By James Crabtree / @jamescrabtree
Such is the life of writing for slow, old magazines. In November I went to Barcelona to hang out with the hipster internet politics crowd at the Personal Democracy Forum conference. I was struck then by frequent discussions about the British left having raised its game online. Then ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie - a more thoughtful and perceptive thinker than many LabourList readers might like to admit - mentioned in passing in a post that he thought a “left netroots” could genuinely threaten a future Tory government. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that a post-election left online resurgence was more likely than not.
The end result was an essay which - two months later - finally crawls into the light in the New Statesman today. But the odd thing is, though, that an idea that in November seemed nicely contrarian is fast being becoming the conventional wisdom.
What has changed? First, thoughtful voices on the right have begun to worry openly. Montgomerie posted again in recent days saying simply that the left is getting “better and better” online.
More remarkable still is Sam Coates on the Conservatives' official blue blog. Coates is a perceptive, young, Liverpudlian tech enthusiast who partially paid his way through university working for ConservativeHome in its early days. He then landed a plum job as David Cameron's speech writer in his early 20s, and is now responsible for the Tories' impressive “MyConservatives” platform. So it was significant that he wrote recently that the right needed to “keep up the momentum” online. It doesn't take a genius to read between the lines of this post to see that the cleverer Conservatives are now fretting that their online advantage is vulnerable.
The rise of bigger Labour sites is the second thing to note. Especially if you consider LabourList's beginnings under Derek Draper - and his prosecution of a strategy as the online equivalent a suicide bomber - the fact that the site attracted 305,000 readers in 2009 is remarkable. Add the maturing LiberalConspiracy, and you have two potentially big players. Neither is as good, or as deep, as ConservativeHome yet. But both could be.
Yet it's the third trend, accelerating fast in the last month, that is most significant: the rise of new left micro sites. I have an essay in this month's Fabian Review - sadly not online - in which I call for a diverse, pluralistic institutional renewal on the left. In English, this means nagging lots of people to set up lots of new small online think tanks and websites. Some will die on their feet, but some will then grow to become major new institutions - as ConHome, Policy Exchange or Reform have done on the right over the last decade.
It is here that a strategy of micro-renewal seems genuinely promising for the left. This year we've seen Will Straw's LeftFootForward come from nowhere to become one of the most important nodes between the progressives and the media. It's not an exageration to say that it, and its staff of two, soon could rival the Labour, LibDem or Greenpeace press offices.
We've also seen the Fabians' own NextLeft blog become a must-read for the more wonkily inclined. Less obviously, look at something like FarmSubsidy.org, set up by ex-SPAD Jack Thurston - a radical attempt to use the web to shine a light on government subsidies to corporates and old landowners who don't deserve them. And now, in only the last few days, you can add new sites to that equation - especially the promising looking ToryStories set up by Jon Cruddas and Chukka Umunna, to keep tabs on Conservative local councils.
It seems to me - and as I argue in more depth in both the New Statesman and Fabian Review pieces - that such new sites are just the beginning. Over the next two years progressives, if they've got any fight left, should be able to launch a dozen or more such new such enterprises. Of course it won't be easy to do, and will require a dozen or more Will Straws and Jack Thurstons to step up. But it is perfectly possible. And if executed properly it will come with a distant, quiet sigh - as Iain, Paul and Tim watch as their lead is steadily hauled in.
James Crabtree is an editor at Prospect, and a trustee of MySociety.org. He tweets @jamescrabtree.
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Stunned silence from me on that :)
Danny
Me too, Mr nose is being goaded.
Why dont you tell us how young Osborne will cut his way to growth?.
Osborne has nothing to do with me, so why ask? Let us get our own house in order first. The G20 are out of recession. The problem with you is you hear no evil and see no evil. I will not speak to a fool anymore so goodbye.
Alex,
Derek is irritating and something needs to be done about him.
Just that I am noting some similarities on here...
Just a thought ;)
Hey! I'm only pull ing your leg.
IFS projections indicate that Labour cuts and Tory cuts don't look very dissimilar at the moment.
