By Mark Hanson
I think enough people have raked over the McBride ‘Smeargate' story without me putting my oar in. I just wanted to send a message to the burgeoning community of Labour people springing up on the web. All debating, challenging, campaigning and making friends both with AND without Party HQ.
We've come a long way from the sweary Manchester fringe debate referred to by Sunder Katwala. I was the guy on the panel who was representing Labourhome and the claims of the blogosphere to be the key to Labour bigwigs re-connecting with its grassroots. Remember this was two days after ‘that Labourhome poll' on the front of the Independent.
Myself and Derek Draper had a frank exchange of views that day but since then he and others in the hierarchy have understood that they need to do politics in a different way. And they have. Lets not expect the tanker to turn around in a few months but we should count our achievements.
Tools to make it easier to campaign in our constituencies such as the Virtual Phoneban k - used by Labour Party members up and down the country to make over 10,000 phone calls.
LabourSpace.com - a site launched by Ed Miliband at the turn of the year to help start to formulate ideas for Labour's next manifesto. Whilst the site is still in its infancy it is growing into a site that now has many interesting campaigns. This site is about true engagement - Ed Miliband regularly looks at the site and comments on different campaigns - and campaigns are published even if they are not in line with Labour Party policy. It still needs work and a bigger audience/user base but we can see in LabourSpace the kernel of a site which really "gets" what the internet is about.
Alternatively you can look all round the country at Luke Pollard in Plymouth, Lucy Powell in Manchester, Stella Creasy in Walthamstow, Blackburn Labour's cult Twitter feed. Look at the innovative campaigning being done by the likes of Noel Hatch and Sam Tarry on racism or John Prescott rallying us against the bankers.
I think the sentiment from Alastair Campbell's blog yesterday sums it up
"What the fall-out must not do is make Labour defensive about trying to do a better job of communicating via the web. A more open and engaged politics is essential if Labour are to have a chance of winning a fourth term. This episode is a bad example of the old politics, much more than a botched example of the new."
Just ten days ago a ragbag group of Labour bloggers and campaigners was gathered (organised by Derek Draper) to offer ideas as to how to build the resources on Labourlist and make it more useful to Party members at constituency level. How to build this Labour-minded community. Already the site has been adapting to the suggestions made that day. Indeed in all the half dozen or so meetings there have been (all organised by Derek Draper) the ideas that have come from all manner of contributors have resulted in real change to the way the Party behaves online and/or how Labourlist functions.
Don't let the lobby press and Tory bloggers frame these ill-advised emails between three or four Westminster players as a ‘what's wrong with Labour in the blogosphere'. It's nothing of the sort.
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Again, another troll comment. The Tories keep trying to drag things up like this even if it's got nothing to do with the topic.
Whilst: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4293210.Struggling_Dorset_OAPs_are_skipping_meals/
"PENSIONERS across Dorset are being driven to extreme cost-cutting measures in order to combat the worsening effects of the recession.
A report by the newly merged charity Age Concern and Help the Aged says millions of pensioners are skipping meals, switching off their heating and scrimping on necessities such as shoes and clothes to save money."
1 Internet privacy: Britain in the dock
2 Appalling treatment of Heathrow detainees laid bare in damning report
3 Former Labour ministers blame Brown for email smear fiasco
4 Met suspends officer after G20 clash
5 MP attacks 'SAS-style' tactics used by police against environmental protesters
6 McBride will not receive severance pay
7 Alcoholics face benefits cut
8 Police and Crown Prosecution Service to face assessment over rape 'failures'
9 The Cameron confessions
10 Were police spies behind mass arrest of activists?
Here's how you do it.
Mass abuse of postal voting by New Labour
Whoops - Red Rag Was Registered to the House of Commons
"Draper told the Guardian he bitterly regretted his behaviour and said that he should never have welcomed emails from McBride that suggested how they could construct personalised attack stories on David Cameron and other prominent Tories. He claimed he had only responded so enthusiastically because he wanted to curry favour with Downing Street to win its support for his website, LabourList."
Sucking up to the big boys. Say no more.
Don't you know that the reflexive pronoun is only used when the subject and object of a sentence are the same eg "I love myself". Secondly, as a matter of politeness you put yourself second in order of importance eg "Derek Draper and I..........."
Might seem trivial to you but it speaks volumes about your intelligence if you haven't picked this up by now.
Once again all we hear is "it's all Guido's fault". Based on this line of thinking, the "sleazy Tories" should never have been reported on, so in all probablity would still be in power.
