Battle of the blogsites

[T_i_B]

Now as I'm sure you are aware one thing I do take an interst in is the activity (or rather the lack thereof) on the internet of the Blairites. It appears that some Blairite spin doctors have woken up and realized that Labour are actually very bad at internet activism, although whther this new site actually does anything for them is another matter.

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/01/labour-site-obama-online-party

The crescendo of partisan propaganda over recent years - which is part of a flurry in the run-up to the next general election - is led by the influential blogger Iain Dale. Dale, who has dismissed this writer as a "Labour journalist", is an amiable and influential figure. Yet to portray him as an independent blogger, as the numerous media outlets that carry his commentary do, is not quite right. He is an official Conservative politician, who stood (unsuccessfully) for Norfolk North at the last election in 2005 and is on David Cameron's "priority list" for the next. Further, Dale's brand of socially liberal, but state-slashing, politics is exactly in tune with that of Cameron. Dale's ally Paul Staines, who runs a more vicious blogsite under the pseudonym "Guido Fawkes", is more prone to discredit all politicians, but it is clear that his mission in life is to unseat Gordon Brown, whom he darkly portrays as insane, and to promote the election of the Conservative Party.

So the launch this week of LabourList.org, a new blogsite to which a range of leftists from cabinet ministers to polemicists will contribute, is overdue. According to the new Labour spin doctor Derek Draper, it will, in the short term, be a "street-fighting" mechanism, by which Labour can redress the perceived online imbalance. But, in the medium term, it aims, with the help of Peter Mandelson (who has embraced the internet with a "Second Life" character of spooky likeness to the rather old-fashioned Business Secretary), to cash in on the "Obama era" by galvanising support via the computer screen as much as on the streets.

With the Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper and the Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband taking part in online forums for the site's launch, the validity of its claim to be "independent" may appear questionable. And it is certainly true that Draper, who is currently running the operation from an office in Soho with two Labour-minded interns, is back in the party fold as an unpaid adviser.

But those questioning the ability or the willingness of LabourList to unsettle the Brownite leadership of Labour should note that a number of dissidents from left and right have signed up, and among those helping behind the scenes is the Blairite former Downing Street adviser Ben Wegg-Prosser, who will post on why George Bush was right to present Tony Blair with his "medal of freedom". Provocative, yes; hardcore Labour? Not quite.

The offending website is here http://www.labourlist.org/

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Draper automatically means the site will fail

As Chicken Yoghurt points out, Draper was the slimy little shit uncovered in Greg Palast's investigation into 'cash-for-access' back in 1998. You can't take the site seriously as anything other than the worst of New Labour spin while he's there.

Me, I prefer Liberal Conspiracy - where Liberal Democrats and non-New Labour people like Neal Lawson of Compass have intelligent conversations. Iain Dale says it doesn't have enough of a sense of humour, but Dale is a childish arsehole who has done things like stop links from other blogs working properly by redirecting them. He's not funny.

[T_i_B]

2. I can see problems with it straight away

Firstly it's not in any way independent of the Labour party. It's very much pushing the party line. The fact that most of the contributors seem to be Labour party bigwigs does not help at this point at all. This does not appear even to offer that much to Labour's grassroots supporters. Even Labourhome seems better for that.

Secondly, looking around various places I can see that the site has already gained a reputation for heavy-handed moderation. Now in my experience that sort of control freakery is simply going to drive off more people then it attracts on the internet.

In fact from what I've seen of it Labourlist does not appear to have what it takes to get people onto the net arguing in favour of the Labour party as it makes many of the usual mistakes that Blairites make when venturing into the blogosphere.

Iain Dale has a point that maybe what the left needs is a big individual blog to rival his. Group blogs such as Liberal Conspiracy are an improvement but there's still much ground for the British left to make up in the blogosphere.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. And I think it's going down in flames right now

Draper, supposedly a psychotherapist, describes a plan to publicise alleged 'emotional difficulties' of George Osborne's wife as 'brilliant: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6078542.ece

Draper looks like a nasty little shit, right now. If there's anyone on the site who can hand him the pearl-handled revolver, this is the time to do it.

[T_i_B]

4. Draper needs to go

Draper has shown himself to be an arrogant Blairite who has simply made all the usual mistakes that Blairites always make in the blogosphere, only on a much greater scale. And the current scandal has shown that Draper is actually plunging whole new depths of idiocy.

I watched Draper's interview on Easter Saturday on Channel 4 news and he was more interested in whether his account had been hacked then in the whole matter of whether the allegations were actually true.

If Labour are serious about using the internet properly they need to get rid of Draper ASAP and replace him with an experienced blogger who knows what they are doing. I can think of a few current and former bloggers who could do a much better job of running LabourList then Derek Draper without bringing the party into disrepute as he has clearly done.

And as LabourList is highly dependent on the support of Labour at Westminster level it would not be difficult for them to pull the plug on the site IMHO.

