years Labour is devoid of any decent ideas so the Tories should wait until Labour calls the election before offering a manifesto to the people.

   Remember there is more chance of seeing a snowball in hell than a Labour government this time next year. Cameron is too slick to fall into this bear trap.
3. Richard Blogger says:

   November 29, 2009 at 6:42 pm

   Anon E Mouse,

   do you seriously think that the Tories are too scared to publish their policies for fear that Labour will steal them? or do you think it might be that they are scared that as soon as they make an announcement (for example, a 10% cut in Whitehall carbon emissions) people will rip apart the policy as unworkable, uncosted and without any plan of implementation?
4. Anon E Mouse says:

   November 29, 2009 at 11:07 pm

   Richard Blogger – They’re just keeping their powder dry I guess. The problem Labour has is they will be really outspent on canvassing and stuff.

   I help a Lib Dem with his campaign locally, leafleting and stuff and he says his Tory opposite number has massively more support and resources, which doesn’t seem fair really.

   Doesn’t matter who you vote for anyway the government always gets in…