The Argus / New blogs - no comments

Bloggers4Labour got a nice mention in today's The Argus, the local paper for Brighton and Hove. Bit of a shame they missed the .org off the end of the URL, but our good friend Google should guarantee that people can find us. Unfortunately the Argus article isn't on the web :-(

Thanks to Jo for rooting out more Labour blogs. Today's additions are:

• Anne Campbell, MP for Cambridge (also the first British Member of Parliament to have a website)
• University of Kent Labour Students. Being a former member of the Labour group at Kent, the current bunch seem to be a lot more efficient than when I was there!

Will politics ever get e-serious? - 1 comment

As seen on the Election 05 blog, and originally spotted here:

"A few months ago I heard a fascinating talk from US online political pundit Phil Noble, who runs PoliticsOnline.

He described how the Republican Party had made effective use of the net in its campaign to get George Bush re-elected, far outstripping the efforts of the Democratic Party.

They raised more money, but also used their website and e-mail lists to create a virtual grassroots organisation that did not rely on people going from house to house.

It was a campaign that worked with the grain of the internet-using population, encouraging them to do the sorts of things they do anyway, but with a political spin."

Would that work in this country? When you have activists in the Republican party who see each election as a 'crusade' against immoral, godless Democrats, you can understand the fervour they display.

Maybe we lack the enthusiasm we had pre-1997...

Blogger lists available for all - 2 comments

The Bloggers4Labour list is now available for anyone (yes, anyone) to add to their web sites. This is good for you, Labour blogger: more hits, and more publicity for your campaign.

If you fancy displaying a bang up-to-date list like the one we have on the right-hand side, simply complete the (very short!) registration form. It's literally a one-minute procedure. You don't have to be a blogger.

Existing users can log in here.

Your Members page will show you the personalised snippet of JavaScript to add to your page or blog template. Currently, you can have Labour bloggers sorted by location, by subject area (Constituency, Ward, or Campaigning blog, etc.), or by the blogger's status (Trade Unionist, MP, Councillor, etc.), and you can either show a comma-separated list, or a bulleted list like the one we have.

I'd like to offer more styles and more formatting options, so let me know if you have something in mind. I'd also like to do something to take advantage of the feed URLs many of our bloggers have provided. We could potentially offer a "recent posts from the Labour blogosphere" type of thing. So make with the ideas and suggestions!

More new blogs / Irritant - 4 comments

Two more blogs scraped in before close-of-play, Lost in Westminster - which has an interesting article about whether Labour members really understand Labour voters, plus an incredible photo of the Rt Hon. Alistair Darling - and Tacticalvoter.

Meanwhile, I'm currently testing (ultra-minimalist) login and registration forms, so you'll soon have access to the blog lists yourself.

Meanwhile, irritant enquires of us what we think about a documentary that claims Britain provides the USA with intelligence to kidnap and torture (presumably, terrorist) suspects. Well nobody here joined the Labour Party, or supports it, for those reasons. What a murky business 'state security' is. IMHO, anyone who can shine a light in deserves to be commended.

By the way, on the issue of whether Bloggers4Labour is really a blog itself, and whether it will spout opinions in the usual blogging manner, well, I don't think there will be much of this. I'm happy to invite other Administrators (contact me if you're an existing blogger and are interested) who think they could give Bloggers4Labour a voice of its own, but in general I'll try to keep posts down to:

• Announcements of new blogs.
• Issues directly relevant to Labour communications/internet issues, etc.
• Replies to posts written about us, or mentioning us.
• Anything else pertaining to the running of this site.
  

Besides, when it comes to posting I have plenty of work to do on Hove Labour 2005 - should prove to be an interesting campaign on the (hopefully) sunny South Coast...

New entries - 2 comments

Two new entries so far today: The Virtual Stoa, and the unofficial site of Battersea MP, Martin Linton.

What do people think about mixing blogs by real MPs, and MP blogs that are written by other people?

I think it's OK if well-intentioned. The guy developing the site on Martin's behalf is also as much a Labour supporter as any of us, so the blog is welcome to join the list.

Any other Labour supporters writing blogs for their MPs? Let me know if you find any that we've missed.

Submit your site - 7 comments

Finally, the submission form is ready! If you're already on the list, please pass the link on to any Labour-supporting bloggers you know.

Thanks to everyone who contacted me today - that's allowed me to add a couple more entries. I've also redefined all the regions (well, you ought to be used to that sort of thing as councillors and MPs), as I discovered Oxfordshire didn't fit into any of the existing ones...

The next step is to give you all access to the little bit of JavaScript you'll need to add to get the lists to display on your own pages. I want to provide a range of formats to make it as flexible as possible. Anyway, this'll follow in the next day or two, so please be patient...

Tools for all Labour bloggers - 5 comments

While it's all well and good to have a site that simply lists all Labour-supporting bloggers and their URLs, that doesn't help you much. What we're offering therefore, is to maintain a complete list ourselves, and then give you a way of using that list (sorted, formatted, filtered) on your own site with the minimum of effort.

See the list in the right-hand column - it was generated on-the-fly from our database.

So as a new Labour blogger appears on the scene, as soon as we add them to our database, they'll appear on your site too. All sites added will be checked before approval, so you can be sure everything we (and you) show will be genuine.

We've added some of the most popular bloggers already, but we're shortly going to add a submission form so you can add your own site and get it better known.

Who's eligible?

Any site that features a blog (i.e. regular articles, comments, etc.) and is broadly supportive of the (UK) Labour Party. You do have to be based in the UK, but you certainly don't have to be a Labour member. You don't have to support every single Labour policy - you can have strong differences in certain areas, but if you're broadly supportive, and aren't backing any other party, that's enough for us.

Check back soon for the submission form and more developments!

New Look - no comments

Invested my Saturday afternoon in giving the blog a new look. For simplicity, it's based upon Hove Labour 2005, but with a new colour scheme: a more "Labour" red, plus a hint of the new lime green colour that's being used.

There's also a new contact page, so you can email us!

There's still lots more to come over the next couple of days...

Welcome to Bloggers4Labour - 5 comments

Uniting all Labour-supporting bloggers (and web sites) under one roof.

Check back later for more.