I have another four must read links on topics that I haven’t written on but have got me exercised enough to leave a comment or tow!!
First, is James Graham’s posting on internal Lib Dem organisation: Nick Clegg: COG now that I have your attention; so, OK I did right on this but only after James and a whole load of other people started. As someone who implements transformational change for a living, I can’t bear watching it go horribly wrong…
Then, for a little bit of light relief I commend you to, if you haven’t been there already, the A-Z of right wing on-line commenting, which is very, very funny. I have to admit I very rarely go to the Daily Mail and the Have Your Say message boards because by the time I’ve read down about 5 of the comments I have a retort in mind that is longer than the original posting, plus unhealthy stress levels. However, there are plenty of right wing trolls trying to wind up us progressive liberals on CiF!! (Nope, still can’t bring myself to use the label lefty, on myself).
Sticking with Liberal Conspiracy, Penny Red went uber-radical on the subject of parental rights or control in Where have all the real Dads gone to?. Perhaps she will disagree with my categorisation but whilst I agree her in that that I find it hard to find much sympathy for all these emasculated men when they have all the power and most of the money on the planet, I’m not sure that I agree with her feminist utopia, in this case. I do support her right to have a radical view though!
My indulgence link for this week is the Carnival of Feminists, which I think is vital reading for everyone, who thinks that now that women are officially equal, there’s no need for feminism! And it is the latest Carnival of Feminists that led me on to this article about the Queen Bee Syndrome; do you believe that women are not exactly sisterly when it comes to the career ladder and men are more supportive to their female subordinates? Or not?
There is an argument that goes along the lines of:
‘Iain Dale is consistently rude about the quality of left/progressive blogging (not possible to describe myself as left wing, oh no) and often moans about them without linking to them. He should not be encouraged in his self appointed role of King of blogging. And he’s a Tory and people who like blogs like Iain Dale’s, will like and vote for blogs like Iain Dale’s’ and won’t vote for progressive blogs and then Iain Dale will just tell us all that left/progressive blogs are boring.’
I, on the other hand, come form the following point of view:
‘Well, he’s the only one giving me a change to vote for my top 10 political blogs and if I don’t vote (for what will not, on the whole, be right wing blogs) then non-Tory blogs will get even less of a look in.
Just in passing, a very bizarre thing came to light in this discussion. Sunny suggested that I look at Wikio for an up to date top 100 blog list. Well, I nearly fell of my chair when I saw that I was rated 86th!! Ha! How ridiculous!
The scoring is on the basis of how many times you are linked to (as apposed to how many times people click through or read you) and different websites are given different weightings. For example, a link from the BBC will have a higher rating than a link say from…me! And this is where I see the problem being. As, Sky News have linked to me quite a few times, as I occasionally do a bit of telly for them and last week the PM Blog on the BBC website linked to me, for a totally non political reason.
Still, I suppose by adding a qualitative element to their scoring they are at least trying to avoid just going for the most popular as by page clicks, but even at my most optimistic (you know, as sort of: who could want more, than a glass half full, it’s perfect!!) could I consider my blog and influential to have any thing in common. However much I may want that to be so.
So, to my top 10 Political Blogs, on the basis that I can’t vote for myself (although I notice that some people have):
You can find out how to vote and all the rules here
It was hard, actually, to choose. I would rather have a Top 20!! But there is a pretty good mix of established, individual, group, male, female and elephants! I would have put Liberal Mafia up there but he’s on an invite only blog now..boo hoo!
Update: The more observant of you will notice that the list had changed a bit - I hadn't realised that Dave Hill's absolutely great London: Mayor & More blog was up on the Total Politics website. once I found out, I couldn't leave it out so I'm afraid the most entertaining Tom Harris had to go instead. Anyway, I'm sure they're'll be plenty of Labour voters voting for him, so it won't materially effect his positioning.
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