Airstrip One

Why the Bloggers won't inherit the earth

The Speccie has a nice little article on the Conservative response to the war in Iraq. It makes the mistaken assumption that IDS would be incapable of changing the party's stance on the war - like Blair changed his stance on, oh, the EU, CND, etc, etc while out of power. Of course Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition can change horses in midstream. The electorate simply don't notice - if you doubt this you should remember that Labour's recovery started after the failure of the ERM, a policy they backed to the hilt. Didn't remember their stance? That's the point.

The interesting thing about the article is that the Conservative parliamentary party was riven with doubts and dissensions of great subtelty. Compare this with the bloggosphere, where many bloggers' idea of a sensible British foreign policy is vassalage to the US. So the blogging revolution is not ready yet. British right wing bloggers on the internet are simply unable to match the intelligence of their political representatives. If any media or intellectual effort is to have an effect on the thinking of the political classes that equation needs to be reversed.

The British bloggosphere has a lot of catching up to do. My bet is that it won't.