“It is that you — and I include LC, LabourList, Tim Ireland, etc. — set up said blogs thinking that you will make a political difference.”

It depends…

Anyone who writes on a particular policy and imagines that an MP’s going to swan by and think “what a wonderful EDM that’ll make” is clearly silly, but blogging can be used to coordinate campaigns (disseminating information, contacting the likeminded etc.). The LPUK wouldn’t have come together without blogging, and presumably that isn’t purely for fun?

Ben

The less said about Devil’s Kitchen the better…

Why, thank you.

You know what I think is wrong with many Leftie blogs (and some Righties, sure)? It is that you — and I include LC, LabourList, Tim Ireland, etc. — set up said blogs thinking that you will make a political difference. Many of the “right” blogs do it for fun and, as such, we tend to take ourselves a little less seriously.

Oh, yes, and some of us know what free speech means, Sunny-boy, and we practice it.

DK

certain Right-wing blogs have a curious tendency to continually link to each other’s stories

That’s not curious, that’s fairly standard blogging practice—I do it on my personal blog when I can be arsed, as do most other bloggers I read. We tend to do it less on LC (although, palpably, not on this post) as we tend to be more issues based.

I also used to carry adverts when I was trying to build up my own politics blog before we set LC up—it helps pay the bills if you’re self hosting. I didn’t go in with MessageSpace because of the idiocy, but one of the founders of the company is a Labour type (albeit not a particularly succesful blogger, if he was, the Red Rag story would never have happened).

Also, I think you discount diminishing returns—I’ve studied this, as have others. The first time a high traffic blog links to you, you get a lot of incoming traffic, some of that converts into regular readership. The second time the same source links, you get traffic, but the boost is less and you pick up some more. Eventually, the people likely to want to read your stuff read you directly and the click through traffic is insignificant, the high traffic blogs regular readers either already read your stuff or don’t want to and won’t click.

That’s not to say there aren’t other advantages—gaming Wikio/Google for one. But if you keep linking to crap your readers won’t like, then you’ll suffer as well, there’s an inbuilt feedback loop in the whole thing.

Oooh, do you think?

I generally try not to, but… the urges… keep… taking hold…

My question was somewhat rhetorical, but I’ll add this: certain Right-wing blogs have a curious tendency to continually link to each other’s stories – encouraging quite a bit of click-through traffic to the same small set of blogs. That, and of course, cough, Messagespace, cough.

Oooh, do you think?

Could the style and tone of various Right-wing blogs be related to said blogs carrying advertising? At the very least, that might be why they have a tendency to massage their ‘viewing figures’…

zzzzzzzz ……………

All I did was read out your comment to my poo as I flushed. “But even I wouldn’t say something so pig-headedly crap”, it burbled as it swirled into U-bend purgatory…

I’ve just had a shit. It made more sense than you.

Such an well reasoned reply. The pathetic, smug and puerile self obsession even descends to own shit worship now? Genuflecting at the altar of your own turds. Why not try a preview with your head up your arse? Actually, judjging by your reply you’re doing that already.

Funny that, because I was under the impression that Liberal Conspiracy is independent.

No, i have a different theory. That we live in an age where the average voter has been manipulated into dafault acceptance of knee-jerk, black-and-white right wing simplicity which appeals to a selfishness and greed that the politics of the last 30 years has actively fed and encourged.

Generally, left-wing thnking by necessity goes against this stuff, so rather unsurprisingly isn’t hugely popular given the modern state of society.

Times, however, may well be changing.

@logdon

I’ve just had a shit. It made more sense than you.

So true i t needs to be said again.

Are you a particular friend of fat git Watson, btw?!
(I think fat git counts as fair comment – more than fair in his case.)

Oh, he’s playing around now too.
If he sues, there will have to be “discovery”.
Which I suspect is the last thing he wants.

You overestimate my standards.
Guido went for Spelman.
If he can find anything on any Tory, that’s fine and dandy with me.

“do it! do it! do it!”

In an interview with The Stirrer, Dale confessed there was no evidence to support this assertion. He said, “I do accept that he wasn’t cc’d into the emails.”

He added: “Knowing the layout of that office, I can’t believe he didn’t know about Red Rag, but I can’t prove it.”

When asked why he hadn’t apologised for his error, Dale said that he had only posted it for around 15 minutes on his site on Saturday night, and had even emailed the Mail On Sunday with a correction – which nevertheless repeated the slur.

“I don’t know why they didn’t remove the reference” he said. “I can only assume it arrived too late before they went to press.”

Yup – that pretty much sums up Iain Dale’s shenanigans!

Of course Tom Watson was kidding around (though he isn’t now) because the number for Schillings is easy to find. And why shouldn’t Tom Watson protect his reputation? If I smeared Iain Dale I’d expect him to do the same. Lastly cjcjc – I don’t suppose you believe in that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ palava – or perhaps only when it applies to rightwingers.

Like your ideological ally chavscum – you guys have standards, until its the left which is under attack. then it’s open season.