More on Recommendations - 6 comments

Our recommended posts facility is clearly popular, and the facilities will be upgraded further over the weekend, but it does appear that a small minority is not being entirely ethical in their recommendations...

There are very few 'rules' when it comes to recommending a post; in fact, just one: that you can't vote twice for the same article in a particular browser session, on a particular day. All voting is anonymous, so I have to rely on people's honesty for the system to produce satisfying and informative results, but perhaps I should have provided some examples of what I would consider unethical voting:

1. Voting for your own blog post. This is cheating, but I'm also confident it's extremely rare.
2. Voting more than once for the same post, whoever wrote it. I can't stop people doing this, and I've done it myself by accident, but consistently doing it - however fervent your opinion - just ruins things for other people., and there's strong evidence this has occurred in recent days.
   
3. Voting consistently, over time, for blogs you're associated with, or otherwise wish to promote. All I can suggest here is to try to be as even-handed as possible to avoid skewing the results.
   

I don't mind people having favourite blogs, and it's quite understandable that people are more likely to consider a blogger/post they agree with, or are sympathetic to, more worth a vote than someone or something they strongly oppose. It's human nature, but it's also likely to be evened-out as more people getting involved - unlike (1)-(3).

This shouldn't deter the vast majority of readers from recommending posts, just bear in mind that it's much more fun to find some surprising results, and to get some votes you never expected, than to look at the results and find something that just doesn't ring true.

Sermon over :-)

Back in the South / Social IV - no comments

Sorry for the lack of posting, which has taken a bit of a dive recently with the various things I've had to do for the site, though you'll also be seeing plenty of those in the next few days.

I returned from my brief tour of the North West (Stockport-Manchester-Macclesfield) on Sunday evening, having met quite a few new people, and even approached perfect strangers at drinks receptions, though I had no access whatsoever to Conference events (the nearest I came was seeing the Rt. Hon. Alan Johnson in the street), to showbiz parties, or to free alcohol. I didn't even run into either of the 'Blairite' or 'Brownite' gangs the MSM insist were battling for supremacy.

Notwithstanding, the 4th BloggersLabour social achieved a good attendance considering the competition, and by my reckoning, no fewer than 27 people attended. Apart from myself we were graced by: Adele, Alex, Antonia, Bob, Catherine, Dan P, Dan J, Gareth, Jag, JK, Jonathan, Kerron, Lola, Matthew, Mike, Norm, Omar, Paul S, Rami, Rav, Ridiculous Politics, Stephen, Tom, Will, a guy from Channel 4 who bought me a drink (expenses) but thankfully didn't interview me, and possibly other people too I've neglected to mention.

Perhaps a more decentralised, pub-style, seating plan would have made it easier to form chat-inducing huddles than the long tables, and obviously it's a shame people couldn't necessarily stay, but never mind. I do have photos, but perhaps I'll wait until others have posted better ones first...

We talked about campaigning and about blogging, its uses, its limitations, its potential, and talked about whether we actually cared that some commentators are still obsessed with the idea that Labour 'doesn't get' blogging, and that there must be some kind of lesson in what happens in the USA, or what the Conservatives do. I believe the majority position is that we don't particularly care about either, and my own view remains that there is potential for Labour (and progressive forces in general) to develop a network - both large and strong - of small, community-grounded blogging activists and councillors.

Well, it's a vision of sorts, and I've seen worse ones. Andrew Brown has more, and I love this.

Manchester beckons / Toys - 1 comment

Am off to Manchester very shortly, so see you at the meetup if you're going. 07906 123390 is the number to ring if you have trouble...

Finally, two new gadgets on the site. See if you can spot them.

Must dash.

A consultation on Young Labour / Discrimination - 3 comments

If ou haven't already seen/heard it, LabourHome have interviewed Harriet Harman MP, who has made the following pledges:

1. That a year's free Labour Party membership be given to all affiliated Trade Union members under the age of 26.
2. That we have selection targets for young people for local authority elections.

She has promised to respond to comments that are left on the site.

