Phoney War

Well, it hasn't been a vintage summer for either the weather or, by pretty widespread consent, for blogging. Still, we may well end up looking back at the past few months with a fair amount of nostalgia. The earlier part of the online year was taken up with Tim Ireland's pleas to keep blogging free from knee-jerk partisanship and underhand tactics, for which he attracted a great deal of hostility, but look what's happening now.

The country is on tenterhooks, waiting to hear if Brown will call an election - is it just me that finds it strangely appropriate that the first shots in a phoney war should involve claims of a phoney troop withdrawal? - and the infection is spreading among blogs: substantive points are being missed in the rush to score off the other side. For example: the Thunderdragon has not met his usual standards with a post on the fallout from pictures showing Tory aides blacking up. His initial point is valid enough, that we should not try and draw conclusions about whole parties from the actions of one or two individual members, but then the rest of his piece goes ahead and does exactly that: "why is it that Labour believe that only whites can be racist?" etc. etc. What, every last member? In fact, there is no link in this piece to show that even one shares this view. So a fair comment is squandered for the sake of scoring off the other side.

It doesn't have to be this way. Bel is a Tory blogger for whom I have a great deal of respect. When she jumped all over James Purnell and his embroilment in a photoshopping incident, both Bob Piper and I noticed that she didn't hark back to a similar incident involving Ann Widdecombe and a Tory candidate. In fact, as Bob went on to observe, the latter example is probably even worse (in that it reversed the meaning of the banners in the picture). But he too couldn't resist making a party political point at the end... The real point is that neither incident shows our party system in a good light, and I would have thought our energies would be much better expended holding all our candidates to a higher moral standard. So plaudits are due to Bel for subsequently clarifying her intentions for her original piece - a general commentary on levels of honesty in society - and for making clear her opposition to Widdecombe's actions as well. Surely this is the level of honest, open and nuanced interaction that bloggers should be aiming for.

Certainly, I still hope for such nuanced analysis in the political blogs I read of any alignment, which is why I tend to steer clear of the foamier-mouthed types who prefer to use terms like "socialists" or even "Marxists" when what they mean is the Labour party. If you can't even get such basic stuff as that right, why the hell should I waste my time on the rest of your 'analysis'? I can't decide which is going to be worse - that Brown goes ahead and calls the election, so that the partisan distortion and spin increasingly befouls the 'sphere; on the other hand, at least we would get it all out of the way relatively quickly, whereas this phoney war risks degrading the quality of blogging for an indefinite period, and we would still end in a shit-storm two years' or so down the line.

If you have a political blog, and also have any genuine affection for blogging as a pursuit, please, think on, before it becomes so devalued as to be useless. As the Usmanov affair showed, blogging can be used to take on vested interests and win, but, realistically, blogging has yet to make much of an impact on the wider world. The more libertarian element are very keen on the idea of freedom of expression - just bear in mind that, if the whole medium is seen as polluted, as a mere extension of the spinners' web, then no-one will want to listen to what any of us, you included, have to say. By all means raise a finger to the idea of self-regulation, but spare a thought to the direction we are headed in, and to whose interests will be served if the 'sphere is devalued. Like it or not, we're all in this together.