We Need A Hero

It cannot reasonably be disputed that the right continues to dominate mainstream political discourse and commentary in this country.

The success of the right can be put down in part to the success of some of the right's leading bloggers. Those bloggers have become columnists and editors, and are regularly called upon by radio stations to provide punditry.

The left have probably just as many bloggers and commentators as the right, but many of them are too fixated on the enemy within to provide any meaningful opposition to the right. In contrast, self-examination does not appear to be a high priority for the leading commentators of the right.

If the left is to regain lost ground it must change the way the system views it. Rather than being perceived as a disorganised factional rabble, the left must present a united front and focus its energies on the real enemy.

What we need above all else is a hero blogger.

This hero blogger will be someone with enough profile to get the attention he or she desperately craves. Ideally he or she will be poisoned by cynicism, prepared to lie or twist the truth, and determined to ignore the many faults of their own team.

What the left needs right now is a blogger who treats every political occasion as a game in which someone wins and someone loses. Someone who reverts to nastiness at every opportunity, while insisting the other side are the nasty ones. Someone who will politicise every occasion to their team's advantage, even as they accuse others of improper politicisation.

Ideally they'll be politically connected, so that parties of the left can feed them material for their blog. They will need to have a robust attitude towards defamation laws, and be prepared to post prolifically. They will need to maintain cordial relations with the press, in order to ensure journalists copy and paste their material as often as possible. This means not writing posts attacking journalists. It also means maintaining a public profile. Being anonymous just won't work. Having integrity and high ethical standards also won't work.

The blogger will claim to be even-handed, and will scoff at claims they are little more than a partisan hack. They will point to that one time they were mildly critical of their own team as evidence of a lack of bias.

The left already has a popular blog, The Standard, but it hasn't managed to achieve the success of some popular right wing blogs. I don't measure success solely by readership numbers, but by the ability to influence decision-makers and commentators. The Standard may be influential within the Labour Party, but it does not regularly capture the attention of journalists and pundits except when the Labour Party is in crisis. That's the wrong sort of attention.

That's why the blog will need to be a one-person effort. Multiple blog posters increase the risk of internal arguments. The left may have enormous issues to grapple with, but the blog must be an unrelenting opponent of the right, and this will require a large degree of wilful blindness. The blog will not be a place for earnest self-examination.

So who's keen? Do you have these skills? Do you like to play dirty? Do you lack integrity?

I have to be honest that it's not a job I have the stomach for. But I'm hoping someone out there may be prepared to descend into the gutter on a professional basis for the good of the left.