SUGGESTATION

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2008/04/generous_to_a_f.asp

Oof. Getting there. Good result for Tim with Paul - I really hope he gets somewhere with Iain.

I’d like to know what this means in the wider sense of the UK political blogosphere. Much has been made of the reader numbers claimed by the big blogs, and with the real figures shown to be much lower than originally touted, questions have been raised about the influence and readership that blogs really wield.

Obviously blogs do have influence - we’ve all heard of cases by now of stories which have been broken by the blogosphere before the mainstream media, and Tim Ireland himself has been greatly influential in getting SOCPA reversed. Still, the numbers of blog readers in the UK seems to be very small - ideas on how to improve?
.

Well, here goes.

I’ve been putting this off for a long time. I registered this domain back in January 2006, installed Wordpress and had the clear intention of maintaining a political comment blog. I’d been inspired by the blogs of some very talented writers (see the blogroll), and goshdarnit, I had things to say.

So why the wait?

Well, I ain’t a good writer. My better half seems to think I’m intelligent, but we both know I’m of the ’stream-of-consciousness’ variety. I’ve been somewhat content thus far to let the good bloggers I’ve read put forward opinions that I largely agree with, in a much more coherent and thorough manner than I could hope to achieve. However, a few issues.

On the odd occasion when I’ve felt I’ve absolutely positively had to write something about an issue, I’ve done it on someone else’s blog. Comments are great, but it can go too far. Secondly, I’ve learned a whole heap about British politics in the last four or five years (from a scarily unknowledgeable start), but I have a long way to go. Many aspects still elude me - it appears I’m going to have to swallow the philosophy section of my nearest library, and many things, particularly about the political blogosphere, enrage me.

So without further ado, I give you a brand new, shiny blog. In the spirit of recent developments, here’s my statporn. Woot. I should leave a few browser windows autorefreshing over the weekend to spank up my ‘visits’.

And with that, I’m off for the weekend. Alas, no internet access from there. Still, I’ve a tenner on the horses for tomorrow - who knows, I may get lucky!