(A bit of a political blog, so the sensitive should look away now)
Just before Christmas I discovered that I am not the only Babergh Councillor with a blog!
Liberal Democrat and prospective parliamentary candidate for South Suffolk, Nigel Bennett, started his own site in December. The blog is VERY political, but I suppose it has to be since it is overtly promoted by his political party. It’s also quite boring. Come on Nigel....let’s have some sparkling prose, a few bright ideas to get our teeth into and perhaps a few up to date pictures!
In the spirit of friendship towards Nigel, who is actually a decent chap despite his unfortunate politics, I am giving you, my readers, the link so you can see for yourself
http://nigelbennett.mycouncillor.org.uk/
Don’t forget to ‘Bookmark’ it so you can keep up to date with the zeitgeist!
Anyway Local Liberal Democrats aren’t the only people who are turning their attention to the blog as a means of communication. The Labour Government has been giving them some consideration too, and it is clear that they don’t much like them.
Their antipathy is due to the fact that blogs reach parts that their spin machine (now back in overdrive after the rehabilitation of Lord Mandy and Alistair Campbell) can’t . The ‘message’ that they want to convey is thus increasingly diluted and undermined , and, horror of horrors, CANNOT BE CONTROLLED. The Government, who are control freaks par excellence, would therefore dearly love to crack down on blogs.
This was made apparent by Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham who, when speaking to the Royal Television Society last October said "The time has come for perhaps a different approach to the internet," he said. "I want to even up that see-saw, even up the regulation [imbalance] between the old and the new." He added that he would like to ‘tighten up online content and services and ‘lighten up’ some regulatory burdens around the TV industry’. Other Government Ministers have also made comments which can be read as veiled threats against blogging.
Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that blogs from the Right, such as Guido Fawkes, Conservative Home and Spectator Coffee House have been so much more successful than those of the Left. I don’t know anyone who has stayed awake long enough to read more than a few words of the Labour Home site. A new Labour website, Labour List, is to be launched shortly, but since this will be actually controlled by the Party I can’t believe it will be better.
And what about the Lib Dems? I was going to point to a Liberal website, which according to Guido Fawkes ‘shows promise’, but when I turned to it today the current post was so risqué that I decided against it!
Better ignore that one Nigel!
