Thanks to Geeklawyer - I am now aware that the House of Lords has a blog. I commend this blog to you – it is here and is on my blogroll.
My first post, not of great literary merit, awaits moderation. I doubt whether my ‘comment… awaiting moderation’… will be approved. Geeklawyer has managed to be approved. A curiously well behaved post by GL… if I may say so.
I shall give you a taste of the proposition: “Lords of the Blog is an experimental project to encourage direct dialogue between web users across the world and Members of the House of Lords. Commissioned by the House of Lords, the pilot project is conducted by the Hansard Society who are working directly with Members of the Lords to bring their blogs to the wider online audience.”
Baroness Murphy starts the blog of with a degree of enthusiasm….
“I’m excited this blog site is finally going live tomorrow and hope very much ‘you lot out there’ will want to talk to us and tell us what’s on your mind. The peers taking part have been more or less talking to each other while getting the hang of it. Some of us, unlike former MPs like Lord Soley who are old hands, have never blogged
before so we don’t know yet what really interests the wider blogging public. The idea is to talk about our work in the Lords and how our other responsibilities and experiences are brought into the work of the House. Having just spent a rather glorious few days in Tarragona in Spain as an accompanying wife while my husband was lecturing in quantum chemistry at the University, I wasn’t in parliament for Budget Day and have been trying to catch up ever since”
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Geeklawyer’s first post on this blog passed moderation… I give you a taste… in fact…. ignoring his copyright… I am posting the post in full:
“Welcome to the Blogosphere. History has provided a mixed assessment of political blogs but there is one key pre-requisite to success: integrity and personality. It’s as well I am a lawyer and not a mathematician.
Your comment on getting past H of L moderation started a chain of thought. When I started my blog I decided not to have moderated comments. Let people say whatever. save for (gross) obscenity, extreme abuse and anything defamatory. Generally, I’m against moderated comment. as distorting debate. The most extreme example is Mad Mel’s ‘Spectator’ blog – which I look at occasionally purely for (unintended) comedy. All the anecdotal evidence is that it is so heavily ‘moderated’ that the comments become an echo chamber rather than a debate with pretty much anything disobliging being ‘moderated’ out.. I occasionally semi-seriously think of the idea a ‘Mad Mel freedom of speech day’ with an avalanche of moderately put disagreement to run the ‘moderators’ ragged. If there is enough interest, I’m in
while i agree, andrew, i guess it’s that much harder for anything approaching a more ‘official’ blog, where people will inevitably hold the blog responsible for the comments made there. and why should blog owners not take a measure of responsibility? of course the logical extension of that is the attempt by the french to hold isps responsible for policing potentially illegal downloads (would love to hear some choice geek invective on that little idea!). guess who is doing an ip project at law school just now…
off to post murder threats at the geek’s new (old) place. see if we can’t shut it down again!
simply wondered – I agree that blog owners are entitled to cover their backs against – principally – defamation and would do the same. I could do with a defamation action like a hole in the head! My point was in relation to the misuse of ‘moderation’ to distort debate by creating the illusion that there is a wider consensus behind the blogger’s views (no matter how barking – mentioning no names) than actually is the case.
Blogging LAW Lords, I can understand – Blogging Bog STANDARD Lords is a concept which entirely defeats me……
I’m with LawMinx. Blogging Law Lords would be far more satisfying. Especially if they blogged in a conversational tone rather than their (necessary) paternalistic tone. It would be great to observe just how down-to-earth they really are.
Its difficult to picture the likes of Lord Bingham committing to blogging though. On the other hand, it could prove to be a good forum for his extra-judicial statements/ideas on issues such as the Rule of Law…
and hoffman would have to ‘explain’ the previous days entry from ‘lord hoffman’ as using the word black in its common meaning of ‘white’ a la twinsectra