Political Blogging - and the coming UK Election

Dear readers,

I am provoked into writing about politics, as I have just read an article by the former UK Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, who maintains that use of the internet, and blogging in particular, is a solid force for the Right in politics. Somehow he considers the internet community - in being open and democratic in the purest sense - is a major forum for the Right, and that they will benefit most from its use. He added that the main leftists on the web were of the more extreme variety, which alientaed those in the middle who had not yet "jumped" - ie. the Michael Moore tendency and anti-Iraq war groups. He claims that this scuppered the Democrats' chances in the last US elections. No doubt there was a powerful web based lobby in support of George W. Bush - but in Britain the web user profiles could well be different. (I am not sure how Duncan Smith and American commentators found out the pattern they claim). What happened to all those of the political centre, or uncommited, who use the internet?

I am a professional social scientist - I lecture (part time now) in sociology, psychology and criminology, and have worked in the past in survey reserach and other branches of academic social research. Unless a proper survey is done of internet users, or an analysis of internet content, it is only assertion that states that internet users are mainly from the Right and the more extreme Left. I recently joined the Saga Circles network, a "contact" website for people aged mostly over 50 in UK: it is run by Saga which produces an excellent hard copy magazine and organises travel and insurance for the over-50s. I joined interest groups for "Current Affairs" and the Environment. I was gratified to see that contributers to message boards were of all political shades, but my own left of centre position on most things was strongly represented. This is like dipping a toe in the water. We also have the You Gov political site, which does polls on various matters - it comes up with patterns that are fairly representative of public opinion across the board. So as far as I can tell, in UK there are many opivnion groups on the net from all corners of the political spectrum - we have environmental groups, parents' groups, and yes Christians - but unlike the USA, our Christians come from across the political spectrum, and tend if anything to be leftish or liberal (sees statistics for C. of E. vicars, for eg.) or to be non-voting because it is "too worldly".

The church I belong - and yes, I am a born-again Christian too, is a "left wing church" - it is strongly in defence of the poor and the third world. It takes up the cause of Christians in China who are being persecuted, and the poor in Africa and India, through its links with the Multiply strand of churches. We come from the traditions of John Wesley (Methodist) and General Wm. Booth (Salvation Army) - the latter church still does stirling work among our cities' poor and homeless. Our own church has set up Jesus Centres to help the urban poor, and bring God's message plus education classes, with cups of tea/coffee and hot snacks to city populations.

In the UK, there is much disillusion because the Blair New Labour Party - which came into power with such a blaze of optimism in 1997 - has let many of us down. That is those who used to members of the party,a nd ordinary working class poeple, plus th young... I recall my late daughter and her boyfriend went up to London to see Blair and his wife Cherie enter Downing Street, and were cheering along with the rest of the crowd. I too felt elated - we had not had a left wing government for so many years of Toryism. 9 years on, we are disappointed, although the prospect of Gordon Brown (our Chancellor), a Scot in the tradition of Labour's late, former leader John Smith, is more promising. Although Brown goes along with Tony's policies, his tone is much more left, and he has engineered some financial redistribution in his economic and social policies. I hope the Labour Party is elected once more - theat Tony Blair will then hand over (he is visibly tired now, though has a renewed burst of vigour in his electioneering) and Gordon B. will get his chance. I recall seeing John Smith's simple stone grave on Iona, one of West Scotland's islands in 2002 - he promised much, and was a solidly centrist leader: I think Labour could have been elected under him, and would have been more cautious in its foreign policy (no Iraq War for the UK, for example).

That's it today - my family life, and my son Tom's mental health, is ticking along OK just now. I will return to that in a future blog. Spring is coming - it is good to see the spring flowers - daffodils, snowdrops - in the still very chilly weather here. It may snow down here (London) this week! Our cat is surviving too, on his new feeding regime (he is 17 and a 'kidney patient'). Today I am off to church - for the whole day with my community, so must stop and get ready.
God bless all who read this - and take care. Talk with you again soon -

Best regards, Tigey