Does Political Blogging Make Any Difference?
Guido is speaking at a Westminster Skeptics event tonight on whether political blogging actually makes – or will make – any difference to the course of UK political events. Guido’s view is that the question has already been answered.
This graphic from ConservativeHome’s survey of Tory PPCs illustrates where influence lies nowadays. The next Prime Minister and Chancellor of Britain are avid readers of blogs. Does that signify influence, does that make a difference?
On the panel with Guido are ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby, Comrade Hundal from Liberal Conspiracy and Mick Fealty from Slugger. The event will take place at The Old Monk Exchange pub just 100 yards away from St James Station.
Head charge of £2. The panel discussion starts at 7.30pm. (Facebook event page is here.)
Yes and no – the bitchy gossiping remains the same: however the main change is that the people standing around the Westminster village pump have gone global.
I like to think that the constant torrent of bile towards the Labour party of all the imbeciles occasionally gives them cause to realise just how hated they are in the wider world.
And why.
next
“The labour party of all the imbeciles” Yes, that says it all really.
Not in my case, nobody visits my bargain basement Goebbels shithouse blog so I have been reduced to posting my Mirror style bile on Labourhone (where they all take the piss out of me).
Boo hoo
Banging on about your Red Rug all the time has set me wondering: Are you Hazel Blears?
Oh Tuscan, you are naughty. But I like it.
I thought the “Head charge of £2″ very reasonable, especially having spoken to Ms. Lewinsky recently about her rather more ambitious rates.
top quality satire as usual from the Mailgoloid Army
Said the BBC drone.
http://climateresearchnews.com/2010/02/bbc-pension-funds-linked-to-climate-policy/
I know best
Sunny Boy clearly thinks (sic?) so! I just hope Guido is not sitting too close to S.H. – his malady just might be contagious, which would result in another loss for humanity.
Two more brave lads die today
what a waste !
And to think we will be buying off the ‘enemy’ quite soon.
You’ve missed a trick Mr. Plug: do like I did and sign up for the Taliban Facebook group and you too could be in for a share of a £ 500million prize.
Now listed in 500 guises. Allah Akbar!
can I hire a cushion for my piles?
Do the world a favour and shoot Hundal in the face.
Yes, gotta love the kind of people you attract and influence Guido? Shooting people in the face, who disagree with you. At least if someone shot you (moriarrrggghhhty) through the ear, it would pass through the other side with no noticeable effect…
George, perhaps suggesting doing that to Hundal is rather wrong. But on the subject of this particular blogger, how would you describe Sunny Hundal, the man who insults anyone who dares question his dogmatic mantra, and resorts to childish name calling whenever someone tries to indulge in some considered debate. A well balanced and articulate person perhaps? Or a twat?
Anyone who resorts to ‘childish name-calling whenever someone tries to indulge in some considered debate’ has clearly lost the argument. ‘Twat?’ Is that not glass houses? Or are you also referring to the majority of commenter’s on this blog, hardly the bastion of ‘considered debate’ you talk about? The majority of comments on the majority of posts here are pitiful name-calling and repetitive nonsense.
Something I do myself; in the hypocritical way I like to do things. I suspect a level of hypocrisy we all have at certain times, especially when something makes you just want to go – fuck the fuckity fuck off you Huhning twat of an Osbourne!
Love how the word ‘c*unt’ is replaced by ‘Hoon’, even I will second that motion.
You’re new here aintcha boy?
That welcome sounds like I have just walked into a bar in an old American Western…
Nice try George, but far too may wordlings.
Now, back to the original question. You description of Mr Hundal would be what exactly?
I’m standing beside him in this pub…he is a smug wanker. His little ditty here bored the tits off me. Just on a beer break
Emily no mates looks quite sexy! Ha!
Yes,of course it makes a difference
Police are looking for a toyota driver who failed to stop after an accident.
The people in the other car are said to be in shock, and ten miles past their destination
The car in front… is a Toyota.
.
.
.
It was behind, but it couldn’t fucking stop!
