Why LabourList will fail

As I haven't been there for several weeks, I had a quick look at Dolly's Labourlost blog, you know, the one that is "a place for labour-minded people to come together online and discuss politics".

Except that there isn't a great deal of discussion going on, just posts that mirror the labour party message du jour. Nothing about ID cards, crime figures, gordon's culpability of the demise of the horn of plenty etc Just a daily piece of propaganda from the labour bunker.

The whole raison d'être of a blog is to provide a platform to encourage discussion. To argue. To throw ideas around. To share viewpoints. To score points and to expose some other not necessarily tasteful human behaviours.

The problem with the old question: "why are labour so appallingly unsucessful at everything, including blogs?" can be answered with one word. Control.

Everything about labour can be distilled down into top down control.

You have a problem? Don't worry, the state will look after you.

Not sure what to eat? The state will tell you what you must and must not eat.

It's in their mindsets. It's in their DNA. It's their tribalist genes. The control. A blog without moderation and discussion is anathma to them. They can't allow people to disagree with the party line. They can't allow people to discuss freely their ideas. You must believe with all your heart that the state is right. And punishment for those that dare to differ and be individual.

So back to the image at the top of this article. This was in response to the drearily, obviously written by a wonk, Kerry "I agree with everything labour say and do without argument" McCarthy article about the argument for the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

Out of the pitifully small handful of replies that tried to deride labour's obvious attempts at spinning this awkward dilemma, only one person touched on the real reason behind this and...

... was promptly deleted as it was off-message.

That’s not a blog.

That’s Pravda. And we’ve already got one of those in Portland Place, London.