I don't know whether you follow the news at all, but dear old Gordon was forced to give up on the lies of "Labour investment v Tory cuts" a few months back when the rest of the country (including his cabinet) knew it was total crap.
Have you forgot about that dreadful Osborne speech to his party conference just some months ago?.
Remember those 10 years of austerity and cuts to the public services.
Turkeys wouldn't vote for Christmas Guy and I doubt the people will vote for conservative cuts and unemployment.
Same question, have you seen the projections from the IFS that currently put cuts under either a Labour or Tory government as looking pretty similar?
The PM tried your line for months and it fell apart because every expert and his own Chancellor was telling him we all knew that big cuts are coming whichever party gets elected.
If Labour wins in 2010, public spending will be decimated. They have no choice, that's the legacy of the last 12 years, absolutely no room for manoeuvre by whoever gets in.
So Derek if you keep posting views that even your own party leadership and PM have given up on as everyone knew they weren't correct what does that make you look like?
Big cuts are coming Derek, whoever wins in 2010 and there's nothing you, I or anyone else can do about it.
So stop playing games with the electorate Guy, this is serious stuff and it deserves a serious approach.
Direct question then - where are these billions of pounds of savings?
Please post a link to exactly where they were mentioned.
Awaiting your reply...
I bet you have a sneaky notion as to what the tories might cut although?.
Obviously I am, which is why I am still waiting for you to post a link to where the breakdown of this £26bn is mentioned.
And no, I have no idea what the Tories will cut.
Whitehall by a third, and 10% in every department for a start and that includes the armed forces, little Fox wants his way there
There is no detail on the efficiencies proposed. Where have they identified that the government have been spending 50% more than they should have in Whitehall over the last few years?
I have never said I know about what Osbourne proposes whereas you seem to feel you have insider information on what cuts / savings are to be made by the government.
However it appears that your figures were just plucked from the air as there is no tangible proof that there will be any "savings" made.
If there are then please let us know where and how. Or if you cannot then please just say so.
P.S. halve the deficit over four years!
By asking you to prove where these figures are I am obviously not prepared to accept what I am told.
I won't bother waiting any longer as they were obviously made up figures that you cannot substantiate.
PS - Unlikely you're going to get the chance to prove it ;)
"I've already said that labour have identified Bn's of pounds of efficiency savings"
LMAO!!
So all these billions of "efficiency savings"...
Only Labour know about them? So the LibDems and Tories wouldn't be able to find them?
And ummmm....
If there are "billions" in savings to be made, doesn't that mean that Labour has been wasting "billions" over the last 12 years by not only not doing this sooner but by actually being responsible for the waste in the first place?
So your argument is:
"Vote Labour as we will be financially responsible by focusing on savings rather than cuts and we can prove it. Just look at all the savings we can make on our own financial mismanagement.......errr hang on a sec".
Yep great line for the election, go for it.
Guy, are you up to date in this area?.
"labour had to take the same action as the rest of the world to saves it's FSA and countless peoples homes"
That statement has nothing to do with cuts, efficiency savings or financial mismanagement over the last 12 years and hence is irrelevant to the discussion we were having.
It's also completely bonkers from a financial point of view but that's not the subject at hand.
Try again...
Cameron and Osborne are at a loss as to how they tackle this redession, they have been all-over the place and made several contradictions. I guess your the latest of the excuses Guy.
The US experience is useful here. The liberal blogosphere arose in opposition to 8 years of Republican rule, and was not only a meeting place for ideas and policies, but also fund raising and organisation. (Think I might have written about this last year for your own magazine - I could cite the article, but it's now behind a pay wall).
While it has been in opposition, the right has been much better at exploiting online networking and activism in the UK. Those two observations are probably correlated. But I see a significant difference in organisation. Right wing/libertarian blogs tend to arise under the banner of party affiliation (Conservativehome) or personality status (Dale, Guido etc.) In other words, they're still last years model: controlled, top down or hierarchical like the Drudge Report or Red State in the US.
What is truly lacking here, and something I've bemoaned so much I bore myself, is the current absence of a real left wing community blog, where the editorial decisions, highly rated diaries, hidden comments etc. are actually made by the selections of its membership.
