Are Political Blogs Boring?

According to a Hansard Society report, the quality of comment and debate on political blogs is often poor or even non-existent, and the jury is still out on whether they will ever make a significant contribution to parliamentary democracy.
The eight bloggers chosen for the study included Tom Watson - the first MP to start a blog and the winner of the elected representative category in the New Statesman's recent new media awards - and Lib Dem councillor Lynne Featherstone , North Norfolk Conservative parliamentary candidate Iain Dale, Howard Dean, Harry Hatchet, the thinktank collective VoxPolitics and Greenpeace campaigners.
The survey drew on reports by eight members of the public who were asked to monitor several of the best-known political weblogs for four weeks.

Only 8 bloggers and 8 members of the public? It goes to show how much the Hansard Society understands of e-democracy.
Read the rest of the article.

Lib Dems the real threat!

I was reading about this spoof emergency guidance booklet by student Tom Scott that the government is trying to shut down. It's not that funny but the best line must be:

This campaign is not in response to a particular threat, unless you count the threat from the Liberal Democrats.

:)

Hartlepool

I've just bought new leafleting shoes so Hartlepool here I come! :-)

Back to Grangetown

At the weekend I went back to my beloved Grangetown and I got bitten by a letter box! I kept leafleting for a while hoping for the bleeding to stop with no success. My T-shirt is still blood stained... what wouldn't I do for democracy! ;-)

Farhenheit 9/11

I went to see Farhenheit 9/11 yesterday. It's not a good film. It's slow, long-winding and has no coherent structure, but worth watching. I've never liked Michael Moore because his arguments are simplistic and exaggerated. Nevertheless, its focus on the very 'patriotic' woman who loses her son in Iraq is very welcomed. It is a reminder of what war is to all those idiots who were (and some still are) in favour of the war in Iraq. I particularly dislike those empty and flawed arguments about going to war (mostly focusing on Russian & French oil interests) that diregard human life, especially when advocating humanitarianism.
Who knows? Farhenheit 9/11 might even help John Kerry!

B'ham!!!

I went to B'ham yesterday to help out for the by-election. It was excellent, if you haven't been yet, GO NOW!
I managed to hurt myself, though. I don't quite know what happened but I sort of climb a fence and then took off and landed on my face while the leaflets went up in the air. I found it very funny, painful but funny. I just couldn't stop laughing at myself being so clumsy!
Nice to see Jade! ;)