The Wardman Wire

You are browsing the archives ofSeries: Ten Out of Eight Cats - Blog Campaigns « .

Liberal Conspiracy and Comment is Free organised a “do” last night under the heading “Blog Nation“. The reactions I have seen have prompted some thoughts on blogs as campaign tools, and how bloggers may work together - or not.

The aim of the evening was threefold:

“To discuss issues relating to political blogging on the left, learn about online activism already taking place, socialise and meet others you’ve been reading on the web. It is about bringing together the liberal-left blogging community.”

I’m interested in how these coalitions can be built dynamically around each issue or campaign as we develop a view and a consensus, and the impact of a caucus on campaigns that require a broader base.

In order for bloggers to build a campaign, it is necessary to build a group that has a particular aim, and - critically - understands what that aim is and is agreed that this is so.

I find it helpful to think of campaigning groups in terms of “communities” and “networks”; this post compares and contrasts the two.

This is the second in the lastest series of Blogpower Roundups, and this is my roundup of some of the current live issues around Civil Liberties. I’ve only been able to cover half of the Blogpower blogs, but I’ll do another one soon with the other half.

While there are differences between bloggers on some questions at the edge on just what comes under Civil Liberties, there’s usually a strong consensus around the right to self-expression, and that restriction of topics that we can write about or the excessive monitoring of online activity are BAD things.

Heather Yaxley has reflected on the whole theme of Defending Blogs.

Colin Campbell’s comment about extra speed cameras in South Australia prompted me to do some digging into just how many speed cameras we have now in the UK. The answer: one hell of a lot - perhaps 10,000 plus all those installed in cars and on motorcyles.

The raw deal of the English
There is a perceived problem in England that the English are getting the raw end of the deal in the Union. The Scottish have their own Parliament that votes on issues exclusive to them while the English have no such thing. Yet Scottish MPs can vote on English [...]