 |  |  |
Last 3 Posts @ August 21, 2008 2:55:03 PM EDT
| Secular sermon (24 mins ago) | Refresh |
I often find that the most interesting discussions of the whole notion of liberty arise when the there are conflicting understandings of what liberties are. Northern I...
| Never Trust a Hippy |
| The world's most difficult question (1 hour, 6 mins ago) |
Politicians often have to face tough questioning on a whole range of subjects. But the question 'how many houses do you own?' is not generally regarded as one of the ...
| Don Paskini |
| The new Russian imperialism (1 hour, 32 mins ago) |
Robert Horvath takes issue with the parochialism of those who, 'fixated upon the evils of US global hegemony', refuse to see Russian imperialism for what it is: "..."
| normblog |
Last month we covered Labour's idea to offer an up-and-coming blogger access to this year's Party Conference in Manchester.B4L Running Costs
£2,058.65 spent since 2007, which could be met by a donation of £4.07 per blogger.
|
Created by Andrew Regan and others, 2005-7. Any part of this site can be used, if properly attributed. |
|||
 |
|
 |
|
![[Valid Atom]](http://www.bloggers4labour.org/images/valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom feed")
19 comments so far...
Try and be at least a little bit critical of something. If it's nothing but endless sycophancy, then who's going to read it?
God, thought you meant me for a moment there (ouch). But, yep, that's a fair bit of advice.
http://kerroncross.blogspot.com/2006/09/labour-conference-blogger-announced.html
It was so unpredictable, it was predictable.
Seems you can't leave a comment on the Roberts/Thirsk site. Doesn't this disqualify it as a blog?
Yes, you're right. Rummy. It may be, though, that a special Labour-liveried blog will be set up for the event, and that articles won't actually appear at T&M. Rather defeats the purpose of giving the (relative) newbie a blogging boost though.
Sorry, re-read. It's still a blog alright, but turning off comments altogether is highly unusual. Norm and Oliver Kamm do so, but only to turn off a potential torrent of comment, and a fair amount of hostility too.
B4L - pretty good choice?!! The competition was looking for the best, freshest and most innovative blogger. The winner runs a site where there are barely any postings and no debate! The infrequent postings that are fairly inane and often barely related to politics. The losers get to know how Darren Bent, Jermaine Defoe, Dean Ashton, James Beattie and Andy Johnson felt when Theo Walcott was picked ahead of them for the last World Cup. In other words "kicked in the teeth".
Did it really say innovative, or indeed even best? I might have submitted B4L in that case :-) The original article's gone now.
I must say I didn't notice the lack of comments when I wrote my post, though I'm sure that a new vehicle will be created for him, and that certainly will allow comments.
As for James Beattie... he sealed his ignominious fate when he left Southampton. He might as well take the pub landlord course now. Shearer may, I concede, be an exception to this iron law.
Original article has gone but a cursory google of Labour blogger innovative brings plenty of results including a post by me and more reliably one from Labour Home. Obviously - given the winner - the quote has been removed from the original site. I note there were countless entries -Thirk's 100 words must have been mind-blowing. Now that would be interesting.
Sounds like sour grapes to me; I think he seems like a good choice, and there are lots of things in his favour:
1. Firstly, he isn't well-known, and hopefully won't attract the high volume of personal abuse which some of his peers surely would.
2. He's 24 - a good advert for the fact that some young people, if not all, are still prepared to vote Labour.
3. He writes short, readable posts on a good variety of subjects, and displays no signs of arrogance or self-importance.
4. Where he, in one particular instance (talking about striking lecturers) writes something which really annoys me, he counters it the following month by posting a rebuttal from a member of his CLP which contradicts him.
5. He seems to be active locally.
Okay, he's not critical of the party line, which is a shame, and it's frustrating that the comments are turned off, but on the other hand it's refreshing finding a political blog without a childish and tiresome trail of flame wars. He generally avoids the combative, macho stereotype of the political blogger and should be commended for it.
So - not a great choice, but a good one.
The original article did say "We will pick the best, the most innovative and the freshest entry..." (not blogger), and given that we haven't seen any of the entries we can't really comment. Yep, he does have some good points in his favour and I think we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Hopefully the new blog will be set up a little before the Conf so we at least get an introduction - and I can add it to B4L!
I agree with Jonathan, and for the reasons that he gives. I'm often surprised by the level of intelligence and political awareness shown by youngsters - like me. *cough*
My advice would be this: A) be yourself - don't try to please or impress, as people will see through this, and we want to know what you really think; B) keep on keeping your posts short, readable, and frequent; C) follow your own instincts - don't be afraid to disagree with anyone, no matter who they may be, unless it's me; and D) we all wish you the very best of luck.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for your comments and good advice - all of which is duly noted.
Best wishes, and see you soon.
Jonathan
Might as well say what the sycophants are too craven to say:
The chosen blog is dull. No debate, comments disabled, and little to say apart from supine pro-Blair noises and trivia: precisely why it was chosen by Labour for conference then!
"Jonathan's is a Labour Party conference virgin and will bring a fresh and insightful eye to the proceedings" = Jonathan will be all at sea and thus easily guided by ministers and officials to say exactly what we want him to say.
Benjamin, please let me explain a couple of concepts to you. The first concept is called 'kindness'. This is when one person shows consideration for the feelings of another. You may have seen this happening between friends, lovers, family members and colleagues â and sometimes between strangers. The second concept is called 'encouragement'. This is when one person offers support to another. You may have seen this happening between the same groups of people, often in situations where a person is facing a challenge and feels, understandably, a certain amount of apprehension. The third concept is called 'diplomacy'. This is when one person chooses to ignore the possible shortcomings of another, in order not to be unkind or discouraging to them. I hope that helps.
Jonathan can you please please enable comments on your website? It will be good practice. PS the full text of Roger Helmer's letter does not contain the term "dumb animals".
Hi Praguetory, I've amended the Helmer entry appropriately. Thanks for the info.
I'm not going to get too drawn into the debate of my blog, so I won't comment again after this.
The purpose of our blog seems to be very different to the majority of political blogs out there. It has always been purely to supplement the campaigning work of our CLP, to let local people (in our rural, safe Tory area) know that we exist and have a viewpoint. I periodically ask local people to write in for me to publish their comments (although those who do write in tend not to want to ask for their comments to be published, for various reasons).
I understand that there is a close political blogging community, whose blogs operate entirely differently to ours. Whilst we respect it for what it does, the T&M blog isn't attempting to be a part of it - we just want to get on with our work in our way.
In terms of the conference blog, I believe it should have comments enabled as it's purpose will be somewhat different to T&Ms.
I hope this clears a few things up. If not, feel free to talk to me at conference.
Best wishes for you and your blogs throughout conference season.
Jonathan
As this is the only line of communication, thanks for the response and I wish you well. It is a beautiful part of the country that you work. Does the HQ of excellent construction company Severfield-Reeve lie in your constituency? Can't imagine many of them voting Red.
Lamb to the slaughter - poor innocent fool.
If you have a political belief strong enough to articulate it you MUST have the confidence to respond to challenges to that belief otherwise it is meaningless.
Not allowing comments on your blog is self indulgent and cowardly.
I fear you are in for a rude awakening when you finally have to deal with those challenges.
Good luck you poor misguided soul!(at least Tony and Gordon will massage your ego a good bit)
Post a Comment
<< Home