Time for a Blog Cull?

"There are now 57 million blogs worldwide and mainstream media have jumped on the bandwagon, often with no more thought about why they were doing it.

"Editors are to blame. First for not recognising that blogging requires specific skills and providing training for those journalists they want to blog. Second, for not working out what is the purpose of these blogs. Third for not reading their publication's blogs and culling those that are serving little purpose."

I am not a protectionist by nature, but Grant Campbell-Adamson, writing in Press Gazette's Discuss Journalism slot, is talking a great deal of sense here.

Nick Clarke 1948-2006

Lots of tributes across both the blogosphere and of course the BBC tonight for Nick Clarke who has lost his battle against cancer, aged 58.

Apart from listening to his mellifluous tones picking apart the big political story of the day on The World at One for nine years - the programme was pretty well required listening for lobby hacks - my most lasting memory of Nick will be of the time he actually interviewed me, in the course of my "15 minutes of fame" back in October 1998.

For those unaware of the story, the previous day I had attended a regional lobby lunch with the then Bank of England Governor Eddie George as the main guest. In the course of it I secured from him the devastating admission that he regarded lost North-East jobs as an "acceptable" price to pay for beating inflation in the overheating South.

It caused a major political furore at the time and Clarke was one of a number of broadcasters who followed-up the story for their programmes. I got the impression he was a bit sceptical about whether George really had said it, but he was unfailingly courteous nevertheless.

As I have said before on this blog, I am not a huge fan of the John Humphreys style of interrupting interviewing, but Nick Clarke was the very antithesis of that.

I rated him alongside PM's Eddie Mair as the best BBC radio journalist of his generation and there is no doubt he will be sorely missed.

The English Anthem

This bewhiskered old cove is Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, composer of perhaps the greatest of all sacred choral anthems, I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me. I sang it many times as a choirboy, most memorably to HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother when she came to rededicate our church following a refurbishment in 1979.

Sir Hubert Parry, as he was known, is perhaps better known for having composed the tune to William Blake's Jerusalem, which I have long advocated should be the English, as opposed to the British, national anthem.

So I'm glad to see that indefatigable campaigner Little Man in a Toque making use of No 10's much-vaunted new e-petitions functionality to argue for England to get an anthem of its own at long last.

Should you feel so inclined, you can sign it HERE.

And another one....

The blog memes are coming thick and fast this morning. Hard on the heels of Mr Dale's top 10 challenge comes the Birthday Meme, this time from Mars Hill's Paul Burgin.

The challenge is as follows:

1) Go to Wikipedia
2) In the search box, type your birth month and day but not the year.
3) List three events that happened on your birthday.
4) List two important birthdays and one death.
5) One holiday or observance.

Here are mine, with comments in red italics:

Three things that happened on my birthday

1851 - Herman Melville's Moby Dick is first published as The Whale. Never read it though...

1922 - The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) is founded to establish a national broadcasting service. Long may it continue...

1968 - Bob Beamon (pictured) sets a world record of 8.90m in the long jump at the Mexico Olympics. This becomes the longest unbroken track and field record in history, standing for 23 years. I genuinely believe this to be the sporting achievement of the 20th century. He broke the record by the best part of a metre.

Two important birthdays

1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau, fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 2000) Probably the most well-known politician on the list although I could also have had the former Greek Culture Minister, Melina Mercouri.

1956 - Martina Navrátilová. The greatest.

One death

1978 - Ramón Mercader, Assassin of Leon Trotsky (b. 1914) In the immortal words of The Stranglers: "He got an ice-pick that made his ears burn."

One holiday or observance

Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist. My birthday often coincides with a late warm spell and is known colloquially as St Luke's Summer in parts of rural England.

I'm not going to tag anyone else to do this in case I get another one sent to me, and I need to get on with some work! But anyone who wants to try this out can leave their answers in the comments below.

The Dale challenge: 10 things I would never do

The great blog chieftain himself Iain Dale has issued a challenge to me among other bloggers to name the top ten things I would never do - other than standing as a Tory candidate or posing in front of a Henry Moore statue, of course.

Anyway here goes:

10. Use the cane in order to discipline my son.
9. Take part in Big Brother, the X-Factor, or any show called "I'm an ex-Lobby hack, get me out of here."
8. Get a tattoo.
7. Declare my allegiance to any Head of State other than my Queen and her successors.
6. Support Man Utd or Chelsea.
5. Get divorced, although I guess it might not be solely my choice.
4. Climb Broad Stand, the crag that separates Scafell Pike from Scafell.
3. Take smack.
2. Convert to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Atheism or any other anti-Christian belief.
1. Top myself.

I'm supposed to tag 10 other bloggers to take part in the challenge, so because I know most of them visit here fairly regularly, I'm nominating: Inamicus, Skipper, Paul Burgin, Adele Reynolds, Stalin's Gran, Femme de Resistance, Little Man in a Toque, James Higham, Lactose and My Own Voice.

November 27 Update: So far, Paul, Skipper and James have compiled their lists on their blogs, while Gran has left his in the comments. Meanwhile Praguetory has provided this amazing analysis of the meme's progress through the blogosphere!

Are elections always won from the centre ground?

Lord Saatchi says not, saying that Margaret Thatcher disproved the "dinner party myth." Iain Dale disagrees, arguing that the 1979 manifesto on which Thatcher won was much more centrist than is generally supposed.

So who's right? Well, I'm going to sit on the fence for the time being and say I have some sympathy with both points of view.

In his pamphlet published yesterday, In Praise of Ideology, Lord Saatchi said people were losing faith in politics because there was so little difference between the parties. In the light of the declining turnout at recent elections, it is very hard to argue against this standpoint.

"The pragmatism of the centre ground turns politics into a commodity market - because pragmatism leads to opportunism, which leads to cynicism. People can spot a left/right 'positioning exercise' a mile off. The motive for these moves is too transparent. Voters always suspected that politicians would 'say anything to get elected'. Now they know it's true."

On the other hand, I do agree with Dale when he says that David Cameron needs to continue his move towards the centre ground, because of the particular electoral circustamces in which his party now finds itself.

"You cannot win purely with the support of your own core voters. Instead you have to appeal to a wider body. This is the lesson of the last 10 years in which the Conservatives have languished in opposition. Continually banging on about the same old message in the same old way is not going to appeal to those who find themselves disillusioned with politics and politicians."

Historically speaking, of course, the truth about elections is much more complex. While it is true to say that elections are not won from extreme positions, as Labour found in 1983 and the Tories in 2001, that is not the same as saying that the party with the most "centrist" position invariably wins.

If it was, I suspect the Liberals and their successor parties might have had a bit more success than they have had over the past 100 years!

My own view is that a political leader needs both the Saatchi approach and the Dale approach if you like, a clear ideology tempered by a willingness to compromise when necessary.

The lack of an ideological compass won't necessarily prevent David Cameron from becoming Prime Minister, as Tony Blair discovered. But it will prevent him from becoming a good one.