Tomorrow morning Derek Draper is convening a “New Media Breakfast” meeting with dozens of Labour bloggers and New Media types to hear from Blue State Digital how Labour can use the internet to win the next election. Blue State Digital are the people that did Obama’s online stuff – rather well. So far Draper’s online efforts haven’t really got anywhere, one of the issues that Labour has is that it does not know what it wants to achieve. Blue State Digital have brought over Thomas Gensemer and Joe Rospars, Barack Obama’s former new media campaign director to basically pitch their services and know-how to the Draper assembled collection of lobbyists, spin-merchants and public affairs leeches* that by and large constitute the Labour blogosphere. Blue State Digital have hired Matthew Macgregor to run a soon to be opened London office. Macgregor worked on Ken Livingstone’s 2008 Mayoral campaign, for War on Want, TULO and Jon Cruddas’ deputy leadership campaign. This is their big sales pitch.
Guido called Draper to wish him luck with the meeting, he cursed Guido’s foreknowledge. Draper denied point blank that he was looking for funding for an Iain Dale style, party-supportive blog with titbits of insider news and his spin on the party line. He has been reportedly moaning that he has been working voluntarily for free for the Party and that if they want to take the fight online they will need a full time paid blogger – what he doesn’t say openly is that it should be him. Sources say that the blog is to be known as the “Daily Draper”.
Hopefully Draper’s blog will be more prescient than his writing for the Guardian. In September 2007 he told us – “Get ready for a short, sharp campaign. Gordon Brown is not a ditherer, and I predict he will announce the election very soon“. Today he says the opposite “the Tories are doing what they can to promote the idea that there might be an early election“, before rubbishing the idea. Does that mean there will be an early election?
“Go 4th” was one working title for a Labour supporting rival to ConservativeHome, LabourList is another name being knocked about. Draper claims he hasn’t finalised the plan and it is still at the talking shop stage. Rumour has it that Mandelson (an Iain Dale fan) is being supportive.
Guido has a suggestion for Derek and the embryonic Labour online-spin crew: find a charismatic, young new leader who can be the change that we need. It won’t matter how good the website is until you do…
Iain Dale has had enough of window-lickers in his comments and introduced registration, he told Guido he realised he had to when he himself was no longer interested in reading the blog comments. Guido cops a lot of criticism for his laissez faire attitude towards the comments. In some ways it is easier for Guido to take this attitude, it is not as if there is any likelihood of him running for elected office or making a job application where the comments can be held against him.
Picture credit : GQ
Originally when this blog started and had readers numbering only in the tens, rather than the tens of thousands, some of the regular comment makers were very witty and brought gossip. In the last four years 200,000 comments have been made, the signal to noise ratio and average quality of the comments has declined. That is an inevitable consequence of having among the tens of thousands of readers a number of moronic, window licking, certifiable loonies. Mostly it is people just venting about their bugbears and commenting on the character of Geoff Hoon, with a few gems to be found. Guido has no problem with swearing at politicians. That has its place, and that place is for better or worse here.
Things will be changing in the New Year, you will still be able to say what you like (within somewhat arbitrary inconsistent limits) without pre-moderation or registering. However there will be incentives for those who produce better quality commentary based on a new element of co-conspirator community rating. Good comments will be more prominently displayed, disliked comments will be less prominent. The biggest innovation is that it will be possible for readers to set their own tolerance thresholds. Poorly rated comments will be invisible to those who set their preferences accordingly. If you only want to see comments judged by co-conspirators to be witty, amusing or illuminating, set your threshold to “Recommended”. Don’t want to read foul language? Set your threshold to “U”. Want to see all and any comments no matter how foul? Set your threshold to “XXX”. If your commentary is consistently recommended your comments will automatically be more prominent in the future and may even get highlighted on the frontpage. Will it work? That is up to you.
Why has it been that at every point since 1997 faced with the Asian crisis, the IT collapse, a stock exchange crash, an American recession, last year a house price bubble, this year rising world oil prices, why has it been that at every point since 1997 Britain uniquely has continued to grow?
In any other decade, a house price bubble would have pushed Britain from boom to bust….
I tell you, it is because with Bank of England independence, cutting debt, fiscal discipline and the New Deal this Labour government has shown the strength to take the tough long-term decisions, that inflation is low, interest rates are low, growth has been sustained in every year, and we are closer than ever to the goal which drives us forward: the goal of full employment for our generation.
Labour, the natural party for economic strength in our country today.
The hubris and the lies – fiscal discipline is a joke, Gordon has presided over fiscal incontinence on an unprecedented scale, the too low interest rates because he excluded house prices from inflation targeting will prove to have been the key determinant of Gordon’s bubble. Inflation was not so low if you included house prices. Gordon can’t blame that on anyone else, it wasn’t an American finance minister who made that policy choice…
UPDATE : Unemployment is now higher than when Labour came into office. It is a fact that unemployment has always ended up higher when Labour is voted out than when it is voted in. Just as every Labour government has ended in financial crisis.
Guido called up Fishburn Hedges, the BBC’s Telly Tax PR firm.
GF : “I have a confession to make”
FH : “Errr”
GF : “Haven’t paid for a TV licence in 10 years.”
FH : “Oh.”
They weren’t too keen on taking a confession and suggested Guido called the BBC press office.
GF : “Have a confession to make”
PO : “Ha ha”
GF : “Haven’t paid for a TV licence in 10 years.”
PO : “Ahh”
GF : “Charles Moore is my leader.”
PO : “Can we call you back”
GF : “I’ll come quietly. Non-violently, like Gandhi.”
PO : “What is your number?”
GF : “Now I have confessed can you stop sending letters?”
Confess your crime to the TV Licence press office on 
020 7544 3144
.