I'm afraid I haven't really had time to articulate my response, let alone listen to the interview, but initial thoughts are:

• Why Trade Union members, and not other youngsters?
• What rights and responsibilities will membership entail? Oughtn't we to re-evaluate what it is to be a member (now we're thinking of such matters) before writing off all those membership fees? Let's not lose the opportunity to bind Labour into the social fabric.
• Quotas are essentially unfair. They're not an ineffective substitute, but they're an unethical substitute for a sound analysis of the reasons why young people - or indeed any social group - might not stand for local authority elections. Let's expose and attack negative discrimination before we consider adding positive discrimination to the mix.

Trivia: Harriet is a former MP of mine - and though my memory of the event is slightly hazy, I believe we briefly conversed during the 2001 victory celebrations in the Red Star, Camberwell (now apparently shut down, such is my age).

Conference footage required - no comments

An advertisement:

We need your clips of the Labour party conference!

I Was There is a news review show where we will look back on the big stories of 2006 ... as seen and recorded by you. To be broadcast on ITV later in the year. If you caught something on camera that sums up 2006, be it a major news, sporting or entertainment event, we want it!



We're specifically looking for footage and pictures from the party conferences this year. We are trying to get hold of amateur video clips and photos of anything interesting/exciting that happens at the Labour conference next week - obviously especially anything involving Tony Blair/Gordon Brown and the higher profile members of the party.

We can use footage of any kind, from mobile phone videos to digital cameras videos and camcorders etc. We will pay a fee for any footage that we end up using so there's some incentive for everyone to get filming!

Please send any clips or pictures to iwasthere@itv.com or 07834 940000. For more information see www.itv.com/iwasthere

Download the flyer here, knock yourselves out, and make sure you abide by all relevant laws and ethical codes in doing so.

Come to think of it, I'm the only one who doesn't make any money out of this, which is one reason among several that I don't think Bloggers4Labour should take part in future publicity events. What do you think?

Server move - no comments

Lousy timing, I know, but Bloggers4Labour is moving server today/tomorrow. I will try to make this as seamless as possible, but in the meantime I'm going to turn off (on the current site):

1. Access to the forum.
   
2. Post recommendations (though you can still look at the results).
3. And probably blog submission.

Apologies for the inconvenience - will update once things start to appear on the new setup.

Update (Monday @ 4:14 pm):

Everything seems to be up and working except for the Contact page - recommendations, forum, submission, etc. A few blogs (about 4) aren't currently playing with us, but I'm sure we'll work through that.

Amusingly, news of our server-related escapades have reached Channel 4 News, one of whose gossip-mongers ended their "what the Labour bloggers are saying", with this little "aren't they stupid?" dig:

More interesting than the Bloggers4Labour site, which chose yesterday and today to move server, and appears to have suffered problems as a result. Perhaps not the best time for a Labour-supporting blog page to engage in a major technical overhaul...

Well, (a) I didn't choose, (b) very little has noticeably gone wrong, and (c) why, have I actually missed something?

Meetup reminder / Your photos - 8 comments

Just a reminder to anyone heading off for the Conference today or tomorrow: the Bloggers4Labour meetup is on Tuesday at 7.00 pm at the Cornerhouse. If you're a Labour blogger, please come along. Tables have been reserved, and a colourful poster of some sort will guide your way.

Update: forgot to mention that Wi-Fi is available.

If you're not already a member of our Flickr group (11 members so far), join in, take some interesting photos of people and places while you're around Conference, then add them to our Group Photo Pool. We intend to do something cool with the collection in due course.

Friday statistics - no comments

Navel-gazing it may be, but here are some statistics about the Bloggers4Labour network you might find uninteresting...

According to the new posting activity statistics, 56.4% (174) of Labour bloggers posted something in the past week, while just over 70% (192) posted within the last month.

No fewer than 163 blogs (57.4%) have had posts recommended, with the current votes tally standing at 2,332^*

Of those votes, Labour Humanists have garnered the most - 143, or 6.13% of the total. My own blogging has attracted a grand total of 32 votes, or 1.37% of the total, while the ten most popular blogs have together amassed 798, or 34.2% of the total.

So there.

^* NB. Votes are audited, so totals may change after the event.

Host with the most... - no comments

Unfortunately, for some as yet unexplained reason all Blogspot blogs are currently inaccessible to our aggregator.

