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Archive for July, 2007
Wanted : Local Government or Political Bloggers
I am looking for a couple of good local government or local politics blogs to include in my Top 20 for Iain Dale (and in my sidebar).
If you have any recommendations, or write one yourself, please drop me an email at “mattwardman AT gmail DOT com”.
Thanks for your help.
Tags: iain dale top 20, guide to political blogging, local government, local politics
[tags]iain dale top 20, guide to political blogging, local government, local politics[/tags]
Advice to Bloggers: Stand Out - Court Controversy.
One of the ways we stand out from the crowd is by our distinctive opinions, and our ability to argue them convincingly. 
According to Brian Clark over at Copyblogger, the way to lead your niche is by being controversial:
You need the courage to alienate the wrong people in order to resonate with the right people. You need to stick to your convictions when people tell you you’re wrong simply because your knowledge doesn’t mesh with their opinions.
Advice from Brian Clark at Copyblogger
If you don’t stick out from the crowd you will fail:
Blogging by consensus is a recipe for failure. Your success will be determined by the execution of your vision. Think about it… if your audience is more qualified to write your blog than you are, why should they read what you say?
It is good to be hated by some people:
The fact is, if no one hates you, you’re doing something wrong. Trying to please everyone is the goal of mass media. That’s why it sucks. We’re supposed to be smarter, right?
And he uses his own blog as an example:
If the old guard bloggers would have embraced me with open arms, I’d have been wrong about everything. Instead, the reaction from certain corners of the community was as expected.
Better yet, the reaction from the right people—the people I wanted to reach (that’s you)—was as hoped. Commercially-oriented blogging was growing up, and people were looking for pragmatic advice.
And he has a good summary:
Focus on the right people, and let the wrong people say what they will. It makes for great publicity when the sanctimonious blast you simply because they don’t realize that things have changed.
Article Series - How to Lead your Blogging Niche
- Advice to Bloggers: Stand Out - Court Controversy.
Creation of a “New” Right-Wing Blog Aggregator site
I have a couple of projects planned for August.
One of them is to fill the gap in the UK political blogosphere for a blog aggregation site for right-wing and/or Tory blogs.
Since the demise of the Right Links site, the right side of the blogosphere is lagging behind both Labour and the LibDems in this respect.
At this stage, I am simply looking at an aggregator, rather than a link exchange or forum site.
Any comments?
Is anyone else planning to address this?
Tags: blog aggegartor, right-links, rightlinks, jonathon lamb, eu serf, political blogging, conservative party[tags]blog aggegartor, right-links, rightlinks, jonathon lamb, eu serf, political blogging, conservative party[/tags]
High Prices of Doctors: GPs Workload Survey - £100k average for 15% fewer hours
[Update 31/7 AM: According to the GP Workload Survey published this morning, GPs are working 15% fewer hours than a decade ago, and that the average salary has now gone over £100,000 per annum. On evening surgeries, the British Medical Association say “there is no demand”. Strewth.]
According to Monday’s Guardian, Doctors in the NHS are challenging high drugs prices.
One has to admire both the cheek and the sheer balls of the move.
The high prices that should be challenged are those being charged for Doctors, by Doctors.
Something like 75% of the NHS Budget goes on staff. If we are looking at savings and efficiency that *has* to be the place to start.
For good measure, Doctors in the United States - the place with the highest medical costs in the world - are flabbergasted at the amount of money being made by General Practitioners in the UK. This is a quote from a specialist blog concerned with medical salaries:
250,000 Pounds a Year translates to US$ 507,248/- a year, which perhaps only what the specialist surgeons and Interventional cardiologists in America can hope to make - and yet it’s the kind of money that some of the Family medicine MDs - ( called General Practitioners in UK) are making.
Official data showed that 50% of the the England GPs were making more than 100,000 Pounds a year ( US$ 202,899/- in July 2007 Exchange rates) and 10% of them made more than 150,000 Pounds a year ( US$ 304,349/- in July 2007 Exchange rates).
