Political Review – August 2007

One of the main points of starting Websitegeist was to shift away from the blog culture and less of the first-person chatter. Not that blogs should ever be scorned; a lot of people have a lot of things to get of their chest, and it serves as a staple fixture on the Internet.

Some people are deeply unhappy with themselves and their lot, and thus their blog has turned in to a bolus of angst and, if poorly written, emotional ramblings. Others preferred to take only the good bits of their life and splash it across their blog, leaving out the bad bits to deal with themselves. There’s no problem with either of these extremes – pain and optimism are two of the things that make us all different. And for the most part, pain-blogs and optimism-blogs keep both parties content in their writing.

But how about writing about things that other people would like to think about? Thus WSG was born.

The problem with political writing is that it’s a little bit like a meal at a Japanese restaurant – rather than one big course to sink your teeth in to, there’s lots of little dishes to pick and choose. Which is why, rather than writing lots of mini-articles about small fry goings-on in Whitehall, our attentions are turned to the political spectrum once a month.

David Cameron’s had a rough ride of late trying to dampen the ‘Brown bounce’, which has lasted longer than expected. Finally it would appear he’s bringing round the Conservative press to convince them he’s a textbook Tory. Manifestos have been dropped slowly in over the past few weeks in to a melting-pot of ideas.

One of the most tantalising offers is the prospect of lower taxes. It’s certainly a juicy carrot dangling right in front of us as far as pledges go, but this was followed with the hint that it would leave families and married couples best off. For a nation with rising numbers of single parents, it makes you wonder how many people will take the bite.

Slowly, over the course of the month, other blurbs came out. Improvement in the armed forces. Tough crime control. Improved schooling.

It all sounds extremely appealing to the swing voter, and sees a definitive shift to the right from Cameron, and he’s done it with aplomb. The problem with Michael Howard’s pledges was he promised too much all at once – and promising tax cuts with a range of improvements in public services simply doesn’t add up in terms of budget.

Still, with a snap election still a possibility, the careful placement of Conservative values rather than ill-conceived soundbites is enough to have Gordon Brown on his guard.

Finally the new PM appears to have settled in at No. 10 and selected his personal favourite colour curtains (he kept them red); now time for action.

The choicest moment came when the thought of a Bank Holiday in November was proposed. In a shift away from his original British Day brainchild, he settled on the idea of celebrating local heroes. Not the way we all saw it; to us, it’s another day off. Everyone loves a treat from the government.

Elsewhere, though, things have been relatively quiet in the Brown camp. Armed forces remain in Iraq, and Brown has (quite sagely) kept mostly schtum on foreign policy where Blair would’ve been quick to stamp his mark on proceedings. We await further developments, but Brown needs to start picking up the pace as his bounce wanes.

Much more vocal has been Sir Menzies Campbell. For the poor Lib Dems, airtime can be scarce, and press coverage is really dependant on the mood of the editor’s scissors. However, they’ve done well to voice some pretty valid concerns. Problem is, it’s all they seem capable of.

Critical of future flood plans.
Critical of the gambling plans.
Critical of the prison strikes.
Critical of George W Bush.

Alright, I think I speak for all of us that we’ll grant him the last one, and their proposals for zero carbon Britain certainly hold a decent appeal to their electorate. But let’s hear some really practical solutions and we can start to listen to what they have to say rather than laughing things off whenever they run with their latest big idea. Coming up is the Liberal Democrat Blog Of The Year. Maybe we’ll see if my pain-blog / optimism-blog theory is right.