I’m going to come back to that five day old scoop of ours in a later post. But first those of you who doubt the capacity of blogs to wreak merry mischievous Hell on both the mainstream media and politics, the current #smeargate panic is worth pondering. Not to put too fine a point on it, one lone blogger (and his legion of co-conspirators in Whitehall and Westminster) has Labour precisely where he has worked for four years to get them: on the floor (if not yet quite begging for mercy). Why? For planning to do to the Tories (and which they have successfully surfed upon) what he has done to them over the last four years (cue canned outrage)… And bloggers (like Iain) and ‘journalists’ (oh yeah, and Tory politicians) running down mob alley, only to skid into reverse when the expected quarry turned and faced them with his lawyers… At least Ur Blogger Brian Micklethwaite from Samizdata who had the wit and good grace to admit his mistake….
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty