Hopefully this is my last post on the McBride/Guido business, as the world and their dog have by now analysed and commented on every aspect of it and then some. Derek Draper has now “apologised” and asked that the “whole blogosphere, right and left” start being nicer, a sentiment echoed by Liberal Conspiracy. Which quite frankly is where I start to get puzzled, I mean I didn’t realise that I had to be either right of left wing to be part of the “blogosphere” (I hate that “word“), but from reading many of the responses from writers seemingly sympathetic to the actions of Mr McBride that does appear to be the only options. There is much talk of the “right wing” dominance on-line where that seems to equate to “people not supporting labour”, but as Charles Crawford observes in terms of the internet which is made up predominately of private individuals doing thier own thing that’s a bit of a nonsense. The last time I saw such enforced partisan lines was at a meeting of geeks “discussing” VI vs. Emacs.
Meanwhile Guido is condemned for being “anti politics” as well as “pro-conservative” which is quite a trick to pull off, but then he’s also been attacked for both selling and not selling information to the papers. What seems to be forgotten is that at the end of the day Guido is a private citizen running a blog for his own amusement and so can do whatever he likes with it. People employed by and using the resources of the state or even a political party do not have that luxury. What these commentators seem to have missed is that there are a lot of individuals out there that are unhappy with our current parliament, and the government in particular, who are no longer dependent on a toadying mainstream media. When people write stories about our great and good that are awkward we hear time and again that ordinary people* are not interested in stories about the westminster village, yet day in day out that is just what the mainstream media gives us. The establishment also tells us that “the blogosphere does not do shades of grey” unlike obviously the careful balanced in depth articles we’re all used to seeing from the papers, TV and our various elected and unelected representatives? Obviously sites such as Burning our money and Tax payers alliance never do anything even approaching analysis nor does Ben Goldacre, and there was no aspect of investigative journalism in Guido’s revelations. Many of these commentators, especially within the established media, seem unable to accept that what is written about and becomes important on the internet is down to the individual choices of thousands of people acting separately and making up their own minds and that independence counts for a lot. I’ve linked to a lot of what could be classified as “right wing” journals here, and I suspect many people would class this as one, but seriously with a few exceptions try to find a “left wing” journal which doesn’t force this whole thing into a left Vs right framing and then complain about the messenger or justify that “everyone’s at it”. Little is given to entertain the idea that something wrong was actually done, and that someone not being controlled by the opposition might have wanted to do something about that, no thought is given to the idea that individual people might be concerned about the behaviour of those in state and want to do something about it. Mind if it does turn out that Guido is in fact being paid by David Cameron personally it doesn’t make one iota of difference to what we’ve been presented with and what’s been admitted to, I don’t for a moment care who exposes corruption and shoddy behaviour within the corridors of power so long as it is exposed.
Which is what confuses me, that individuals are seemingly not to be allowed to be interested in anything not released via a spokesman or other “sources” to the mainstream media. That we can’t try to get as much information as possible to then make up our own minds. That everything must be framed in terms of Left vs. Right. It seems that the idea that we might all be capable of individual thought and independence is of such utter anathema to the mainstream media and some aspects of the left, to such an extent that it blinds them to how they could engage and get their point of view across. I read journals I often disagree with and frequently disagree with what’s said in many of the others, but I get value from both and try to acknowledge a good idea when I see it (particularly galling when it comes from a Conservative or even the BNP). What tends to stop me reading any given site is if they’ve a habit of rebutting an argument by attacking what someone said some other time (They can’t be right about Y because they were wrong about X and they don’t like kittens) or some other aspect of the messenger. Can these people not see how counter productive this is, how every time they do it they just strengthen those they consider to be the opposition and drive more people to them?
Talking of blogs I often disagree with this on Harry’s place I agree with for a change and to second what they say in regards to No 10’s response *boggle* WTF! Though the comments still take a few shots at the messenger.
update LPUK also commenting on the enforced Labour/Conservative dichotomy
* I count myself as an ordinary person, having no particular party affiliation and having not being actively involved in politics since I was a student except for having CAMRA and Amnesty memberships. I only really started paying any interest about a year or so back. So maybe I ceased to be a normal person then.
Footnote: That rambled a lot more than I planned, sorry.
