Bloggers v Journalists redux

Mick was speaking at a lively event organised by Westminster Skeptics in the Pub last night, and I tagged along. Dave Cole has given a good detailed account of it here. The question was supposed to be ‘What difference does political blogs really make?’ but because everyone was there for a boozy night rather than a seminar, and because Nick Cohen (surely the most argumentative man in London) was the ringmaster, it rapidly turned into an opposition between diligent paid-for …

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We’re back!

Our hosting company – EngineHosting had a mass outage for about an hour. Sorry about that now. Paul EvansLiving in London, working as a trade union official in the film and TV industry (opinions my own). Author of “Save Democracy, Abolish Voting” (published by Demsoc in November 2017). Personal website with link to other writing here. On twitter as @paul0evans1 nevertrustahippy.blogspot.com

What Hatfield House tells us about Cameron’s suitability to be PM

It says something about how interested the Westminster Village is in Northern Ireland that more hasn’t been made of Owen Patterson’s predicament. Further to Eamonn’s scoop here a few weeks ago, if Nicholas Watt, writing in The Guardian, is correct that “the Tories did hold secret talks to establish a pan-unionist force, contrary to denials by the party” (i.e. they did hold the talks, they said that they didn’t, and it turns out that they lied), it should surely be …

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Remember that ‘mapping whataboutery’ thread? There’s another option…

A few weeks ago, I posted something up here about how a tool called Debategraph could be used to map the ‘whataboutery’ that darkens so many of Slugger’s comment threads. It had a mixed response, but quite a few commenters initially didn’t like the idea until they got inside and played around with it a bit. Personally, I like the way that it can just park those extraneous arguments that are, somehow, relevant, but that can derail another – more …

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Mapping ‘whataboutery’

For as long as I’ve been reading Slugger, it’s been fairly rare for it to carry a post without someone using the comment threads to reawaken some historical grievance or other. Mick (or someone?) calls it ‘whataboutery.’ There is as good an example as any three comments in, on Pete’s post earlier about P&J. According to the logic offered by ‘Marty McG’ there, no-one who is currently a member of Sinn Féin can ever be involved in any discussions about …

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Poppies, republicanism and Republicanism

It’s hardly surprising that a Republican like Chris Donnelly has problems with poppy-wearing. But is it really the reinforcement of British militarism that it has – admittedly – been allowed to become? Aside from their fundraising role, poppies are part of a national contemplation of the sacrifice of service people. It’s not a universal activity by any means though. Isolationists, people with a pragmatic objection to particular conflicts, or people – like Chris – who challenge the legitimacy of the …

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