The new Labour group-blog, LabourList, is discovering the hard way that online debate and discussion is impossible as soon as you hoist the flag that says “This is the Government speaking”.
Set up to try and mirror the moderately-successful ConservativeHome, LabourList aims to be a similar gathering place for like-minded people. Early activity, however, makes mine host Derek Draper look less like Norman at the Coach and Horses and more like a nervous teenager watching drunken gatecrashers rampage through her parents’ house. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to make that Facebook invitation publicly-readable.
It’s not Mr Draper’s fault, really. The scent of Government anywhere online sends every pitchfork-brandishing obsessive into a frenzy of heavy-handed sarcasm and exclamation marks. Add to that the natural pressure on governing party politicians to speak in civil-servant defensive mode, and you get a rather unattractive Internet offering.
The tone of the posts, at least, is in the editor’s control (he might want to have a look at Peter Mandelson’s rotten first paragraph). When it comes to the commenters, LabourList has to decide whether to introduce eye-wateringly tight comment moderation – which raises accusations of censorship and is highly time-consuming – or to let it all hang out and get kicked from every side. At least for the moment, it’s ironclad moderation policies to the fore.
I suspect, as Sunder Katwala does, that this will be the undoing of LabourList, which is something of a shame. Perhaps obscurity until critical mass had been gained would have been a better solution.
If the List does sink beneath the waves, the only consolation might be that the same thing will happen to ConservativeHome as soon as the Tories are in. Then what would be needed would be a good opposition site (at least once the victory shouts from the obsessives have calmed down).
Spot on. Politicians are at their best when they are interacting with people in a clandestine way.
An MP I know asked me if he should set up a blog. I said that he should – but not in his own name.
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