One of the reasons I don't frequent LL much anymore (apart from the new software which no longer threads comments in my browser) is exactly this top down remoteness. Poor old Alex still has to preview a vast majority of the comments before publication. You also have to ask permission of him to write an article, There is no system of 'recommendation' for articles, or ability to uprate or downrate other people's comments, and most the diary writers never return to reply to comments (I'm assuming you'll be different).
This is not to knock Labour List, which is streaks ahead of most its UK competitors, but just to lament our British obsession with personality and hierarchy, and our inability to self organise. Everyone now recognises that part of the Democratic success in 2008 was precisely this feeling of personal involvement in online activism, journalism and fundraising. It underpinned a lot of Obama's success in fundraising and advocacy- especially during the primaries, something I explain at more length in my Prospect Piece from Nov 2008.
That same enthusiasm induced people like Alex (and my own son), to go over to the states and organise on the ground. My son's experience in Pennsylvania during the Presidential election showed that these online enthusiasms affected atoms as well as electrons. Though only 18, he was immediately given a responsible role, as many tasks as he could handle, and as a result worked harder than he has ever done in his life.
Things have changed in the US since Obama won office, and the unity of opposition has fallen, to some extent, into the traditional left wing cries of betrayal and 'corporate sellout'. However, though somewhat diminished, the energetic conversations still go at places like My DD, DailyKos and the blog I helped set up Motley Moose (all three where I blog as 'Brit'). I've yet to find, and would love to discover, UK sites where there is such freedom of expression, community rather than proprietorial editorial control, and therefore a sense of real engagement. If you know of a place, please tell me. If you don't, please set one up.
The first thing you'd need to do though, is to use the right software platforms that allow recommended articles and group moderation. Somehow all British blogs seem to be stuck in the templates of ten years ago.
1 Online political presence is unlikely to make much impact in terms of voting intentions in the UK in the next few years.
2 People working in the industry always tend of over state the importance of web in whichever area they are in
3 Class structure and the division of wealth and IT hardware/broadband means the core Labour vote is the segment least likely to be online
4 For an obama type campaign to work you need something to galvanise a large enough % of the population. In political terms that almost always is anger with a regime, so Labour had best hope that doesn't happen :)
5 Looking at the UK's population and the number of people posting on LL, it's like a private members club rather than a mass movement. I'm sure someone will tell me the unique visitor count is amazingly high, but I'm afraid I've installed and used enough web analytics packages to know you can get all sorts of misleading figures out to support an argument you like.
This debate reminds me of my time at Orange. A few bright young 20 somethings living in central London were assuring me that MMS was bound to be the new better super improved SMS. We could charge 40p a message and everyone would move from the old SMS 10p a message service because it was just so great.
I asked what was the killer motive to use MMS and they couldn't tell me. The rest is history, SMS had a killer motive, MMS didn't. SMS is massive, MMS is small fry.
The same applies here with blogging, twitter, political sites etc. There has to be a killer motive else they are just more fragmentation of the communications options.
Twitter worked well in things like the Iranian elections, but how many people really spends ages with it?
Blogging attracts a hard core support but will it attract the mass of the population?
Political websites play to the hacks amongst the population and a higher percentage at times of national elections when there is a polarisation of feeling, so 2010 may see a bit of a surge.
But really, professionally I do get tired with this repeated "brave new world" stuff about online fads. I get paid to be right about IT technology, comms and business analysis. I have a reasonable track record.
Fight your online wars by all means but it is a side show to where the real action in the UK will be in 2010.
Rightwing ? i could reply but i doubt if would read what i say and not what you think i said .
Danny
The idea that Ricki is right wing is laughable. From what I have read, he is a Labour supporter who despairs of this government.
@ James Crabtree
James, I agree with much of you post. It is critical that Labour become an effective opposition as soon as possible after the inevitable post defeat blood letting. Fortunately, many of the worst Labour MPs will be swept away at the GE, so there is an opportunity for the online community to influence new members. That opportunity should be grabbed with both hands.
mr Brown said we will cut by 10% i take it you disagree? Manufactring fell from 19% in97 to 11% ( Mr drew in the house of commons this year) All what is happening is another bubble and in 5-10 years we could be in the same postion.