I was in the pub last night when my wife text me :
Hi Darling, I have just opened my letter from the hospital about my lump.
Do you want to know the results? xxx
I text back :
No, please don’t tell me.
I’ll watch Match Of The Day when I get In. xxx
So you haven’t got a real job then jonty?
No, got crabs on me itchy ginger nads though.
One of Fraser Nelson’s points recently is that Government has not caught up with a multi-choice, online electorate. They are still mentally in the age when people went to the Co-op and they stocked one of everything. If you were very lucky, you might be able to buy the same product in red, blue or orange, but then you could only change it every five years.
Today’s political parties take about 35 years to absorb any new ideas, roughly the length of a politician’s career. I like a bit of 70s’ nostalgia, but being governed by it is going too far. Blogs are helping to speed things up.
Can anyone give me some big examples where it has made a difference? Interested to know.
Ask Derek (P45) Draper.
And Damien (P45) McBride
And Gordon (P45) Brown (in a few weeks) [fingers crossed]
And Peter Hain.
Please, oh God, please.
The sleaze ball Keith Vaz could do with a P45. Very quite of late the rat.
Also, I think that without blogging, we the proles would not hear what is actually going on & we would already be marching to our ‘Protection Camps’ in standard issue grey overalls, ready to receive our RFID chip (for our own protection of course).
Blogging has also had an effect on the scam of global warming – if it hadn’t been challenged via blogs it would still be going strong.
Blogs have added pressure on our lying thieving MPs – we may have read the Telegraph – but only yhe regular readers & MPs would have continued on their merry troughing way. Not that it’s sorted yet BUT the blogs are still going strong
Yes it can make a difference and this blog provides a safe haven for people to vent their frustration and anger in relation to how badly we are governed and controlled.
True. While we’re venting our fury here we’re not pouring petrol through the local Labour parties letterbox. Although now might be a good time to join the Labour party – the better to saboutage their annual conferences in front of the TV cameras in the years ahead.
Just shout ‘lies’ every time somebody opens their mouth. When they’re in opposition the police won’t be in such a big rush to arrest you under terrorism legislation but you still make the news.
The only problem about that is that you’d be paying good money to them as a subscription – if they became so worried that they started offering free subs then I’d consider it. Though only with a view to spreading dissension and discord through the ranks.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/02/08/cherie-blair-backs-labour-s-liverpool-wavertree-candidate-luciana-berger-100252-25783978/
People of Liverpool you know what you have to do.
completely OT but I was paying attention and yes, blogging will make a huge difference although I doubt the BBC will have its exciting bloggers’ room as it did in 2005 so we could watch a bunch of people sitting at their laptops on election night.
Followed this link & read it plus the comments – overall view seemed to be that New Labour hadn’t done very much for Liverpool, at which point some OCD New Labour supporter leapt into print & gave a big list of their accomplishments ending with :
33.Free central heating for those on benefit
Etc.etc.etc.
And you have the audacity to state that New Labour has done nothing for the working class!!!
Obviously someone here who doesn’t know the difference between ‘being on benefits’ and ‘working to earn a living’.
Any bananas there mate or just the usual bent fruits?
Has almost no effect. Sort of people who go on political blogging sites are unlikely to be swing voters and often right wing & left wings sighst are preaching to the converted. The only other effect they could have is leading the argument or breaking stories, but the dead tree press has had all teh running on those ones recently (expenses etc). Political blogging has about as much effect as private eye does (i.e. none)
Hmmm. I think you might be surprised. I’m what you would call a ‘swing’ voter. I believed the Labour lies in 1997 and voted Labour. I’m not proud of it but unlike Brown I’m not going to evade reality.
Some time around 2000 it began to dawn on me what a bunch of incompetent, economy-wrecking imbeciles we’d set loose in the land. But do you know I felt isolated. The BBC was telling me what a fucking great job the grinning war-monger was doing and the Maximum Imbecile was getting rave reviews everywhere for his miracle economy. It was only through the internet that I realised that I was not the only person in the country who could see through Brown’s economic house of cards.