And am I the only one who has noticed how much hypocrisy is on display from Paul Staines and his apologists? Staines is the king of the internet smear and noted for the use of sockpuppets in the comments section for that purpose. The current scandal may have appeared as part of the ongoing feud between Draper and Staines but in all honesty they are as bad as each other.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Yeah Staines is just as bad as Draper or McBride

but he manages to keep a little more distance between him and the Tories than LabourList and Labour ("Labour's biggest independent grassroots e-network" - hah!) They're currently in the process of ditching Draper, it seems - last 3 articles there:

# Either the spivs and chancers go or I do
# Bitchy smear campaigns are not what the blogosphere is for - LabourList must do better
# The very last thing we needed was a Red Guido

[fedsron2us]

6. Can't help thinking there is something else going on here

Political blogs have a pretty small readership so their direct influence on public opinion is not that great. Their main use by political parties is as a means of floating stories into the attention of the wider media. They also provide mainstream journalists with a means of indirectly addressing some of the more scurrilous gossip that is always doing the rounds in the political world. As many bloggers are pathetically egotistical and vain they are also relatively easily manipulated by smart PR men or intelligence operatives who want to use them to run propaganda 'black ops'. While the current debacle is doing Gordon Brown no good at all it has also splashed all the smears about leading Tories across every newspaper in Britain. Some of these may stick in the public memory long after McBride and Draper are forgotten. We are still no nearer finding out the identity of the whistle blower put these emails in Ian Dales hands but that person is more likely to have been within the Labour party than Conservative central office. In fact, although the the Tories are making the best they can of the cards that has been dealt to them I can't believe that it is the type of news that Central Office want playing over the wires especially as there are a lot of much easier and more conventional 'winning' stories for them out there. It will be interesting to see if any of those smeared do sue for libel because that might result in the current circus running right up to the next election. I would have thought that was a potentially high risk strategy for everyone involved, especially the opposition party who might have more to lose than a battered and groggy Labour government from an extended round of mud slinging.

[T_i_B]

8. As I've said earlier in this thread

On Channel 4 News on Easter Saturday Derek Draper was claiming that his e-mail had been hacked into for this to have come out. (he appeared more concerned about that then whether the smears were in any way true!)

Now it's been known for political figures to have their e-mails hacked before and the results ending up on the blogosphere. A couple of years ago a great deal of mudslinging occurred after a Tory MP (I think it was Grant Shapps) had his e-mail hacked and stuff got onto the blogosphere.

And given that Derek Draper has been having a very public feud with Paul Staines for a couple of months now, and given that Staines is the number one dirty tricks merchant in the UK blogosphere and quite open about his intention of getting Gordon Brown out and the Tories in power it would not be unrealistic at all for one of Paul Staines RW allies to have done the alleged hacking.

But regardless of how the story came out, there's still no excuse for Draper soliciting the smears, no excuse for McBride then providing the smears. The response of Downing St to the scandal has not been very good at all and to top it all off, Derek Draper is still in charge of LabourList!

It's also interesting to note that the Tories have not been especially keen on calling for Draper's resignation. I can only presume that Derek Draper is to much of an asset for the Conservative party given how incompetent he's been at running Labour's internet strategy.

[Albus]

7. to be fair, he does attack the Tories too

but of late they have provided him with less targeta

[T_i_B]

9. Draper's finally gone

When I started this thread Labour's abysmal performance on the blogosphere seemed like my own personal hobby horse. Now, thanks to the McBride scandal and Gordon Brown's YouTube broadcasts it's a national joke.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8037133.stm

The controversial ex-spin doctor at the centre of a row over e-mails smearing senior Conservatives has quit as editor of the LabourList blog. Derek Draper said he regretted what had happened and wished he had condemned the smear plan from the start.

But in a resignation statement e-mailed to LabourList subscribers, Mr Draper said: "I regret ever receiving the infamous email and I regret my stupid, hasty reply. I should have said straight away that the idea was wrong.

He said his continued editorship of LabourList "can only detract from what Labourlist needs to do now". He will be replaced by his deputy Alex Smith.

[T_i_B]

10. The reason I'm giving this a kick

...is because this scandal is a story which looks like it may well have been obtained by the News Of The Screws using illegal methods.

Doesn't makes what Draper & McBride did in any way right though, and to be honest the world is a better place without a Labour version of Paul Staines vile website.

[fedsron2us]

11. A very pertinent thread

Thanks for kicking it.

As I suspected back in 2009 many of the leaks to political bloggers appear to have originated from the main stream press who then went on to quote the bloggers as the source for the story. Given that quite a lot of this information seems to have been obtained by illegal means it seems that the bloggers were being used as a cut out by the press to make it appear that they had no role in the process. I noticed that our friend Guido Fawkes and some of his followers appear to have been keen to excuse a lot of the activity being carried out by the Murdoch press and have claimed that certain the Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians will be made to 'regret' it in due course by the Dirty Digger. These almost hysterical threats suggest that certain individuals in the bloggosphere might be worried about having some awkward questions to answer in due course as any criminal enquiry develops.

The truth is that the press, the party political system and certain crooked law officers have all conspired to create the monster that is now devouring them. None of the main parties have clean hands in this matter as all at one time or another have fed the beast when it suited them. If they had stuck to campaigning about policy rather than endlessly playing the man rather than the ball none of this debacle would have happened.