As a result we're working with - and showing you - about 130 feeds rather than the expected 250 or so. Apologies, readers.

All those blogs are accessible over the web to UK users, but apparently not where our aggregator lives. It's hard not to suspect this is fallout from the latest in the long line of Blogger problems, but either way we are investigating, and hopefully the Blogspot blogs will magically return some time this afternoon (when I'll be halfway up a tower in Ducklands, internet-less).

You can check on progress here.

Update: Everything came back at 3.09 pm; turns out I was guilty of an abominable slur against Google/Blogger - access had been blocked by the hosting company for a technical reason that you won't find interesting. As a result I'll have to slow down aggregation until we move servers in a week or so.

Peter Hain "liveblogs" from Conference - no comments

Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Wales - and potential Deputy Leader candidate - will give an exclusive live blog interview on Labourhome from the party Conference on Monday 25 September at 13:30.

Full details here.

I've also added this event to our new Events Diary.

Labour Events Diary - 1 comment

Occasionally I'm asked if I can use this site to publicise Labour-themed, or general political events; sometimes I'm able to comply, other times not. What there seems to be a distinct lack of is a diary/calendar facility that:

• Lets many people add events, easily.
• Lets many people see - and monitor - those events, easily.

It's surprising that there's no central source for Labour events (or not to my knowledge), and that people still have to email about - or post specifically about - upcoming events. Fisking Central's calendar (complete with web-page widget) was probably the inspiration for this idea, but the more people we can get to publish events, the more useful the resulting calendar will be to Labour members and supporters.

So, I've simply set up a Google Calendar and shared it.

If you have events to publicise that could be of interest, or you want to have editorial rights in future - and have a Google account - simply contact us and we will give you those rights, subject to basic sanity checks. For B4L Forum users, details of the shared login are already available here, so you can log in and add/edit straightaway.

What sort of event can you add?

• CLP meetings.
• Social events.
• Talks and lectures.
• Conference and fringe events.
• Anything you're happy for the general public to see.
  

When our site redesign goes live we'll feature a miniature representation of the Calendar in our sidebar, but you can beat us to it by adding a widget to your own blog now (hell, it's not our bandwidth). Here's where to go. You may well end up with something like this:



You can choose your own look, but here's the code for the one above:

<iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=calendar%40bloggers4labour.org&epr=2&height=614" style="border:0" width="220" frameborder="0" height="410"></iframe>

I'll post more tips and advice once I've worked out what else Google Calendar can do.

Curmudgeon - 14 comments

Iain Dale has published lists of what he believes to be the Top 100 Bloggers - in various categories - and I'm sure you've enjoyed reading over the weekend (too many articles to link to).

It is a somewhat similar idea to one I briefly talked over with Iain (how important am I?) during the summer, though I do feel that asking Labour supporters to vote for Conservative bloggers, and vice versa, would have turned out to be more informative (if a little far-fetched). I'm also sure that - barring a few instances of self-, and multiple-voting - our recommendations facility is a much fairer way of doing things, and relies upon the judgement of our community of readers. I like that way of working.

Still, if you've been lucky enough to appear on one of the lists - and in the category you expected - congratulations! Everybody needs encouragement when blogging, and if you've been 'discovered', gained a brief spike in traffic, or even restarted blogging after a long hiatus, perhaps it has been a worthwhile exercise. If you ask me - and with the greatest respect to those who appear very near the top of the chart and might feel this is aimed directly at them - there only seems to be a limited correlation between Iain's positions and what I would say were the ideals in a blog: thoughtfulness, usefulness, opening up a debate, campaigning, etc. These aren't the criteria he applies, but I think they're at least as good - if you really must go with one man's personal opinion.

I do draw the line at repeating the line that Iain is "the UK’s leading political blogger", and especially to Labour supporters shilling the man's book and potentially contributing to Conservative Party funds. I expect I'm in a tiny minority, but must confess to feel queasy reading his glossy Guide to UK Political Blogging, as one self-declared guru after another - possibly with a shiny, two-month-old blog to their name - tries to present themselves as part of the in-crowd. No, the birth of the political blogging personality doesn't appeal to me at all; not merely because I don't have a personality, but because this approach favours the world of trivia and intrigue, of 'insiders' and special correspondents, rather than debate, writing, and community work. I also resent the encroachment of mainstream media power into the blogosphere, and any attempt to build hierarchies here. I find it politically uncomfortable as much as anything.

