This entry was posted on
Monday, March 28th, 2005 at
2:55 pm and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.
Times – Tories plan to beat ‘bias’ by bringing in bloggers: The Conservative Right is to turn to new American campaigning techniques and the internet to try to revive the party and overcome what it sees as opposition from the metropolitan Establishment. Only weeks away from the general election, senior Conservatives will open a new front today in the battle for ideas by creating a website advocating “social conservatism”. It will invite people to bypass the media and put forward their own views on how the party should evolve. The faction behind it denies that it is “rocking the boat” in the pre-election period and says that in the early weeks the website will be used to campaign for a Conservative victory. It wants people to use the increasingly popular practice of “blogging” – writing online diaries – to break the power of the broadcast media.
1. Notice the ‘liberal bias’ myth that’s woven into this project.
2. Note the level of original thinking, boys and girls! It work in States; we do exact same thing here. Exact same thing!
3. Not a good time to launch, Tory chaps. But please do excuse me for questioning your collective genius.
4. Tim Montgomerie? Is this he?
5. If it’s all about bloggage, then why is the site here and the weblog aaallll the way over here?
It seems to me that the plan is to use wingnuts in the US to plough the field and seed a fresh crop of wingnuts here in the UK. So we can all begin shouting at each other.
Take a look at this rather direct appeal to the Christian right, this charming ‘Leftisms’ post and this (from the article linked above): The second phase will follow immediately. At that point, it will begin to urge Tory supporters and natural conservatives, particularly within the faith communities and environmental movement, to support ‘one nation’ conservatism.
(One Nation? Oh dear.)
Where in this high-minded and well-thought-out project is the plan to get actual MPs communicating via actual weblogs?
By Scott Ferguson March 28, 2005 - 4:47 pm
I tend to agree with Manic on a number of points.In the United States, the ascendency of blogs among opinion leaders was borne of an unfulfilled need. In my country, there is an ongoing delamination of the professional class from the middle class. For decades, leaders of every social institution in the US have been speaking in condescending tones to average people (something Americans don’t tolerate well), brow-beating them into places they don’t want to go, using PC rhetoric that defies common sense. Blogs have emerged as a way to release pent-up frustration with the status quo. They give average people a powerful voice, and the institutions are starting to listen.Does this paradigm travel well? I’m not close enough to Britain to know for sure, but I do get a sense that the entrenched class system of your country mitigates the social pressures that made blogs so important in the USA. And for any political party (either in the UK or the US) to presume to “harness the power of blogs” for focused political ends is sheer idiocy — witness the fact that the few bloggers in the US who are paid by third parties for their work have much less influence and credibility than those who do it for free. And in any case, harnessing bloggers is as futile as herding cats.
By Nick Barlow March 28, 2005 - 7:33 pm
It could well be the same Tim Montgomerie – remember IDS’s ‘aren’t blogs great?’ article from a few weeks ago?
By Unity March 28, 2005 - 8:25 pm
I suspect that what follows should be conclusive as regards the provenance of ‘Conservativehome”Organization:Conservative HomeHugh Montgomerie25 Bishops MeadLaverstock, SP11RUGBPhone: xxxxxxxxxxxEmail: tim.montgomerie@mac.comRegistrar Name….: Register.comRegistrar Whois…: whois.register.comRegistrar Homepage: http://www.register.comDomain Name: CONSERVATIVEHOME.COMCreated on…………..: Mon, Dec 22, 2003Expires on…………..: Thu, Dec 22, 2005Record last updated on..: Sat, Mar 05, 2005Administrative Contact:Conservative HomeHugh Montgomerie25 Bishops MeadLaverstock, SP11RUGBPhone: 07717261570Email: tim.montgomerie@mac.comTechnical Contact, Zone Contact:Register.ComDomain Registrar575 8th Avenue – 11th FloorNew York, NY 10018USPhone: 902-749-2701Fax..: 902-749-5429Email: domain-registrar@register.comI‘ve blanked the phone number, although a WHOIS will give it you if you’re desperate for the number – its a mobile BTW.
By crabmuffins March 28, 2005 - 11:45 pm
http://beatstelevision.com/thepowerofb3ta/:o)