Truth to tell, Labour was gaining fast on-line as long ago as the last General Election, when its, er, brilliance in running a totally phony website was exposed in a Channel 4 documentary.
Good stuff, eh? Pity about the several thousand Labour voters who recoiled in disgust after the programme's screening.
Anyway. On the subject of old news / new news, here's this:
In 1997 there was dancing in the streets at the demise of a sleaze-ridden, self-serving bunch of incompetents.
The alleged power of cyberspace ain't going to do a thing to stop that old news becoming the new news in the not too distant future.
Nor does it do anything to soothe the anger so many of us feel at the way this current administration -- and its flag-bearers on here -- have done more for the Tory Party than the Tories ever managed.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article9092474.ece
Ditch the Jonah Captain and start again.
The way I see it is Labour List should move on, set a lead, and both Labour and sympathetic people follow in its wake. You're propping up something that isn't there when you should be leading the market.
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/04/browns-thugs-at-work.html
Brown's Thugs at Work
Iain Dale 11:46 AM
From a new reader in Scotland...
I have just discovered your blog this week-end, excellent stuff. I am not sure if you are aware it is also very educational, an aspect of some blogs which is often missed. I have supported Labour for over forty years but since Blair and Brown I have moved further and further away. I live in Scotland and if you wish to observe the real evil of Brown at work (and I mean it) you should investigate the going ons over many years here. Utterly corrupt and vicious in their practices it requires the exposure to the sunlight that you have achieved south of the border to bring Brown and Scottish Labour to book. Have a look at the fixing of selection meetings to favour Brown supported candidates. Constituency chairs will tell you how they have been bullied. Ask activists how they are marshaled when Brown' fixers come calling, and ask failed candidates how they are smeared before selection meetings. All done by Brown's thugs. Remember Scotland is Brown's fiefdom, it will also assist in his downfall.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-365547/Cameron-campaign-chief-cocaine-pictures.html
What happened to "education, education, education"? Oh yeah. Everybody gets 'A's regardless. Problem solved.
Or was this written by a pre-schooler?
Not to you, no.
Keep it up. Much more of this and you'll start to lose even the client state vote that Brown has bought the past 11 years.
Can't believe I ever voted Labour, never mind for 32 years. What a bunch of shysters.
The only way to be true to both Labour's progressive roots, and to inject some energy and real debate here (rather than the inane name calling) is for a band of Labour bloggers to set up a collective site. This can be done with MUCH BETTER software for about five bucks a month at a community blogging site like soapblox.com. Then the site needs to be moderated by trusted users - not by the arbitrary censorship of site admins who don't reply to posts or engage in debate. And political superstars who just cut and paste diaries and then don't reply deserve all the abuse they get. A progressive blog is about debate, not PR or sleaze mongering. And at the moment, Labourlist is clearly torn between these two poles of political inanity.
Were you talking about Tony Blair - all presentation and style?
I'd hoped that this site would gradually start to find its way, and turn into something useful, something that users and Labour sympathisers could start to feel a genuine sense of belonging to and ownership of. Sadly, I no longer think it will: it's too tainted by association.
Shut it down and start again!
To address their real concerns about immigration, jobs, lack of integration, housing, education, etc. is practical politics. You might not like it but the alternative is lost seats at the next Gen. Election.
Its just an exceptionally poorly written immature and disconnected student newsletter.
Is anyone with a brain, and political instincts, in there (Sunder Katwala?) listening? Or is this being blogged late at night in the bars of various former polytechnics?
Just Shut It Down Now: if it were being produced by Andy Coulson it could scarcely be more damaging to the Labour Party.
In the US, this kind of blog would be seen as astroturfing, the opposite of a real grass roots movement.
This is a great shame. There's a great demand for a real progressive blog, but what we have at the moment is scurrilous Drudge-like Guido setting the terms of the debate.
In fact I'd quite like to see the trial because of the information that would have to be revealed from both sides
I think Tom W will just let it slide because it will be less damaging to him, and he'd be too busy currently justifying his current role if Brown actually could get a grip of the situation
Replace "Guido" with "Draper" in your title and it makes sense.
On second thoughts - just carry on as usual - Draper is the greatest gift the Tories' could hope for.
Cameron is just a yes man who blames everyone else. Hiring a person like that to an executive role strokes the ego but he's useless when he's off script. The guy is a rote learner and bag carrier, not a leader. The world is littered with people like that. Thankfully, most of them get no higher than the post room or junior clerk.
Corporal Cameron. Yeesh.
Things can only get better.
Still I'm sure he has nothing to hide. Just as he wasn't plotting against Blair. Just as he said that he wouldn't accept a ministerial position.