The more this guide is distributed during the Conference season, and I've no doubt it will be eagerly snapped-up (Update: it sounds like this is true), the sooner this new world will be upon us.

Meh. Am I taking it all too seriously? Should I care?

NB: this blog appeared at #17 in the Labour list, so I can't be accused of having a chip on the shoulder. At least not on this issue.

Renewing Labour - 7 comments

Labour are hosting a set of discussions on reforming the Labour Party:

How can we build a bigger, better Labour Party? Here's your chance to have a say on the future of Labour, and share your ideas of what works locally. Throughout the country, Labour supporters are organising campaigns, running lively events, and engaging local communities. How can we learn from the best examples, and be even more successful at making local Labour a central part of local community life? The best ideas will be discussed at the Labour Party conference in Manchester.

It looks good so far; the introductory posts are thoughtful, and if Labour is serious about binding itself back into the social fabric - and members can be enthused more by community activism than by the febrile world of national politics - then perhaps we can curtail the atomisation of society and the centralised approach to government. I quote once again, this time from Section (1):

Labour must be seen as the place to go if you want something local to change. We should be the natural home for social entrepreneurs and change-makers.

Party activists are piloting some local community campaigns which are visible proof that Labour is 'on your side' and making a difference through practical action, for example picking up litter, cleaning up waste ground, cleaning up graffiti, campaigning for traffic calming, running childcare co-operatives, and running self-help groups.

Demonstrating actions do speak loader than words.

Labour Students have piloted a successful local park clean-up campaign in Manchester, followed by door-knocking and a social.

Party members in Stalybridge and Hyde have been organising community clean up days; making their local Labour Party a community as well as a political organisation.

Could more local Labour members, supporters and Constituency Labour Parties take the lead on this kind of campaigning?

• How can we make local Labour be the place to go to get things done and make a difference, where we do things, not just talk about them?
• What kinds of community activities should the Labour Party be conducting?
• How do we become a party of action, not just words?

I posted a couple of articles on Labour's role in the community almost exactly a year ago (back in the days when I actually wrote about politics - sigh). There are some particularly good comments in there.

• Making Labour our party
• Labour: activism, democracy, MPs, and experts

Meeting in Manchester - 19 comments

I had intended to announce the venue for the Fourth Bloggers4Labour Meetup several days ago, but a lack of local knowledge - and the discovery that Man Utd play Benfica that evening - caused a few delays and a few changes of plan. Thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions.

We're going to meet on Tuesday, 26th September, at the Cornerhouse, from approximately 7.00 pm. We'll be in the Ground Floor Bar.

The address is: 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH (click for map). You can see the GMEX on that map, just a few minutes away to the north-west, so Conference delegates and assorted hangers-on should have no trouble finding the place.


Image courtesy of Multimap.com

If you're a Labour blogger (or a partner, companion, or friend - within reason), or perhaps someone who'd like to join the club, you're very welcome to attend. I know not everyone can make Tuesday, but there are a lot of events going on, and there's nothing to stop people popping in late, having been to a prior event, or - for that matter - leaving us early (not that you'll want to, of course).



By the way, if someone fancies producing a new sign - perhaps something colourful and A4 - you have my blessing.

One last thing, could people leave a comment (or drop me an email) if they're planning to come? It's not essential, but it would be useful to have a rough estimate of the turnout.

Marching orders - no comments

Unfortunately Bloggers4Labour is going to have to move to a new server sooner than anticipated. Due to the much-increased activity on the site, and the considerable effort involved in managing 350 or so feeds (not to mention producing feeds of our own, newsletters, and search/indexing facilities you probably didn't even know about), we've been given 14 days to either move or upgrade (at considerable cost) - such is my influence, and my powers of persuasion.

So, no problem at the moment, but there may be a period in a week or so when things are a little more flaky. I shall keep you informed...