Do i want the torys? we have had them for the last 30 years
Danny
Ricki, go and look back to the baron Thathcher years, high interest rates, high unemployment, low wage economy, manufacturing decimated by a conservative pre-agenda to destory the trade union movement.
Ricki, with that kind of response I couldn't care less who you votede for.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why New Labour is going to be slaughtered in the general election. Though they may feign interest in our worries in order to garner a few votes, actually they simply despise us. We exist to pay taxes and obey.
Well done, Derek, you summed your party up clearly and concisely..
I read this:
"Bill, I'm a labour man through and through, my roots are deep inbeded into the ideals of Kier Hardie and I've even a bit of the red clydeside in me to Bill. So what are you and who rings your bells Bill?."
.....and had to say that you are no help to the Labour party. You twist any argument to say that our PLP is right and they bear no resemblance to great leaders of the past. You remind me of Chemical Ali a complete laughing stock warping the truth.
We need to be brave and accept what is wrong so that we can put things right, the chance that we had over the last 12 years has been squandered, we have done some good but on the whole have made monumental mistakes.
Your endless spin helps nobody, prevents debate please be quiet.
So what is a tory such as you doing on this blog.
"FABRICATING"
Have to say I was beginning to enjoy coming back to LabourList again but the likes of a few on here just make me want to vote ANYONE but Labour.
The site seems to have lost it's "Tory Trolls" but now we seem affllicted with "Labour Trolls".
I think if the left based sites take the view that Alex has with LL (and it is so much better than it was so congrats to you Alex) and allow debate rather than:
1. It's all Thatcher's fault
2. Tories kill puppies / eat babies
All that will do is turn most people off apart from die hard Labour supporters.
If you are die hard Labour then great, stick with it, but some of us aren't and are maybe looking for a reason to vote one way or another.
So can I take it that only die hard Labour voters should be on this site?
Oh I am going to have to ROFLcopter out.
Thatcher didn't destroy industry, Labour did by caving into 15% pay deals despite incomes policies, failing to invest in nationalised industries because the unions said 'No'.
Industry failed because the shop stewards were more interested in class war than actually working. Industry failed because what it made was utter rubbish that even our own wouldn't buy it. Industry failed because for years workers brought their sleeping bags to the night-shift and simply couldn't be bothered.
Thatcher called time on the whole stinking trades union edifice.
Thatcher's government also pumped £40bn in today's money into Austin Rover Group to save the rump of it.
Did Labour? MG Rover had a £6bn annual turnover, employed 30,000 directly and indirectly and exported £1bn worth of product.
No, it declared them bankrupt because it interfered with their re-election, for want of a £120m loan to strike a new partnership with a Chinese manufacturer.
no Mr Brown was responsible for this ecomey and the mess this ecomy is in.
Danny
and everyone else got themselves out of it far faster than we did. Why was that oh Oracle......
I am now sure that you are sitting there purposely trying to start an argument. You are not doing the debate and certainly Labour no favours.
"Yes! I agree the right wing offer nothing other than fabricated nonsense."
This is bigotry and no more.
Germany was running a balanced budget in the good times, our average budget deficit in the last 5 years of growth was over 2% GDP. Keynes would have had his head in his hands.
Yes the recession was global but it has hit us harder because of the economic choices made by this government.
If you read my posts i am not a tory , If to much lending was the problem why is Mr Brown promising a return to 2007 lending levels ? The imf flagged up the problems as far back as 2003, Mr Brown done nothing about it and after bailing out the bankers he loved so much ( Sir fred goodwin ) the poor and working class will pay for Mr Browns mistakes .
Danny
Britain is again reading to move into growth Ricki, do you want Camerons agenda to spoil that?.
If you are going to quote numbers, get the facts right.
Also, this government has record borrowings, it is just they are held off balance sheet for schools and hospitals PFI and Network Rail PFI. Amounts if added to total debt would exceed 100% GDP.
The previous highest post-war national debt was 57% GDP ran up by the Callaghan/Healey administration the year the UK went bust and had to go to the IMF. They also ran a PSBR deficit of 9%. This government is running a PSBR of 12.5 and project a national debt of 80% (which based on their fantasy growth figures is in la-la land - it will be higher).
