Following the latest political ”scandal“, this time over emails about tarnishing reputations flying about Downing Street, I decided to have a look at a few of the “notable” political blog sites mentioned in the BBC’s coverage of the issue.
First impressions, I have to admit, aren’t great.
Guido Fawkes blog, a quite clearly Conservative tinted view of things actually provides some genuinely interesting news and articles, however, it is let down tremendously by the attitudes and contributions of it’s readers. Comments such as “F**k off you Grauniad reading, Gordon Brown c**k-sucking sh*t for brains”, directed at someone clearly in disagreement with the Conservative themes, don’t exactly go a long way towards encouraging the belief that this is a source of intelligent political information and discussion. Instead it seems to follow a familiar trend on the internet of mindless name calling and dogmatically voiced opinion.
That said, the Labour site, also linked to by the BBC, and run by former Government spin doctor, Derek Draper, also leaves a lot to be desired. LabourList, while better presented visually and seeming to be a bit more creditable in terms of content (i.e. not directly rumour mongering or inflammatory and actually trying to describe positive impacting initiatives), still falls down when it comes to the comments sections. While not as heavy with profanity as Guido Fawkes, it still follows the well trodden line in politics, both online and offline, “your with us or your not”.
What I mean by this is, instead of focusing on the positive differences their party (or party of choice) could make to the country when in power, political discussion these days seems to boil down simply to name calling and slandering, or defence in the face of slander, of achievements and initiatives. Such actions would seem to be completely at odds with the recent major political success of Barak Obama in the American presidential campaign, a success which all political parties now clearly aspire to emulate.
The reason the Obama campaign for presidency was so successful in my eyes was because the focus was on positive change rather than predominantly negatively promoting the failings of the previous Government. Obviously promotion of positive change implies the failings of the previous presidency anyway, but it does so in a manner that is more credible, and with more class which therefore makes it more engaging.
A lot of talk surrounded the Obama campaign’s use of digital and social media in promoting a fashionable message of inclusivity, and this is something that political parties in this country are clearly making concerted efforts to become more involved with. However, if the sites mentioned above are some of the best efforts in this area that UK politics has to offer, well then it seems the message hasn’t fully gotten through.
For a start, I imagine the proportion of the UK population familiar with any political use of social media for political purposes is a fraction of that of the population of the USA that became familiar with Obama’s “roots level” online marketing, for want of a better term.
With regards to the actual e-mail scandal itself, well it seems that the class with which Obama conducts himself, and which all involved in politics wish to emulate, is lacking in the actions of both parties involved. Obviously there is no class in trying to create falsified smear campaigns to discredit opponents. However, at the same time, would a leader with class really “demand” an apology from his opponent despite the fact the opponent was not directly involved the way David Cameron has? Surely the classy thing to do would be to play the whole thing down rather than obviously fan the flames in a blatant attempt to gain public opinion? Class, to me anyway, is defined by attitude and manner, and to an extent, action – but not these types of actions.
At the moment, class is clearly lacking both online and offline in UK politics.
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