Chosen Blogger - 19 comments

Last month we covered Labour's idea to offer an up-and-coming blogger access to this year's Party Conference in Manchester.

The jury deliberated, cogitated, and digested, finally selecting Jonathan Roberts from Sowerby, Thirsk, in North Yorkshire. Jonathan runs the Thirsk and Malton blog, which has been with us since March, and hopefully we'll get to meet him at our get-together.

That looks like a pretty good choice, but what advice would you give him, readers?

Progress / Manchester - 1 comment

Progress, the organisation for Labour Party members and trade unionists, have started a new blog for news and debate, and seem to have done a very good job of it so far. You can follow their posts on Bloggers4Labour.

It's a bit late to mention it, but Progress' Conference starts, well, later today (Saturday) - full details here, with your friend and mine, the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, delivering the keynote address.

Progress are also rallying at the Labour Party Conference, something I'm very much aware of with regard to the timing of our Manchester get-together. Here's what they have arranged:

• Sunday 24th September: 18:00-19:30 Progress Rally.
• Monday 25th September: 12:45-14:30 Anti-Semitism and the left: What is to be done?; 18:00-19:30 On the right track? Labour’s response to David Cameron.
• Tuesday 26th September: 18:00-19:30 Progress Question Time.

I do need people to decide on a date for our do, and given the above, I'm recommending Tuesday as our day. Comment on the forum - or here - if you want to suggest something different.

A Cautionary Tale - no comments

Via Newer Labour, and Bloggerheads, here's The Register's coverage of what happened to Keeping The Faith - the Tony Blair-backing site - that appeared early on Thursday morning and quickly ran into trouble. I first noticed it around 8.15 am via Luke, and watched the signers list from when there were just five names, all genuine, to about 200, mostly bogus. Before long, people had worked out how to post HTML, but the system was totally out of control and much worse (than a PR meltdown) could have happened. It has all been cleaned up.

I don't want to get into the personalities involved, or the content of the site itself, but Tim Ireland's investigation should serve as a lesson for:

• Anyone running online petitions without either specialised software, or experience and fancy coding - and especially on controversial themes.
• Anyone launching anonymous attacks on opponents, especially when you purport to be doing Labour's work. Just don't - it stinks.
  
• But also anyone who takes on the mob (by which I mean the anonymous hordes of trolls and hackers) without protecting their own identity.

Here's Tim's guide for online campaigning:

Here's the quick and easy guide:
1. Reveal your name.
2. State your agenda.
3. Reveal your interests
4. Don't try to get around (1), (2) or (3) if you really suck at covering your tracks.

Update: Cllr Gareth questions Bloggerheads' motives (as well one might).

New Bloggers (July-September) - no comments

In reverse order of discovery/submission:

• Regent's Park ward - Regent's Park Ward is represented by 3 Labour Councillors, Nasim Ali, Heather Johnson and Theo Blackwell.
• Camden Labour - Read the views of local Labour Party representatives and activists on a range of community issues.
• Steve Brooks - Welsh ramblings on progressive left politics,
• Don Paskini - Traditional enemy of free speech. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and circumstances are a product of the author's imagination. Any similarity to people, dead or alive, to events or places, is entirely accidental.
• Three Score Years And Ten - Harry Barnes, Labour MP for N.E. Derbyshire 1987-2005
• Red Mist on Walsall - Trade Union Views from Walsall
• Double negative
• Cllr John Friary - I am a Labour Councillor for Camberwell Green Ward and have been a member since 1994, being re-elected in May for a Fourth Term
• Should ! stay or should I go? - A Labour Party member looking for reasons to stay in the Party. Should I stay or should I go?
• Tory Watch - Documenting all the mistakes by the Tories!
• Union Futures
• Cllr Kris Brown
• Mat Bullen - General comment on current affairs in sympathy with the left and the labour movement. Champions collectivism and equality.
• Fisking Central - "A great many people mistake opinions for thoughts"
• Rami's Blog
• Richard Kelly
• Cllr Terry Kelly - Razer sharp observations and caustic wit from the Labour Left.
• PinDancingAngels Politics - New Labour supporting political blog, written from an evangelical Christian perspective, attempting to see the kind of politics Christian theology should lead to.
• Steve Hanlon - Stuff about West Lancashire and Moorside ward.
• Rayleen Kelly - Personal and political comment
• Fair Deal Phil
• Bread and Circuses - The two things that people desire...
• Compass Youth - A discussion site for young members of Compass
• Martin Eaglestone - Welsh Assembly prospective candidate - May 2007
• Glasgow North East Labour Blog - A blog on politics from Glasgow North East Labour Party
• Amy's blog - The blog of a single graduate making her way in the world
• Freemania
• The Glass House
• The Daily - The daily is a mix of news, politics, opinion, gossip and a little sport from a centre-left perspective.
• London Left Review - London-based Northern leftie. Aiming to include news and stories that may interest fellow lefties and the curious.
• Live from the Socialist Fortress - Fighting for Labour in Blaenau Gwent

