New Media, Old Politics
Bloggers and journalists are never happier than when they’re writing about themselves, so it’s no surprise that the recent scandal surrounding Damian McBride’s resignation ( imaginatively dubbed ‘smeargate’ ) has led to on and offline comment about political blogs and the media.
MEP of the moment, Daniel Hannan was on BBC News 24 claiming right-wing blogger Guido Fawkes had single handedly brought down the Special Adviser, and blogged declaring internet commentators ‘have pulverised the old media and political monopolies’.
Hannan is wrong. Guido Fawkes’ blog offers little that is new to our political culture.
Firstly, Exposing political rumours and scandal is hardly the preserve of the internet. Offline publication Private Eye has far more experience at gathering leaks and political dirt than Guido’s blog, and as Ian Mc Whirter has pointed out, it has been sued so many times it tends to be completely accurate.
In fact, Guido merely offers an online space for the rumour-mongering and aggressive briefing that is part of British politics. For the most part it amplifies the gossip and manoeuvring inside the Westminster bubble confirming our worst fears about politicians and contributing little to genuine political debate.
Contrary to Hannan’s suggestions Fawkes relied on traditional media to break his story and force Mc Bride’s resignation. Those of us geekily glued to political blogs on a daily basis knew about the McBride/Draper emails days before the story appeared in Sunday Newspapers. But just as McBride himself tried to use Saturday’s Telegraph to bury the story, Paul Staines needed the recognition of the newspapers and the 24 hour news channels to force a resignation from Number 10. In politics, the real battles still take place in print and on television.
The only thing we’ve really learned from the latest scandal to hit Brown’s government is that Labour are even more out of touch with the internet and the public than we thought; petty smears will not persuade the electorate to vote Labour for a fourth term and more importantly, everyone else in Britain knows never to send nasty emails from their work accounts.