The Blog Digest digested: Chapter 4
The Blog Digest 2007: Confusing Power With Greatness – Politics
Those readers who aren’t fans of drama, democracy, or tales of dirty deeds done dirt cheap, should skip to the next chapter. Whoever says politics is boring deserves a wet slap, this year more than ever. To try to chronicle everything that has gone on in British politics this year would fill this volume and beyond. And being a political blogger myself, I was very tempted to try.
We’ve had the resignation of Charles Kennedy as Liberal Democrat leader and the election of Ming Campbell as his less than sparkling successor; Tessa Jowell’s moody mortgages; David Blunkett resigning (again); John Prescott visiting a billionaire businessman’s ranch to talk about cowboys but not casinos (Prescott’s sexual shenanigans are dealt with elsewhere in this book); the passing of the Identity Card legislation (I think it’s safe to say that there isn’t a single British blogger who’s in favour of that); the Tories’ ascendancy in the opinion polls despite their lack of policies; and continuing speculation about when Tony Blair might retire to the US lecture circuit. And more…
…
December 2005 – The Yorkshire Ranter: David Cameron: Not just more right-wing than you think…
December saw the election of David Cameron as Conservative Party leader. Alex Harrowell, the Yorkshire Ranter, attempted to burst Cameron’s bubble from the outset.
January 2006 – Chicken Yoghurt: In understanding be men
Upsetting his own party, policy U-turns, making things up on the hoof: with the election of David Cameron, there was more than a whiff of 1994 in the air. Blair and his supporters accused Cameron of the same tricks that Blair had been guilty of 12 years earlier. Being the father of two small children, I thought I had spotted just why New Labour were so jealous of the new arrival.
January 2006 – Blood and Treasure: My Name is Charles Kennedy and A new job for Charlie
In January Charles Kennedy resigned as Liberal Democrat leader after revealing a drink problem. Most people were sympathetic – ‘This battle with the bottle is nothing so novel,’ as Elvis Costello once sang. Here’s Jamie Kenny with a couple of observations.
February 2006 – Perfect: Liberty? You have no idea how lucky you are
Writing in The Observer in February, the Prime Minister attempted to rebut accusations made against him of authoritarianism and the destruction of our civil liberties. Charlie Whitaker, along with a lot of others, didn’t believe a word of it.
April 2006 – Actually Existing: Living in the thick of it
In a year when Labour went nuclear and the Conservatives went green, Tony Blair wanted to hound hoodies and David Cameron wanted to hug them, quite a few political bloggers came to the conclusion that the terms ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ were losing their usefulness in determining someone’s political standpoint. Here, Phil Edwards suggests a new system for finding just where we stand.
May 2006 – Tampon Teabag: Which Wing Are You?
Larry Teabag, on the other hand, still saw merit in the old labels of left and right. Here, he asks…
March 2006 – Rachel North: This is an insult
It’s fair to say that Charles Clarke, when he was Home Secretary, with his plans for ID cards, 90 days’ detention for terrorist suspects and all-round disdain for 700 years of civil rights, didn’t endear himself to political bloggers of either Left or Right. The treatment he meted out to the father of Rachel North, a survivor of the 7/7 bombings and campaigner for a public inquiry into the atrocity, merely served to confirm what many had suspected of the man they had less than respectfully dubbed ‘the Safety Elephant’.
Very few bloggers are able to challenge directly the politicians that they write about every day. Rachel was given that opportunity, although not in circumstances she would have chosen herself.
April 2006 – Rachel North: Meeting the Home Secretary
The story reached the mainstream media pretty quickly. Some of the coverage was almost as vitriolic as that in Blogland – ‘less welcome than terminal cock cancer’ said Devil’s Kitchen, a ‘rancorous thug’ echoed Matthew Norman in The Independent. A few weeks later, after having written to Rachel’s father to apologise, Clarke offered to meet both Rachel and her father.
April 2006 – Tim Worstall: Fuck Him
The actions and policies of the Blair Government created something of a coalition of incensed bloggers from the Left, the Right and the Centre. A seemingly unnecessary and vindictive announcement from then Home Secretary Charles Clarke inspired this splenetic post from Tim Worstall. The Times was so impressed it printed a less sweary version the next day.
July 2006 – Holly Finch: Meeting the Home Boy
Of course, Charles was gone a few weeks later, the fall guy for the Home Office’s foreign prisoner scandal and New Labour’s poor showing in the local elections. His successor was political hard man John Reid. Had things just got better or worse? On the issue of the public enquiry into the bombings, the new Home Secretary was as steadfast in his refusal to hold one as his predecessor. As Holly Finch, another blogging survivor of the bombings, pointed out at a meeting with Reid, the reasons for his refusal were evaporating.
July 2006 – Ministry of Truth: Following the money…
Following stories (related elsewhere in this volume) of what John Prescott did or didn’t do with his cocktail sausage, another scandal erupted over other trysts the Deputy Prime Minister had enjoyed, this time with billionaire Phillip Anschutz. The Ministry of Truth, in a forensic post, reckoned it had Prescott and the Government banged to rights over dealings concerning the Millennium Dome and the super-casino Anschutz wants to build there.
August 2006 – Europhobia: The politics of hope (but mostly fear)
Nosemonkey sees little to hope for in another Government initiative.
August 2006 – Rafael Behr: Party conference season – a preview
Political party conference season. The interminable speeches. The back-biting. The over-analysis (‘What did he mean by that?’, ‘What does his body language say?’ and on and on…). Rafael Behr does the lot with an elegant economy.
September 2006 – Shuggy’s Blog: For the virtues of faithlessness
At the time of writing (mid-September) Tony Blair is still Prime Minister. If that has changed between now and your reading this I’d like to take the opportunity to wish Prime Minister Brown/Reid/Cameron/Beckham (delete as applicable) well.
At the end of the week that saw a so-called failed coup against Blair by Brown and the Brownites, and Blair announcing he would resign within the next 12 months, Shuggy wrote an early obituary for the Blair years.
Next, Chapter 5: You And Me Against The World – Activism
Posted on September 20th, 2007 at 12:29pm under The Blog Digest 2007
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