As you may remember, Tory pundit Iain Dale included me in his bizarrely-constructed top 100 left of centre bloggers. As I pointed out at the time, one of many problems with his obscure methodology was that he couldn’t seem to tell the difference between left-of-centre on the one hand and, on the other hand, affiliated with the Labour party.
In a bookshop today, I stumbled upon his Guide to political blogging 2007. Drunk on fame, I flicked through and saw that he’d listed me as the 88th best Labour Party blog. Now, at the time of compilation I wasn’t yet a member of any political party, but I’ve never ever supported, or even voted for, the Labour Party. For as long as I’ve been politically aware they’ve been a pack of slavering sold out spin merchants, only distinguishable from the hated Tories themselves by the sheer aggressiveness of their imperial policy and their continued financial support from the labour aristocracy. In spite of my respect for a few dissident MPs, I would never dream of affiliating to that party, and would be deeply insulted if it turns out that anyone takes Iain Dale seriously.
This kind of thing is, of course, central to the raison d’être of self-appointed experts like Mr. Dale. Just as politics in Westminster implodes to an even narrow spectrum of different spins on the same consensus, so does the internet come into its own as a place to discuss and debate more freely, more openly, more democratically and more radically. So it falls to the pundits of the elite to authoritatively sideline everything remotely interesting.
Of course, the aforementioned lazy methodology let a few blogs slip through from the actual left (including a few absolute gems in the low 80s, hehe), although the absence from the list - indeed, from the top slot - of Lenin’s Tomb alone makes the list useless as a guide to the wider blogging left too. It stands as a monument to the arrogance, irrelevance and self-absortion of the political class and their courtiers, and a timely reminder of Chomsky and Gramsci. In short: never trust an “expert”.
And who does Iain Dale’s survey reveal to be Britain’s top political blogger? Iain Dale. Fuck’s sake. I hope his book has to be pulped.
Busted! You Blair lover, kept your whole hearted support for the Iraq war pretty close to your chest!
It is such a brilliant example of narrowing the discourse and monopolising it for big party politics, of course he does it to make himself King. I’m doing one next year just so I can be No. 1 bestest blog in the world evah! & Emperor of the moon! How do you feel about being top UK Independence Party blogger?
Enjoy your fame and those No. 10 tea parties you NuLabour insider you!
Look, I mean, it’s easy to criticise the regime change policy now, but at the time every intelligence agency on earth thought that an unholy alliance between arch enemies Saddam and Bin Laden was close to completing the construction of the Death Star right under Hans’ Blix’s nose. And it’s not like we can leave, as I understand it that might lead to some kind of war in Iraq, and nobody wants that (except Iran upon which, incidentally, we must wage war if we are to create peace). This is the third way.
Well if you put it that way, I’m convinced. Go Brown!
Well, clearly he was focusing largely on the sensible left, not those silly folks who bang on about “imperialism” and “Islamophobia” and “socialism”, and all that crazy stuff. The guy’s gotta maintain some respectability, ya know?
This attempt at a ‘list’ from this Dale guy is all about trying to set/control the agenda of blog world. It sucks.
A similar attempt is being made by the marketing boys at Eurostar trying to control the green blogger debate. They even put together a conference recently in what looked like an attempt to deny that ‘greenwashing’ exists any more. I mean the fucking cheek!
Absolutely, that’s what he’s all about. But you’re missing the bigger picture: why did he tarnish my reputation with implicit accusations of being sensible?
Greenwash, Matt? What an unconstructively cynical thing to say…
“why did he tarnish my reputation with implicit accusations of being sensible?”
I’d sue for libel.
Haha that’s what my Mum said.
The onus would be on Dale to prove that I could be lumped in with Tony and Gordon the gang - which should make for an entertaining trial.