All this due to the 2004 contract where the GPs were to be rewarded more for being on the forefront of care and improve preventive care services. I personally think rewarding primary care is good - but then, when these docs starting enjoying the pay and cutting back on work by closing down evening patients and taking whole weekends off, and still making crazy money - then you begin to feel - “OK..they MUST be getting overpaid then !”
Before the 2004 Contract - the average pays were 70,000 Pounds a year (US$ $142,029 in July 2007 Exchange rates), which were just a wee bit less than the national average of family medicine docs in USA.
They considered the report from the Daily Mail surprising enough to draw to the attention of their readers.
The typical GP is now earning well over £100,000 - an outrageous figure.
This country is becoming complacent about these huge incomes earned by GPs from the public purse. It is time for the country to wake-up.
It is your taxes and my taxes that are being spent on excessive incomes for GPs, rather than on Medical Care for patients.
It is a problem.
You know it is a problem.
Do not let it be swept under the carpet.
Do not bury your head in the sand.
Tags: GP salaries, docror income, doctor salaries, medical salaries, national health service, cost of gps[tags]GP salaries, docror income, doctor salaries, medical salaries, national health service, cost of gps[/tags]
Scotblog Blog Roundup
The Scottish Blog Roundup No.for 29-Jul-07 is at the Scottish Roundup website as usual.
Tags: scottish roundup, scotblog roundup, scotland, scottish blogosphere[tags]scottish roundup, scotblog roundup, scotland, scottish blogosphere[/tags]
Britblog Roundup #128
Is over at Liberal England.
The roundup is a compendium of last week’s outstanding posts in the British Blogosphere.
It’s an excellent roundup this week - with around 50 items.
I have the following articles featured:
- Ideas for promoting your blog through the local press.
- I have a catalogue of recent BritBlog Roundups and where they can be found.
- And … er … I share a name with the Mr Gay UK 2002 Leeds heat winner.
Tags: britblog roundup, britblog
[tags]britblog roundup, britblog[/tags]
New Cameroonian Website Platform 10 Launches
The new “alternative” to Conservative Home has gone live, albeit in “Beta” testing (i.e., it is allowed to have problems).
I’ll comment in more detail later, but it is a welcome development I picked up via Mike Rouse:
The site was touted as ‘CameroonHome’ and as a rival to the more traditional ConservativeHome - finally after much anticipation Fiona Melville and her team have brought the site online.
I would summarise aims as “aspirational”. Nothing wrong with that, but they will need much more flesh on the bones:
- We support the changes David Cameron is making - and must continue to make - to the Conservative Party so that it remains firmly in the centre-ground of British opinion. We will hold him to his pledge that under his leadership the Conservatives must look, feel, think and behave like a completely new Party.
- We want to make sure that Conservatives understand and like modern Britain, and that anyone who wants to see a tolerant, greener, forward-looking and less arrogant government is comfortable supporting the Conservative Party.
We want to see a government that doesn’t seek to legislate its way out of problems, that understands that trusting people to run their own lives is how to build stronger people and a stronger society, that supports people’s choices and helps Britons make the most of themselves and their communities. - We want our politicians to understand that Britain today is a great place to live but that it could be even better. The way to make it better is not to restrict and restrain but to listen, to engage, to debate - and for people to take responsibility in making sure that our government does the right thing for our whole society.
- We’re not dogmatic - if something works, politicians should look at why, and help those ideas grow and spread. We believe that politicians have a duty to look to our shared future and to work together on the big issues facing our country.
We’re optimistic, because we believe that with David Cameron as Conservative Prime Minister, we can make that happen.
But (for techies) it is not open source:
The only grumble I have is that it doesn’t appear to have been built on an open-source platform like Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, etc, which may make ongoing maintenance an expensive and long affair, but if they’ve got the money they may be rewarded with the advantages that bespoke development can bring.
Tags: mike rouse, platform 10, fiona melville, cameroon, david cameron, conservative party[tags]mike rouse, platform 10, fiona melville, cameroon, david cameron, conservative party[/tags]
