Of all the people you wouldn’t choose to comment on political disengagement, the media and blogging, I reckon that Hazel Blears would be pretty close to the top of the list and in an extract from a speech she’s to give to the Hansard Society, published by the Guardian, she provides ample demonstration why…

But with the caveat that politicians always complain about their own political culture, let me say that we are witnessing a dangerous corrosion in our political culture, on a scale much more profound than previous ages, and the role of the media must be examined in this context.

Go on…

Famously, Tony Blair called the media a “feral beast” in one of his last speeches as prime minister. But behind the eye-catching phrase was a serious and helpful analysis of a 24-hour broadcast media and shrinking, and increasingly competitive, newspaper market which demands more impact from its reporting – not the reporting of facts to enable citizens to make sense of the world, but the translation of every political discussion into a row, every difficulty a crisis, every rocky patch for the prime minister the “worst week ever”.

Blair’s speech hardly offered the most original analysis, most of it seemed to have been cribbed from comments made by Robin Cook is his account of his period as Leader of the House of Commons, ‘The Point of Departure‘, although what was most interesting in Blair’s speech was the extent to which he deviated from Cook’s analysis in a purely self-exculpatory fashion. While Cook saw the relationship between politicians and the media as, for good and for ill, a two-way street, and offered a sharp and critical commentary on both the press’ obsession with personalities and novelty and on politicians’ proensity for pandering to those obsessions in the search for a precious few inches of newsprint and a favourable headline, Blair chose simply to lay the blame solely at the door of the media, setting a precedent that Blears seems determined to follow.

And so we get this…

The changing structure of the media is what drives this desire for impact and the retreat from dispassionate reporting.

And I would single out the rise of the commentariat as especially note-worthy. It is within living memory that journalists’ names started to appear in newspapers; before then, no name was attached to articles. And in recent years commentary has taken over from investigation or news reporting, to the point where commentators are viewed by some as every bit as important as elected politicians, with views as valid as cabinet ministers. And if you can wield influence and even power, without ever standing for office or being held to account by an electorate, it further undermines our democracy.

So what you’re saying, Hazel, in a nutshell, is that free speech is only for politicians?

That’s what she seems to be implying here in talking about the ‘commentariat’ wielding influence and power without standing for office or being held to account by an electorate – only if you subject your views and opinions to a vote, of some description, do you have any legitimacy or authority -

- which is complete and utter rubbish.

There are numerous ways in which its possible to legitimate your views and opinions; and the two that I happen to have the greatest fondness for are the use of reasoned argument and evidence, the foundations of the Scientific Method. When Newton formulated his Laws of Motion and Gravity and Einstein his Special and General Theories of Relativity, these weren’t put up to vote before being accepted as expressions of fundamental truths about the universe. They stand up on their own merits – and Blear’s wishing to disagree with that then let’s see her introduce a bill into parliament to repeal the Law of Gravity.

In truth, her whinge about the views of the commenariat being perceived as being as important and authoritiative as those of an elected politican or cabinet minister seems faintly reminiscent of the kind of ‘but you’re just a bunch of amateurs’ whining that bloggers have periodically had to put up with from the professional commentariat over the last few years. Much as some commentators clearly hate having their opinions scrutinised and challenged by the great unwashed of the blogosphere, forgetting (of course) that its often us bloggers who’re far better qualified to offer informed commentary than most journalists, so Blears seems to resent the Toynbee’s, Porter’s and Parris’s impinging on what she believes to be her territory.

The commentariat operates without scrutiny or redress. They cannot be held to account for their views, even when they perform the most athletic and acrobatic of flip-flops in the space of a few weeks. I can understand when commentators disagree with each other; it’s when they disagree with themselves we should worry.

Really?

That’s funny – some members of the commentariat has done little else but complain about the scrunity they’ve been subjected to by bloggers since the medium emerged sufficiently for the MSM to sit up and take notice, all of which seems to point to the fact that Blears just hasn’t got the first idea what she’s talking about.

There will always be a role for political commentary, providing perspective, illumination and explanation. But editors need to do more to disentangle it from news reporting, and to allow elected politicians the same kind of prominent space for comment as people who have never stood for office.

Ah, so now we get to the nub of Blears speech – the media spends too much time publishing other people’s opinions, many of which are critical of government, rather than supinely running cut’n'paste articles based on official press releases – and this from a member of a government that’s been more notorious than most for its inability to grow a pair and argue back whenever the right-wing tabloids start whipping up a bout of synthetic apoplexy.