And I’ve been spreading the word diligently since then. It didn’t take a fucking ‘economic crisis that started in America and has fuck all to do with me, Gordon Brown’ for the scales to fall from my eyes. And there are tens of thousands who have likewise been spreading the word of the Maximum Imbecile’s incompetence which is why, despite the BBC still tub-thumping for the economic beserker the news is out that this economy was wrecked by bubbles Brown and he’s in the shitter poll-wise.
One thing is for sure. It wasn’t the mainstream media that blew the fucking whistle. Perhaps it was several million lightbulbs switching on when Brown’s ‘miracle’ house of cards collapsed. Perhaps it was the tens of thousands of people who had been preparing the minds of those millions so when it did collapse they went – hey – that’s exactly what jgm2/Old Holborn/Guido/John Redwood predicted would happen.
I like to think we’ve made a difference albeit ten years too late.
spot on 10 out of 10
yes all the TV News networks and Newspapers hid the recession and the Bank catastrophe
we were lucky to find out about it
And therein lies the great tragedy. Because the BBC and mainstream newspapers et al weren’t highlighting the folly of the pyramid house-buying economy before it blew up the government was able to put in place with the BBC this whole narrative about ‘it was the bankers – it started in America’. Whereas if they’d been explaining the folly of a pyramid house and debt economy for years then the rather more obvious culprit would present itself. Innit.
Now because most folk wander through life in a daze they will not have been expecting this to go tits up. But because the government knew for well over a year that it was going tits up they were able to make sure that the BBC had the ‘right’ message – dutifully copied in full by the MSM the following day.
You won’t remember it because it probably came as a surprise to you that the UK had been living beyond its means for a decade. But I remember it. But I was spitting feathers. The reportage was all archive pictures of yuppies with house-brick sized mobile phones and girls with big perms and shoulder pads. All 1980′s archive pictures – it was the ‘failure of capitalism – failure of banks – started in America’. No mention of unsustainable debt. No mention of regulatory failure. No mention of failure of Brown’s FSA or government.
Now, wasn’t that lucky that the BBC was able to throw that governmental cover story together in a few hours rather than go for the obvious. Off down to the archives. Remaster the old tapes. Put out ‘it started in America’ and ‘failure of Thatcherism’. Phewww. Lucky old Gordon Brown. He must have been shitting himself that he’d get the blame.
But the good old BBC who we have to believe knew nothing about this till it blew up one morning managed to put their finger right on the ’cause’ like that. A ’cause’ this evil government has been flogging for all its worth for the past two years. And the dumb-fuck newspapers have been following their lead. Yeah!!! It’s Fred Goodwin’s fault. Yeah, sack the bankers. Yeah – it’s fuck all to do with US. Thank God we were here to sort it out and tell you who to blame.
Our MSM is a fucking disgrace.
I’m quite surprised.
The original “labour lies” were that they would be responsible, and tax+spend a bit more than Major’s conservatives, but would keep things on an even keel. (ignoring the time from 1997 to now, that could almost be Dave’s conservatives). In an alternative reality, brown could have taxed a bit more (perhaps increasing stamp duty or screwing buy-to-letters), spent a bit less – would you still support them?
I won’t go as far as an alternative reality where they controlled credit more strongly, or didn’t go to war with iraq – I’d have no confidence that even something like a Howard-conservative party would have gone that far.
I’d forgive them pretty much anything if they’d been prudent. And prudent would not be rigging an ‘independent’ system to turn a blind eye to 20% annual house inflation while proclaiming that inflation was under control. We’d had a house-price boom/bust in the late 1980′s. I remember it. It totally fucked the economy for years.
Then they went and stoked up an even bigger one. Encouraged folk to go out and piss all that equity away because it flattered the ‘growth’ figures. Pissed away 35bn every year themselves creating a million over-paid box-tickers, bedwetters and bastards to try and buy even more votes. And wouldn’t listen to anybody who was tearing their hair out in frustration trying to get them to behave like adults.
