Blogger TV again
Last night Iain Dale invited me to be on 18 Doughty St , for Blogger TV, Vox Politics and End of the Day Show, with Devil's Kitchen, Stephen Pollard, and Ben Sherread .
' Why are you on 'Tory TV', Rachel', people may cry? Well, 18DS bills itself as 'anti-establishment' and 'political TV for adults'; it has non-right wing guests and presenters on all the time, and I do not see the point of shutting myself or anyone out of political debate simply on party politics lines. I am not a member of any political party, though I would define myself firmly as a non-Tory. I have never voted Tory and I can't think of circumstances in which I would. But I have friends of all political persusasions, and I have conversations with people across the political spectrum. There are several areas that I am passionate about that are cross-party issues: civil liberties, ID cards, SOCPA & the right to protest, excessive legislation, free speech... There are some areas that I will never agree with the Tories on. And that's okay.
I'm sure that all this political bloggery will get very hardcore once we get to a General Election, but I try to avoid fights for the sake of fights and look for common ground these days. I know I say the personal is the political, but not to the extent that personal attacks are de rigeur.
We discussed Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's concerns that blogging is just 'pub bores' ( see debate on political blogging here on TV), the state of the blog wars, in which both sides have taken a lot of flak, particularly Tim, who has provoked a needed debate about damage done to the image of blogging by lack of basic 'netiquette', and who has been viciously ( anonymously) lambasted for it, which rather proves his original point. Personally, I think there's a place for all kinds of blogs, Guido is one kind of blog, other people have other kinds of blogs. Guido's blog does not define blogdom. How can it?
Blogging's simply a channel of communication, open to abuse and subject to the laws of libel like any other kind of publishing. Moving on, we talked about hope, and the positives of blogs, and Barak Obama. We also talked about our blog posts of the week - mine were Indigo Jo on the state of communities, and Sunny Hundal on Comment is Free about Independent Jewish Voices, Melanie Phillip's vitriolic rant on the same subject ( because it made me wild) and the consistently excellent Random Acts of Reality.
It was quite a lively programme with a lot of interaction from viewers. I'm glad that politics debates passion and heat and that the Opposition has livened up: that is good for democracy. Long may the debate continue. Fairly and without abuse.
Update: slight edit for clarity
' Why are you on 'Tory TV', Rachel', people may cry? Well, 18DS bills itself as 'anti-establishment' and 'political TV for adults'; it has non-right wing guests and presenters on all the time, and I do not see the point of shutting myself or anyone out of political debate simply on party politics lines. I am not a member of any political party, though I would define myself firmly as a non-Tory. I have never voted Tory and I can't think of circumstances in which I would. But I have friends of all political persusasions, and I have conversations with people across the political spectrum. There are several areas that I am passionate about that are cross-party issues: civil liberties, ID cards, SOCPA & the right to protest, excessive legislation, free speech... There are some areas that I will never agree with the Tories on. And that's okay.
I'm sure that all this political bloggery will get very hardcore once we get to a General Election, but I try to avoid fights for the sake of fights and look for common ground these days. I know I say the personal is the political, but not to the extent that personal attacks are de rigeur.
We discussed Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's concerns that blogging is just 'pub bores' ( see debate on political blogging here on TV), the state of the blog wars, in which both sides have taken a lot of flak, particularly Tim, who has provoked a needed debate about damage done to the image of blogging by lack of basic 'netiquette', and who has been viciously ( anonymously) lambasted for it, which rather proves his original point. Personally, I think there's a place for all kinds of blogs, Guido is one kind of blog, other people have other kinds of blogs. Guido's blog does not define blogdom. How can it?
Blogging's simply a channel of communication, open to abuse and subject to the laws of libel like any other kind of publishing. Moving on, we talked about hope, and the positives of blogs, and Barak Obama. We also talked about our blog posts of the week - mine were Indigo Jo on the state of communities, and Sunny Hundal on Comment is Free about Independent Jewish Voices, Melanie Phillip's vitriolic rant on the same subject ( because it made me wild) and the consistently excellent Random Acts of Reality.
It was quite a lively programme with a lot of interaction from viewers. I'm glad that politics debates passion and heat and that the Opposition has livened up: that is good for democracy. Long may the debate continue. Fairly and without abuse.
Update: slight edit for clarity
Labels: 18 Doughty St, blogging, politics
posted by Rachel at 8:47 am
"but I try to avoid fights for the sake of fights and look for common ground these days."
Yep good idea but can't help feel we should enjoy it while it lasts. In a broader sense the coming General Election will be a testing time for us non party affiliated yet leftist bloggers. Being caught in the crossfire aint nice at the best of times.
Regarding libel, hmmmm seems to me to be not tested as yet. I've heard conflicting things such as it's the country you live that determines the laws that apply to its where your work is hosted that determines it.
I have a feeling that it'll not be long before this whole thing is taken to court and a precedent set...
....."always" on a right wing programme which is supported almost exclusively by male right wing bloggers.
Now why would that be ?
I couldn`t possible guess... and you can be damn right that as things hot up there will even less tolerance of fudge and fellow travelling
Regardless of whether you are a tory- I have to say, you are one of the few guests of substance to grace Iain's sofa. Believe me, it is a breath of fresh air and Iain woud be a fool not to have you as a regular.
You know what, newmania? I'm not sure that you aren't trolling.
There's plenty of blogs you can comment on, and I've always made it clear what my politics are.
As I have made my comments policy plain, several times, I wonder why you keep coming back?
For the avoidance of doubt
Personal abuse of the blog author or others
Conspriracy theories
Spam
are banned. And always have been.
Thoughtful disagreement is fine,provocation without argument or debate, nope.
Therefore, if you are here simply to insult people on the basis of their beliefs without engaging in debate,
then you should go elsewhere, as this is not that sort of blog.
My pub, my rules.
Thanks Kris
x
It was a good discussion, but sadly I had to give up 15 mins in as my (mere) 3.5meg connection, browser, videohandling streamer, whatever, just couldn't keep up (with the .init version, watched a day later). Even the audio track was pausing, and the visuals, as usual, were out of sycnch from the start and got worse.
Yes I know bandwidth is constantly improving, but my setup is pretty up to date: if that's the case for me, how many people are able or willing to watch online, at the moment ?
Maybe an additional and separate-format audio track would allow choice of playback ? In any case, I don't think a video stream of four people on a sofa (graced or not) is *that* interesting: this was a good radio discussion, suitable for an mp3 (or whatever) download.
Unless of course (the other) Iain wants to invite newmania onto the sofa for a slap-up mediafest ?
Nearly forgot: happy Valentine's to you and your man, Rachel.
IainC
Iain, sorry to hear of those problems. Email comment@18doughtystreet.com and we'll see if there is something wrong on your settings