The Tories have previously ran PSBR of 7%
The IMF conditions of that 1970s loan was they told the government how to run the economy which Healey then had to implement, which incidentally is the exact same medicine that Cameron and Osborne want to implement now.
In terms of Labour's created more. The non-banking private sector has basically stagnated since 2001, manufacturing has lost 2,500,000 jobs. People on lower incomes have increased as have those on higher incomes, those in the middle now pay a much larger share of their income in taxation.
If that's creation, I suggest you consult a dictionary.
Still, from a automaton of the party-line, I'm not holding my breath.
Didn't think you would back Thatcher economics Mike, hold on? Salmond does so why wouldn't you.
How about posting proof of this then? Post the figures for 1979 - 1997 as Mike has done.
"Post the figures for 1979 - 1997 as Mike has done."
Actually, he did no such thing and what he did write was both selective and wrong ("the Tories got public debt down to 22 per cent of GDP").
The historical series for public sector net debt can be found in Budget 2009, Table C16. This table is accepted by all serious commentators (press, tv etc) as authoritative.
In 1978/79, public sector net debt (PSND) was 47.1 per cent of GDP. The lowest level was achieved in 1990/91 (26.2 per cent). It then started to increase again, to 42.5 per cent of GDP at the end of 1996/97.
During Labour's tenure, it decreased to 29.7 per cent of GDP at the end of 2001/02, and then started increasing, so that at the end of 2007/08, excluding financial sector interventuions, it was 36.5 per cent of GDP.
More up-to-date information can be found via the monthly "Public Sector Finances" issued by ONS. Excluding financial sector interventions, PSND was 41.9 per cent of GDP at the end of 2008/09 and 48.7 per cent at the end of 2009 Q3.
============================================================
The period 1979/1997 was notable for a steady reduction in public sector gross investment and public sector capital consumption ("depreciation"). In 1978/79, gross investment was 6.8 per cent of GDP ; in 1996/97 it was 2.3 per cent of GDP, accounting for 4.5 per cent. Capital consumption (charged to current expenditure) reduced from 4.3 per cent of GDP in 1978/79 to 1.6 per cent of GDP in 1996/97.
If we remove the capital consumption charge from current expenditure, the numbers for current expenditure are : 1978/79 : 33.9 per cent ; 1990/91 : 33.1 per cent ; 1996/97 : 36.0 per cent.
"Current expenditure" is "government in yer face", if you like, and in that respect I should add that public sector current expenditure was 38.2 per cent of GDP in 1978/79 and that level was exceeded in eleven of the subsequent eighteen Conservative years. In the Labour years 1997/98 to 2007/08 inclusive, it was never exceeded and equalled just once, in 2005/06.
Take a look at Tables C16 (and C17) in Budget 2009, GB-N. You'll find some surprises in there, and not much to support the charge of "profligate Labour" in general, and "profligate Gordon Brown" in particular.
So correct me if I am wrong but both seem to have got PSND down fairly quickly and then it has risen, with Labour apparently doing better.
Any ideas on why the dip then rise each time?
Before I forget, I wish you a happy and very pleasant 2010.
Ideas? As a general observation, a steadily growing economy (real growth plus moderate inflation) will erode the public sector net debt (PSND) as a proportion of GDP.
Even inflation is not always required - the period 1815 - 1910 saw a reduction in the national debt from something like 250 per cent of GDP (following our tussles with "Old Bony") to around 25 per cent. By and large, the general level of prices in 1910 was the same as in 1815.
(Incidentally, PSND reduced from 52.1 per cent in 1974/75 to 47.1 per cent in 1978/79, under Labour. Don't believe every "horror story" that you read or hear ....)
Specifically : by 1984/85, the Conservatives had hardly dented the PSND/GDP ratio - it was 45.3 per cent compared with the inherited 47.1 per cent. Economic growth then kicked in, so that it was down to 26.2 per cent in 1990/91. Also, significantly, the mid-80s to the early 90s were the "privatisation years" and by my calculations, total receipts from privatisations were worth a cumulative 7.2 per cent of GDP ....