They deliberately fucked the UK. They knew they were fucking it which is why Brown became increasingly insane when Blair reneged on their Granita agreement. This should have been the Tories bust. Blair and Brown should both have had a ‘go’ by now and lost the 2005 election in order to tip this shitfest into the Tories lap. I genuinely think Brown in particular knew when the bill would come in which was why he was so desperate to get a ‘go’ at being PM before the shit hit the fan. Even now he’s still doing his best to blame the Tories for his own clusterfuck. ‘It’s the TORY’ bankers’. ‘It’s the NEOCON Americans’ – smear by association.
And the BBC is doing a great job of spreading the lies. The fact is that this was Gordon Brown’s boom and bust. And he’d planned to have his five year premiership and tip the whole shitpot into the Tories lap so that he could then give it ‘See what happens when you let the Tories near the money’.
This really was a planned recession. The only problem was that Blair reneged ‘cos he liked the limelight too much and the timing went all to shit. This recession was supposed to be blamed on the Tories. This recession was supposed to signal the destruction of the Tories. And they might have got awy with it too if it wasn’t for those pesky kids. And the fact that Blair is a lying, double-crossing ego-maniac.
‘Prudent’ would have been good. No ban on cigarette ads – apart for F1 that is, owned by Labour supporter (and donor?) Bernie Eccelstone would have been even better. That was when Blair began to show his true colours as the shyster he is.
No Iraq war, no erosion of our Civil Rights, no uncontrolled immigration & payouts to illegal migrants was what was needed. I too voted Labour in 1997 – for the first time – never again.
Brown has always been a mendacious chump. I seem to recall some lying piece of spin he put out during an election Campagne concerning the NHS and some childs ear . Perhaps someone with a better memory can elucidate this.
In the mental asylum three mentally unstable patients were planning to escape… 1st patient: If the boundary wall is high, we’ll jump over it. 2nd patient: If the wall is thick, we’ll dig a hole and escape through it. 3rd patient: Oh no! We can’t escape. I’ve checked it – the asylum doesn’t have a wall
The internet is Labour’s worst nightmare come true; everybody knows what everybody else is thinking. Their command and control mindset wants to measure it, so they can control and tax it; but they can’t since it is un-measurable, feral and anarchist. And they are still in shock: they fear that they will have to be whole lot more tolerant of the electorate’s medieval ideas and disgusting habits in future. They fear, with good reason that 11 million pub smokers are going to do a deliverance on their corrupt fat arseholes at the general election. And they are right.
The Blogs do make some difference. But how much would be hard to Judge.
Self Interest is being tested by logical arguments.
The country cannot afford to be legged up with Brown and his glum band of cronies any more. The madness must stop. There are far too many examples of dreadful elementary management mistakes. Throwing more money at all the problems hasn’t helped sort out any of the problems. The easiest reference to this is Government IT systems. Just name one that actually has worked as envisaged?
There was a young lawyer named Rex
Who was sadly deficient in sex.
When arraigned for exposure
He replied with composure
“De minimis non curat lex”
I’ll see you in court
There was a kind curate from Kew
Who kept a large cat in a pew.
He taught it each week
A new letter of Greek;
But it never got further than “mu”.
A corpulent Scotsman named Jim
Had a slight inclination to skim
But his very poor choices
Of fictitious invoices
Resulted in charges – poor him!
A Chinaman named Luke See
Had a daughter to bounce on his knee
So she couldn’t be cussed or even discussed
He named her Sub Judy See
Bugger,I can’t stop crying.
Ever listened to “Stop your sobbing” by The Pretenders
Come round to mine Jonty for a nice cup
of herbal tea and a Labour comrades cuddle.
I can get you some cream for that sweetie xx
Ooh aint it awful. I can whinge and whine on here forever.
Well it gives us the truth, something the BBC doesn’t.
