Some might say that Wikio doesn't really matter, and that's right. Audience figures do. If you take Alexa's word for it, Guido's site is currently ranked 1,698 in Britain. For Liberal Conspiracy and Left Foot Forward it's 4,157th and 10,115th (yours truly is currently 37,784th - well above most of Britain's Trotskyist outfits). So Paul Staines and his sidekick, Harry Cole/Tory Bear still rule the blogging roost. Or do they?
As I have argued before right wing dominance, such as it was, rested on shaky foundations. Apart from Conservative Home, which doubles up as an online resource for Tory activists, the Guido/Iain model was all about Westminster gossip. Beyond that the next tier of Conservative and "libertarian" bloggers, such as Dizzy Thinks and Archbishop Cramner busy themselves with ephemera, opinion and polemic. Others, like John Redwood 'do' economics, but as a whole tthe right's collective blogging output is within the bounds of conventional politics and opinion. The left, defined here as the most mainstream Labourite to the angriest class struggle anarchist, has a much wider purview. Left bloggers do all of the things right wingers do, and more. The left, collectively, is as much at home deconstructing sexism and racism in the media, and advertising and reporting on protests as it is commenting and critiquing the comings and goings of establishment politics. With the explosion of student protest and occupations a few months ago, the collective network of left blogs not only helped the actions organised by UK Uncut go viral but provided a ready made space for the existing left and newcomers to think and debate the way forward.
Simply put, the left has more to offer internet-travelling audiences. I've said it before: right wing bloggers offer politics. Left wing bloggers offer politics plus.
The change in government and the high profile of the student/anti-cuts movement is pregnant with opportunities for getting socialist ideas out to a wider audience. But, strangely, it's not just right wingers like Iain Dale, Tom Harris MP, and Mr Eugenides who have dropped out since the coalition's formation. The left has been affected too. Splintered Sunrise has gone (though may be back) and Susan Press's Grimmer Up North has closed, ostensibly because Twitter offers more opportunities for engagement. Of the dozen or so Socialist Party blogs I used to promote while I was a member, about half have fallen into disuse. Labour Twitter "celebrities", like John Prescott and Ellie Gellard have seemingly thrown in the towel too, and approximately a third of the blogs covered in new blog round ups over the last year have gone. Is this the normal churn of blogging life? Is something else going on?
Possibly.
As a Marxist it is a truism that social being conditions consciousness. I remember a conversation with a Coventry SP comrade a few years ago. We were talking about political activity and the problem of substitutionism, of, in some instances, far left organisations having to take up the initiation and prosecution of campaigns in the absence of wider public involvement. I can't remember the answer, but one of us asked what happens when things start to move? Would some activists habituated to being "in charge" of campaigns and the routine of stalls/interventions/paper sales find it hard to adapt to circumstances when large numbers of people are getting involved in protest activity, trade union struggle and community campaigning? And if so were they likely to drop out or retreat to specific forms of activity where they feel they're making a contribution?
The hard left are perennial oppositionists and, in practice, the passage from Labour to the Coalition has meant little beyond dusting down a few old anti-Tory slogan. It has, of course, effected mainstream Tory, LibDem and Labour bloggers in different ways, but I find it hard o believe any Trotskyist blogger hanging up their keyboard because the Tories and LibDems got in. Burgeoning anti-cuts activity, however, is a different kettle of fish. Whether the viral shop occupying stunts of UK Uncut or the student protest/occupation movement, both have more or less swamped the far left and bypassed them. For all of the previous hard work the authority the far left has in the wider movement is extremely low. Faced with the prospect of having to build up a party's profile in more activated circumstances, I can imagine some rank and file members of Trotskyist organisations are disoriented by the spontaneity and not having a handle on things, despite the constant emphases their leaderships have historically placed on the likelihood of explosive struggles.
And if it can happen to them, wrapped and coddled as they are by party discipline and perspectives documents, what about lefts outside those organisations? Many have got stuck in (and have abandoned blogging to do precisely this), but there are others who will be all sixes and sevens. What's the point of churning out socialist criticism to a small online audience when the placard and the sit-in gets those points across more effectively? Or, if you're a more mainstream Labour blogger, what could you possibly say to radicalising youngsters when your politics are wedded to 'slow and shallow cuts' and electoralism?
It is possible the shift in the real life 'political being' of activism is working its way through left wing political blogging and might help explain why apparently large numbers are upping sticks. Just as some are inspired and fired up by the movement, others are at a loss on how to relate to it. Therefore no one should be too surprised that at the moment left blogging stands on the edge of the political big time, the casualties from within its ranks continue to mount.
(Image Source)
It is possible the shift in the real life 'political being' of activism is working its way through left wing political blogging and might help explain why apparently large numbers are upping sticks. Just as some are inspired and fired up by the movement, others are at a loss on how to relate to it. Therefore no one should be too surprised that at the moment left blogging stands on the edge of the political big time, the casualties from within its ranks continue to mount.
(Image Source)
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