Recession then occurred, so that it was back up to 42.5 per cent by 1996/97. The steadily growing economy (and adherence, for a couple of years, to inherited Conservative spending plans) reduced the PSND/GDP ratio to 29.7 per cent in 2001/02.
The increase from 2001/02 to 2007/08 was down to borrowing, mostly - but not all - for capital expenditure. At the same time, public sector net worth increased from a low of 14.4 per cent of GDP in 1998/99 to 28.9 per cent of GDP in 2007/08 (all those new hospitals, schools and extensions thereto are worth something, after all!)
Since 2007/08, recession has kicked in again and we are where we are, as they say.
Conservative borrowing numbers are not a 'record', Labour's are.
If you were so concerned, you would have shown that the Conservatives also got the national debt down to 22% GDP. Something despite this record boom, Labour never achieved, it was running 2% GDP deficit during a boom.
Which seeing as you are such a fan of Keynesian economics is the completely wrong thing to do.
Pathetic really.
Who was regulating Northern rock? It wasnt america it was the fsa , the fsa was set up by Mr Brown and failed if we cant even get this far in honesty then why should i vote for New Labour?
danny
Come on Ricki, stop singing the conservative tune, no other country in the world supported Cameron and Osbornes ideas.
And nobody supports the conservative agenda to slash as back into deep recession.
Ricki, well are you!.
Whos regulation system failed briton ? i wont vote for the torys but unless our leadership change my vote will go to the bnp .
Danny
Come on people! who will vote for a conservative party that has not a jot how to deal with the economy, least not forget that young Osborne wanted to further deregulate the banks only weeks before those American banks did crash.
Can we kick them..YES we can.
They handed out mortgages left, right and centre and over 5 timkes peoples salaries Ricki, for the sake of better bonuses, then throw the towel in and let the British public pick up the tab.
Ricki, no one in the modern world did what Cameron wanted to do! every nation bail-out their banks and conducted a stimulus package, the Germans have borrowed 130Bn to date.
Ricki, are you still saying the world should not have saved their banking institutions?.
surly you can see this site isnt just propaganda and lets face it its a million times better than it was a year ago , It will get better in opposition while some of the right wing blogs will become properganda for a tory goverment .
Danny
I was here a year ago and took Draper to task many times on many issues including the one that ended his tenure here.
Your right it was nasty before , i didnt have the confidenc to post then (because my spelling mistakes would have been mocked) and i doubt wether any of my posts would have been posted ( i have had 3 posts posted thanks alex) , the fact a normal voter can have there views posted is good , as to other sites i dont go to conhome , i sometimes see what Mr Dale is writing about , I agree about slanging matches its sometimes like the commons on here when we sholud have sensible debate like grown ups .
Danny
The right wing websites report on all issues, good and bad, they frequently question their leaders and politicians and are not afraid to disagree with them.
The left wing websites seem incapable of autonomous thought, trot out the party line and bury the bad news. Primarily, the web is used as a Borg-like propaganda tool to garner votes not as a vehicle to discuss and explore political issues.
And opposition to Government policy will be easiest on the internet.
Motherhood and apple pie..
But the success of a good internet site is content and moderation.. Not an easy task to find both and contributors from all sides to debate issues rather than just swap insults.
And of course existing sites know that in order to compete they need to change and adapt to changing circumstances and events.
Motherhood and apple pie again.
I am fine thanks hope you are to. The reason that this site could be up there on par with conhome is that different views are now debated without much name calling , While the former editer was running this site i felt i could not register as all i saw was hate , I kept reading this site and after a few months i noticed how it has changed , And finally when i first posted i was welcomed and not mocked .
Danny
a humble bit of advice from a grassroots Labour blogging enthusiast to an editor of Prospect, best not to alienate your audience in the first few paragraphs, otherwise they won't want to get to the end...
The left will get stronger after the election online if they have a party/site that will represent there views , i do think this site will be up there with conhome now it has a sensible editer that welcomes debate , Also the left online must not just be a mouthpiece for the "New labour" brand , It must be a open and honest debate and a feeling that it includes people and not just tells them what to think.
Danny