Well dont let the truth get in the way of a good story! One thing you can do on blogs such as this is post things the BBC would never let you get away with such as:
‘John Prescott likes to felch dead donkeys with his ornate crack pipe made out of the bones of Harold Shipman’
Whilst clearly the above quote is not true (well at least I have no evidence it is true but I also have no evidence its not true.Probably.) at least I can post it here to add to the political debate. Try that on the BBC HYS…..
Seriously John Prescott does like to…. ahem..yes political blogging is worthwhile and does help form opinions. Even opinions not related to john Prescotts lesuire activities.
I’ll get my coat……
You mean how the BBC NEVER mentions his slapper shagging on TV. He was interviewed by pig face Kate Silverton on Radio 5 on Sunday. At no time did Silverton ask Prescott about his skank shagging, yet this fat wife cheating turd was allowed to spout on about the Tories (and remember how he used to rip into the Tories for their shagging on the side) as if he was some sort of local hero.
A ConservativeHome poll finds 98% takes influence from, erm let me, think, ConservativeHome. Good one. Brilliant in fact.
“Guido’s view is that the question has already been answered.”
Oh, and sucking your own cock is the height of self-indulgence. Especially when your 22% behind the ‘left-wing’ BBC. Confused? The Conservative-Homers certainly appear to be…
I would stick with your own seminal work. You just sound like a delirious shrill on LSD.
You are going to be less than joyful in June.
Awww poor baby doesn’t like the truth
You sound like a petulant twat having a hissy fit because someone pointed out the obvious
Fuck off, I do the Labourwrist crap on here.
Glad to see you address each of the points I made with a clear and concise argument.
“You are going to be less than joyful in June.” I know, Liverpool will be coming to terms with Europa cup football, again, and England will be embarking on a campaign of hurt and destruction with snippets of hope and amazement. Only to lose to Spain in the quarters on penalties.
Ah, sorry, general election you somewhat suggestively mean I assume, I vote in a pretty safe Plaid Cyrmu seat in North Wales. So Welsh bitter all round! Snowdon Best, mmm, what a pint!
“Awww poor baby doesn’t like the truth”
Which truth would that be Anal-boy, relative or real?
I wasn’t too clear what the graphic represented so I checked :
‘ConservativeHome recently conducted a survey of Tory candidates*. Some of the political results can be read here. In that survey and in follow up questions we also asked them about their reading habits. We gave them a choice of websites and newspapers and asked which they regularly read. The league table below captures the results: ‘
and
‘Interestingly, as well as enjoying almost 100% penetration amongst the next generation of Tory MPs we also won the trust battle. 92% of candidates said they trusted ConHome’s accuracy. The Telegraph scored just 67%.’
Well, it would pretty strange if Tory candidates didn’t keep tabs on ConservativeHome.
Perhaps they they should be worrying about why they’re not scoring 100%.
You can have lawyers or employers. Get rid of Industrial Tribunals NOW!
http://tinyurl.com/yj89xpb
Wow! I had no idea Sun readers have an IQ 10 points above Mirror readers.
Do a lot of blacks read the Mirror?
at least they can read unlike the Nanziboy and his gay skinhead neanderthals
Nice to see the mirror where it should be……..at the bottom.
A guy had been feeling down for so long that he finally decided to seek the aid of a psychiatrist.
He went there, lay on the couch, spilled his guts then waited for the profound wisdom of the psychiatrist to make him feel better.
The psychiatrist asked me a few questions, took some notes then sat thinking in silence for a few minutes with a puzzled look on his face.
Suddenly, he looked up with an expression of delight and said, “Um, I think your problem is low self-esteem. It is very common among losers.”
No-one has commented that Guido blog is 8% higher than Telegraph.
Must get grandad to upgrade the telegraph to semaphore.
“The trouble is,” said the blogger to the psychiatrist, “that I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t tell jokes, I can’t act, I can’t play an instrument or juggle or do magic tricks or do anything!”
“Then why don’t you give up blogging.”
“I can’t – I’m a star!”
I notice that the Braintree Bullshitter is nowhere to be seen on that list.
Shurely shome mishtake?
Ah, This is perfect! Clarifies
a few contradictions I’ve been hearing.