I did discover other bloggers during this period, but I covered the ReadMyDay councillors here.

BlairWatch - 4 comments

Once again, the irrepressible BlairWatch has chucked some mud our way:

Meanwhile on Fantasy Island Bullshitters 4 Blair think there's nothing happening, it's all Nick Robinson's fault... and you thought Blair was deluded...

I think that's about the third time that particular charge has been made against this site, so perhaps it's about time I made public my own views about BlairWatch. Ahem:

I despise BlairWatch. I have contempt for BlairWatch; contempt for its leading protagonists; contempt for its fostering of personal, paranoid, venal, and plain demented comments and commenters; its unwillingness to discuss or elaborate positive policies; its view that unless a particular policy, speech, or exposé is explicitly criticised to its own satisfaction that this constitutes acceptance and approval; that Bloggers4Labour is under any particular obligation because of its name or its membership; its protagonists' refusal to engage in cordial relations as grown human beings; and the fact that it seems perfectly satisfied for its many readers to leave abusive, anonymous comments at this blog ("Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to have been a minor official in the Vichy government?" was a fairly tame one), and no doubt others.

There may be other things I dislike about BlairWatch that will come to me in time.

So why the acrimony? This can scarcely have anything to do with politics:

• Apart from one or two trolls no Conservative blog or blogger has behaved in such a repellent manner towards this site. The BNP once linked to a few pages here from within their forum - no idea how the discussion went, but I suspect it was more reasonable and considered.
  
• Most readers of this site would surely agree that, when you take the many tens of thousands of posts we have syndicated over the past 18 months, there is no particular bias in favour of 'Blairite' politics, or Tony Blair personally. If some people speak out in support of Blair and Blairism, fine, millions of other people do. I hope everyone reads widely enough and challenges their own assumptions.
  
• Among the 400-500 posts I have written, there's undoubtedly a sympathy for what New Labour could be/could have been, a recognition of Tony Blair's interest in and understanding of foreign policy issues, and of the progress that Labour Governments have made since 1997, but certainly no blind adherence to any particular viewpoint. I'm genuinely interested in all policies - with little regard for their origin - that spread democracy (not merely an electoral process), wealth, tolerance, cooperative solutions, equality of opportunity, and redistribution - nationally and internationally. Nonetheless "slavish" is the word BlairWatch love (must add it to the tagline some day). Perhaps this blog's support of the Euston Manifesto only made matters worse.

This is the kind of muck that is very much par for the course for their site (my emphasis):

How do ordinary Labour voters sleep at night knowing they have been duped and are now accomplices to bLiar's criminal foreign policies which have (so far) resulted in the mass murder of tens of thousands of innocent women and children by US and UK stormtroopers.

If Labour (for it is not only bLiar but his parliamentary parasites) is forgiven these heinous crimes by the UK electorate then god help us! We will certainly become even more of a target for the angriest retaliation.

We invade, we kill, we steal their resources, we rape their women, we torture them, we create devastation in their lands. [my link inserted]

Just WHAT do we expect them to do? "Turn the other cheek"?

Hardly. Unless the UK electorate firmly denounces bLiar's war crimes then we will be fending off (wholly justified) retaliation for many years.

No, BlairWatch needs to remain as "BlairWatch" to see this slime-ball into total ignominy, incarcerated for life and made-an-example-of to show clearly to any other Whitehall Wanabe Warmonger that we-the-people will simply not tolerate treason.

