Friday 30 April 2010

Best candidate, or box-ticker?

If you look at the Total Politics listings of the most popular blogs last year, you will note that there is a name cropping up at number 1 in Scottish political blogs, Labour blogs, MP blogs and Leftie blogs as well as at number 8 in the list of all political blogs.

It's an MP so popular that James T. Kirk has been known to earn a few quid acting as a lookalike when he's not busy wiping out Klingons (More fibre in that diet, James T. That'll fix it). Yes he is Labour and is therefore starting from a position of utter contempt but as Labour MPs go, he's one worth keeping. He makes sense more often than not.

So, if you were the leader of the Labour collective and you needed someone to take on the dreaded Bloggerati who you like to pretend are in the pay of some mysterious Nazi warlord, who would you choose? The MP who took the No. 1 spot in four categories and No. 8 when in competition with every political blog in the country, or a bizarrely constructed biological experiment designed to determine whether the human frame can operate without a brain?

It's easy, isn't it? Tom Harris is white, male, hetero, British, married, capable of reasoned argument and therefore ticks no boxes at all.

Therefore the only choice is the one who ticks the 'woman' and 'vegetable' boxes.

If the Labour collective could have put aside their spite-driven agenda for a moment and touched briefly upon the world of logic and sense, they would have chosen Tom Harris to run their online campaign because he has demonstrated that a) he knows how to do it, b) he is very good at it and c) he is popular even with those who utterly despise the party as a whole. We non-Labour outcasts don't necessarily agree with MP Harris but we will at least listen to what he has to say and we know he will engage in argument.

Luckily for us, Labour chose the drone rather than the thinker. If they had put Tom Harris in charge of online campaigning, we probably wouldn't have this or this, and Labour might not now be in online meltdown.

So, raise a glass to Kerry McCarthy, another brick in the wall of Labour's final padded cell.

And thank whatever God you believe in that Labour were too stupid to put their No. 1 online star in any position of influence.

I hope Tom Harris keeps his seat. He's one of only three or four Labour MP's worth keeping.

13 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

I would also keep Frank Field, Kate Hoey and John Spellar, for starters.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't have thought Tom Harris would have lowered himself to be known as New Labours "Twitter Tsar". Kerry McCarthy on the other hand, is just as moronic as most New Labour voters. Hence the appeal of appealing to them directly, on a backward medium such as "Twitter".

Anonymous said...

Off hand, I can only think of perhaps One worse choice on the entire Internet to run the New Labour campaign as "Twitter Tsar".

Pity that they didn't choose Kelly for that extra stupidity factor.

Mrs Rigby said...

Agree with the Curmudgeon about Frank Field, and he's been sidelined.

We read Tom's blog, don't always agree with him, but at least he's pleasant. He knows how the internet works and takes the rough with the smooth, mostly.

But, there's a 'donate to Antony Calvert' button on the Rigby site for now. We don't live anywhere near that constituency, but, well ...

Rob F said...

I've liked Tom for as long as I've been visiting his site. I disagree with him on a lot of subjects, but at least he comes across as being human.

I suppose that he reminds me of most of my friends; I disagree with many of them too but we can agree to disagree, without rancour. I think that they're wrong on many subjects, but that they have good hearts. They also (I hope!) have a similar opinion of me.

I don't have any sympathy whatsoever for Liebore's leadership, though. To a man or woman, to just call them incompetent would be a mercy on them.

Thyey are lying, arrogant, despicable scum. I don't throw the word 'evil' around often but I think that the word is totally appropriate in their case.

Leg-iron said...

Curmudgeon - that leaves room for one, but not Righteous Kerry. Her ego won't fit in the Labour Ark.

Leg-iron said...

Don't give up the day job - Councillor Terry is a great example. I've followed his exploits for years, in various personas.

Handled correctly, he could put Labour into the history books forever.

And nowhere else.

Leg-iron said...

Rob F - for the Labour leadership, 'evil' is 'a bit naughty'.

They will never understand why.

Angry Exile said...

Tom Harris thinks for himself and Kerry McHalfwit is lobby fodder. Probably got quite a bit to do with it.

Stewart Cowan said...

Ms McCarthy blocked me from Twitter a couple of months ago. Maybe she didn't like me calling her "Twitter Tsarina".

I flabberghasted, and I think disgusted, her one time by stating that the fakecharities Brook and the FPA advise the government to promote sex to schoolchildren so they have a conveyor belt of future dysfunctional customers needing their abortion and contraception 'services'.

As if...

JuliaM said...

Tom Harris is the only MP I follow on Twitter (well, inless OH wins in Cambridge!).

Chris said...

If the Labour collective could have put aside their spite-driven agenda for a moment and touched briefly upon the world of logic and sense...

As soon ask slugs to touch upon a world of salt.

I'm sorry, but the last intellectually honest lefty in Britain was the writer chappy who presciently changed his name from Blair to something less tainted by odium and then wrote a lovely story about farm animals.

timbone said...

Tom Harris was Minister of Transport until he said something thoughtful and insightful, then he got sacked.
Tom Harris's mother was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer aged 70, so of course, he voted against the smoking ban - yep, that's right, he voted AGAINST the smoking ban.
I like Tom Harris

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