If you don't blog you're not getting my vote!

Tom Morris points out that, in the UK -

The Tories now have RSS  feeds and links to blogs by  MPs, Councillors and other chunks of the Conservative movement. The Lib Dems  also have RSS feeds but they don't really advertise them too well.

At the same time Tuppenceworth notes that Liz McManus has started blogging. Isn't it high time that more Irish politicians followed her lead and that of Damien Blake, Ciaran Cuffe and Aidan Culhane, and started blogging? I'm not going to vote in the next election unless for a candidate who blogs. Do you hear that west Limerick TDs? You're not getting my vote again unless you blog!

I've added the 3 politicians above to a new subnode of the Open Irish Directory under Government & Law -> Dail -> Political Candidates.

Comments

[Tom Morris]

It's all a bit academic for me, since I'm not a Labour voter (I have voted -tactically- Labour once, and that was when I was living in the city, in a fairly low turn-out ward and the BNP were running for election), and I live in a Tory stronghold (although less so since the local private school closed down).

Ultimately, on issues of principle (Iraq, ID cards, the transport system, schools, PFI etc.), blogs aren't going to change too many minds, unless the authors of said blogs are absolute masters of persuasion - these days politicians aren't in to persuasion, they're in to image.

But on certain local things - like knowing what's going on at the county or district level - they can certainly provide an interesting perspective and can serve politicians in one important task - building recognition. Most politically literate people know about what's going on in Parliament. But few know what's going on in their local councils. Providing that information - slanted and political, though it may be - is a useful public service. If all the candidates are broadly similar, and there's nothing I have any moral stake in, then providing reasonable quality information may garner a few votes.