Fuck off, BlairWatch.

B4L Flickr Group - no comments

A new Flickr Group has been set up for all Labour bloggers - please join in and submit suitable and interesting photos to the pool.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bloggers4labour

Once we've got a decent number of photos, we'll make some tools available to get them noticed...

Update: We now have enough photos for that animated Flickr widget you all know and love to work. Here's the HTML you need to paste into your template/sidebar.

Sea of Trivia - 9 comments

Namely, the mainstream media's obsession with Tony Blair's (date of) departure. Tom Hamilton and Antonia both note the distinct lack of coverage of the speech on social exclusion the PM made earlier today. Says Tom:

It was his [Blair's] own fault that he had to say, early on, "I am not talking about 'baby ASBOs', trying to make the state raise children, or interfering with normal family life", but once he'd got over that there was a lot of sense talked, and some good engagement with the issues and with some relevant background research. Since it's such a meaty speech, there's plenty in there to disagree with and argue against, but that's politics.

More backers for Paulie's campaign against Nick Robinson and his ilk. We joined here; this is the badge you need to download and display prominently:



Update: If you've landed here on a tip from BlairWatch, I suggest you read this instead.

Labour's podcast - 2 comments

If you haven't noticed it before, the Labour Party publishes a podcast.

This has been updated today to include Tony Blair answering questions submitted to him on the issue of social exclusion. Here's the audio file (though I use iTunes to subscribe), and here's the discussion blog.

Poverty and Rhetoric - 11 comments

This, from Will Hutton, hasn't exactly set the blogosphere alight (Mike Ion's is the only other response I've found on our side), though The Economist covered the issue a few weeks ago (sorry, subscription only). From the Observer piece:

Bill Clinton is not the most obvious politician to become the darling of the conservatives, but recently, he has been luxuriating in praise from some improbable quarters. The reason? He's the man who really did end welfare as Americans knew it - the promise he made when he signed the Welfare Reform Act into law 10 years ago.

Benefit was to become a transitional, rather than a permanent, aspect of peoples' lives. The permanent feature would be work. Welfare recipients, mostly single mothers in the US system, could receive benefit from the Federal government for a maximum of five years in their lives. After that, nothing. Unless they worked, they would have no income. Many American liberals accused Clinton of meanness and legislative child abuse - and I remember having great reservations.

We know now that it has worked even better than its architects imagined, with major implications for the way welfare systems will be designed in future and for the wider politics of social spending. According to the Brookings Institution's Ron Haskins, the numbers claiming benefit in the United States have shrunk by 60 per cent and there has been a 30 per cent increase in single mothers at work. The incomes of the families formerly claiming benefit, mainly headed by women, have risen, sometimes dramatically.

Hutton is pessimistic about the prospect of Labour committing itself to a similar policy. I fear we (the Labour Party and activists) are too used to the rhetoric of poverty reduction to:

• Be radical, when we already know that party policies were just about right before New Labour took over (etc.)
  
• Appear to be 'mean-spirited' or right-wing/Thatcherite/neo-liberal/neo-con/monetarist (delete as applicable).
• Pursue a policy that might produce some losers, even if millions benefit.
  

As well as being too frightened of public opinion to do things that could affect the weight of millions of wallets, and the self-interested tabloid fury this will summon up. Well, we had our chance in 1997, when we were riding high in the polls and leading the debate.

This is, of course, far from being the only game in town - simplifying the tax and benefits system, with a view to eliminating the high marginal tax rates the poor face is another, and this could be bedded-down first; altering tax rates within the existing system is another, though less likely to make the big difference we're looking for. Considering, however, that the impact Labour has made on improving the distribution of income is slight at best, we ought to be committing the party to doing something radical - at least working out how to get around some of the problems and challenges the US has encountered.

Book Meme (eventually) - 2 comments

Jonathan tagged me for this a whole month ago (sorry!), and Tom got me a week ago.

1. Name one book that changed your life.
A Mac programming guide, taken out of the library in the summer of 1992, moved me towards the career - and the rich and varied social life - I enjoy today. Kymlicka's Contemporary Political Philosophy was also a breath of fresh air for someone whose politics had hitherto been dominated by 'isms', slogans, and personalities (we're talking 1998, I hasten to add).

