New Labour, new blog
Posted by woodsy on 20 December, 2006
Yesterday I discovered that my MP, Kerry McCarthy, the Honourable Member for Bristol East, has a blog… well almost.
Technorati defines a blog as: “A personal journal on the Web.”
How does Kerry’s effort measure up?
Personal journal – yes. I can see a raft of articles on different topics – Saddam Hussein, a hatchet job on Conservative leader David Cameron, something on Gordon Brown and so on. Let’s click on a link…
OK, done that, but wait: there’s something missing. How does one comment? Comments are the lifeblood of blogging. They enable authors to have a conversation or a debate with their visitors. As usual, the political class hasn’t quite grasped the idea correctly (no wonder we get ill-conceived, badly drafted legislation).
However, could there be more sinister reasons behind this. Remember that our Kerry is a loyal New Labour acolyte. She’s never been known to vote against the party line and as such is a Chief Whip’s dream. She seems to have wandered into politics not realising that the main impetus behind politics is ideas and the debating of ideas, which can sometimes result in dissent and conflict. But this isn’t likely to happen on Kerry’s blog. Kerry seems to take the line that debate might upset people and that would never do.
On the other hand, if she ever wants to learn how to blog properly, Kerry might do well to have a look at the tips compiled on the Blogging Skills Exchange.