That’s the real issue here – the point at which the cozy nexus between politicians and the press actually starts to poison the public narrative and undermine democracy, the point at which Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre shout ‘jump’ and the government scrambles round in a blind panic trying to figure out how high off the floor they need to get to keep their media overlords happy.

This brings me to the role of political bloggers. Perhaps because of the nature of the technology, there is a tendency for political blogs to have a Samizdat style. The most popular blogs are rightwing, ranging from the considered Tory views of Iain Dale, to the vicious nihilism of Guido Fawkes. Perhaps this is simply anti-establishment. Blogs have only existed under a Labour government. Perhaps if there was a Tory government, all the leading blogs would be left-of-centre?

There’s a slight problem with that particular piece of analysis.

It’s all very well flagging up that its only around half a dozen right-wing blogs, at most, who’ve been putting up the big traffic numbers and suggesting that this is ’simply anti-establishment’ and due to blogging having emerged only during the period in which Labour has been in office, but if that’s what she’s thinking then how does she account for the fact that most of the leading liberal and left-wing blogs are equally anti-establishment across a range of key issues from Iraq through to the government’s near-constant assaults on civil liberties and the systematic construction of the database state.

The problem that the current goverment has isn’t that there’s a general lack of popular or influential left-of-centre blogs, its that its policies on Iraq, etc. cost it the support of the vast majority of major players in the left-of-centre blogosphere, most of whom are at least semi-detached from the Labour Party if not operating fully within a broad ‘independent left’ category.

There are some informative and entertaining political blogs, including those written by elected councillors.

Now we know for sure that she hasn’t got a clue. With a few notable exceptions, like Bob Piper and Tom Watson, the majority of blogs run by elected politicians, and especially councillor-run political blogs, are amongst the most insipid and tedious you’ll find anywhere in the political blogosphere.

Just from scraping the current Bloggers$Labour feed for a few choice examples, some of today’s gems include…

Welly Washing

After all the recent rain, South Park was a sea of mud. Fortunately, we’d taken our wellies, and afterwards plodded back to the car, which I’d parked in Abbots Yard…

Ooooh! Aaaah!

Tens of thousands of people were the audience in South Park last night for the annual Fireworks Display.

Creating the annual event was one of Labour’s first initiatives when we came to office back in 1991 – it’s been a huge success…

Visit to Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa College

Today I attended the Council of Gurdwaras South East celebrations of the 300th Anniversary of the Gurgaddi Diwas. the year when the formal status of Guru was awarded to the holy book of the Sikhs the Guru Granth Sahib…

Patients’ No.1 priority: better access to GPs

Earlier this Summer I launched a survey seeking your views on the NHS at 60 and received lots of really useful replies. Now. the Conservatives are doing the same.

That’s pretty much the sum total of what you get from councillors and even a few MPs – nothing that wouldn’t get in you local weekly free paper and certainly nothing that might challenge an official party line ot run the risk of falling foul of a complaint to the Standards Board.

Obama will the US Presidential Election, and all that one councillor can find to talk about are his wellies…

But mostly, political blogs are written by people with a disdain for the political system and politicians, who see their function as unearthing scandals, conspiracies and perceived hypocrisy.

Okay, so I’ll plead to the unearthing ’scandals’ in as much as anyone has been scandalised by some of my investigative material on far-right BNP nutballs and conspiraloon, and yes, I’m certainly hypocrite intolerant as well but let’s be careful here an not confuse disdain for our current crop of politicians and the current political system with a disregard for democracy and democratic values – its a deeply and passionately held belief in the latter that drives and animates much of the writing and commnetary emanating from Britain’s political blogosphere.

Even allowing for the likes of Guido, its not us who’rre poisioning the democratic well, its the combination of media thrives on synthetic outrage and a supine political class that too scared to argue back – politicians bought wholesale into the myth that newspapers like The Sun and The Daily Mail are the ‘authentic voice’ of the British public and carry enough influence to swing an election result and they’ve been running scared ever of Murdoch and Dacre ever since.

Unless and until political blogging adds value to our political culture, by allowing new and disparate voices, ideas and legitimate protest and challenge, and until the mainstream media reports politics in a calmer, more responsible manner, it will continue to fuel a culture of cynicism and despair.

Now there’s a challenge if ever I heard one – just beware what you wish for Hazel, you may just get it!