2. One book you've read more than once.
Ray Bradbury's The Golden Apples of the Sun is a masterpiece. I 'm aware I've mentioned it in earlier memes, but Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz is another favourite.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island.
The biggest P.G. Wodehouse compendium I could cram into my polythene bag: for example, The World of Psmith.
Tom's suggestion of a notebook and pen would also help preserve the sanity that a diet of breadfruit and spring-water would severely jeopardise.

4. One book that made you laugh.
Can't remember offhand, but it might very well have been Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim.

5. One book that made you cry.
It could have happened. but I can't remember, I'm afraid.

6. One book you wish you'd written.
Any of the above, really, though it would be nice to have been in a position to write The Manual: How to Have a Number One Hit the Easy Way from experience.

7. One book you wish had never been written.
I'm going to go for Crusaders on the Nile by Geoffrey Regan - my father. It's the book he had just completed when he succumbed to a heart-attack in March 2005. A ridiculous number of books lay open in the study, simply waiting to be referenced, a testament to the ordeal authors put themselves through for money and to meet deadlines.

8. One book you're currently reading.
The Plague by Albert Camus; though I've just finished Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking by Jamie White, which is a great guide to irrational arguments and the abuse of statistics that bloggers will encounter every day - and only 150 pages.

9. One book you've been meaning to read.
Guitar for Dummies awaits me - if I don't use it in the next fortnight week I never will. I managed one chapter of John Kay's The Truth about Markets - must try again, some day.

10. Now tag five people.
I think I came in too late here, but I hereby give permission for 5 B4L-ers to take part.

Up on bricks: results so far - 3 comments

Regarding my last post, the problem that was originally raised was that newly-discovered posts were being marked not as a couple minutes in the past, but 58 or so minutes back. That's hardly likely to get your new post in the "last three recent posts" section.

Firstly, I have recreated the problem with Blogger accounts when using the RSS 2.0 feed, and have verified that the same thing does not appear to occur with the alternative Atom feed.

So why the difference? Actually there's no difference between the treatment of RSS and Atom feeds, it's just that the former seem more often to be tagged with a publication date/time that - because of significantly inaccurate system clocks on the Blogspot machines (4 and a half minutes out, I've seen) - that is after the date/time of (a) the B4L server, and (b) my Mac, when testing.

So a post appears to have originated 'in the future' - so what? This is a long-running issue... I had to take drastic action to prevent bloggers from hogging the top spots by posting deliberately into the future, or simply getting their time zone settings wrong. As a result, any post dated in the future was shunted back by enough hours to put it back into the past, and it appears that this has been happening.

There is an obvious hole in this theory, namely that the Atom and RSS feeds have identical publication dates, so they should be equally affected. I have no answer to this at present.

As a result, I shall continue to investigate, but that's where we are. Google/Blogger have taken my place in the dock, for the crime of not synchronising the system clocks on their servers. Hanging's too good for them.

My proposed fix would be something like:

• Assume Blogger's clocks could be out by as much as 5 minutes.
• Any post that appears <= 5 minutes in the future gets shunted back exactly 5 minutes, not a full hour as before. Thus new posts will appear, as expected, near the top of the list, not right the way down.
  
• Anything that appears more than 5 minutes in the future will be shifted back as before, until it too is in the past.
• Ask Blogger-using B4L-ers to keep an eye on matters for the next few days.

Hopefully this can be done today.

Update: I made my fix - all seems well. Please keep an eye out if you've been affected in the past.

Up on bricks - 1 comment

Sorry if your morning's reading is disturbed by "[Testing]" posts, only I'm attempting to investigate an issue a couple of people are having with their posts not appearing when/where they expected them to, and this is the most realistic way to test.

By the way, please leave a comment if you're having a similar issue and you haven't mentioned it to me before. It won't help me fix it any faster, but you will make me feel worse :-)

Can't help thinking that the fact we're checking about 370 post and comment feeds every few minutes might be a factor in this :-)

Update: Sorry, once again I have sown confusion in the (desperate) pursuit of a witty title. Apart from the test posts, everything else should be working fine.