A stout man of principle, of course.
No.
But this is just as baseless.
Everyone knows what Watson is, and his emails would be massively entertaining to read.
Tom, your Irony-O-Meter needs a bang on the desk.
Keep your head up mate. The bastards have been out to destroy you from the very start. This is their assassination attempt and fortunately you are wearing good body armor.
Keep up the amazing work you do at Labourlist. They don't like it because it frightens them. As for Mr. Staines, well every DOG has its day and I am sure his downfall isn't too far away.
Once again, keep your head held high and remember Any man can smile when life is like a song, but the man worthwhile is the man who can smile when everything goes wrong.
Many forms of martial arts have a built in distance factor. My favourite is Wing-Chun, and among the first lessons you learn is to step close to the opponent. From there, you can punch, choke them, rip their face off, break their legs, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Someone needs to drag the Prime Minister outside and put him through a crash course in Wing Chun. It would save a lot of words.
As I keep saying, change comes from within. Hmmm. Nobody listens...
Wrecked the economy? Someone else's fault, Guv. (No more boom and bust - eh?)
Curtail civil liberties for the majority? We need to defeat the terrorists in our midst (the ones Labour allowed to enter and prosper when they abolished border controls in 1997).
Ministers' snouts in the trough? We followed the rules.
So, put alongside all this, attempting to destroy the reputation of your rivals must seem very small beer.
Time for an election to get rid of an unelected, incompetent and unscrupulous PM.
Thats called shooting the messenger Chris, if you don't want to hear about Labour sleaze then I suggest the sleazy labour people doing the labour sleaze stop being so sleazy. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if it turns out that the unusual psychological make up of DD means he sent Guido the emails in somekind of creepy gloating email.
I see I'm paying for that tory-toff Purnell's FOOD now.
I've written about this topic a fair few times with examples. On the issue of who its written for, its very much aimed at Labour people already dipping their toe into online campaigning.
Unpublished emails ... all a bit unfair to be losing jobs over it ... some sympathy. At one level. Guido is a sleaze rat. These things might never have seen the light of day without Guido? though I do sense there is going to be more. Guido is girding up his loins. Rolling barrels of powder into a basement room at Number 10.
But so what? Unfair or not Derek has been damaging the cause here since day one, or was it day two or three? His brand was still damaged. And now it's back to being toxic. There is no way back for him in this kind of role. We were right about that LabourHome poll. It was not big and not clever. It was misrepresented.
But whatever the question is "Derek Draper" is not the answer. I'll rephrase that. Whatever the question is re future control of Labour List "Derek Draper" is not the answer. Sunder quotes DD's criteria for sound Labour blogging back at him.
He's got to go.
It would be better to re-direct resources to other brands and let Labour List wither than to continue to support it with Derek in the Chair.
Tom W has, I believe, already threatened to do some suing. Look how carefully this article is written...
Get rid of all the MPs, spin and party machinery and give ordinary folk a chance. Might piss of the MSM but that's not a bad thing.
The whole system stinks.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/columnists/fergus_shanahan/article2375497.ece
The story will not go away whilst the leader is weak and unable to control the situation
The longer it carries on the greater will be the stain
Somebody please take control or accept that the end is nigh
A purge on the scale of Mao TseTung might just save Brown's bacon, but it has to be done with sincerity and honesty
It's too scattergun, in danger of slipping into jargon, and content free - a documentry pretending to be an action movie. You might try fleshing out individual stories of what was physically done, what people said to each other, and bung some some photos in there. It would be an easier read and have more texture.
Personally, I can't handle more than about 5-7 topics a day. Too much stuff is repeated or defocused. This post alone touches on technology, ministers meeting with people, and meetings about doing stuff. That's three different subjects that could be fleshed out into something that stands by itself and have mainstream appeal.
So we've got a choice of sites created and/or blessed by Ed Miliband and a ragbag group of bloggers who come like puppy dogs when called by Derek Draper. Sounds pretty neat. I'm sure I'll be reading the output just as soon as party headquarters has dictated it to the inner circle.
You don't really need those last three words there. And its everything of the sort.
As an 'outsider' but not a tory, can I ask the point of Labour on the net? Its all lovely cuddly 'progress' 'equality' and fluffy bunnies, BUT, I don't think anyone has noticed but you're in power and 'your' government has none of those things, where you want progress they have Iraq, where you want equality they're busy making sure we're 'all terrorists now' and where you want fluffy bunnies they're down in the bunker filling their boots. What is the point of 'Labour' any more? Go on, give me a big idea, or even a small one.