Mick Fealty New media, politics and digital engagement

Burke and the awkward legacy of Empire…

06.30.2010 · Posted in Britain, Government, Politics

Here’s a snatch from Goldsmith’s epitaph for Burke, quoted in this piece from Christopher Lydon in conversation with David Bromwich: Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much; Who, born for the universe, narrow’d his mind, And to party gave up what was meant ...

The gap between blogger and politician…

06.24.2010 · Posted in Media

This interview with Mickey Kaus is fascinating (currently freely accessible), not least for what he says towards the end about the difference between being a blogger (ie, a hurler on the ditch) and candidate for the US Senate… “Your blogger’s skin is not thick enough…” and the role of money that comes into play (“multimillionaires ...

Tory digi guru converts to civil servant role…

06.24.2010 · Posted in Blogosphere, Britain, Media

As Guido notes, the Conservative’s in-house digi-guru Rishi Saha has been appointed as a civil servant in a “to-be-merged Downing Street and Cabinet Office online team as Deputy Director of Communications”. He’s the one who curated the ‘Blue Blog’, the party’s first step into the often boisterous world of the blogosphere… Guido appends this note: ...

Slugger Awards 08…

10.20.2008 · Posted in Uncategorized

One of the key problems with trying to kick start democratic politics in a space that has operated for 80 years without widely accepted democratic institutions, is the wider disengagement from those institutions. After six years of working mostly online, Slugger came off line to pinpoint those politicians, journalists and organisations who have been doing ...

Brown’s wasted nine months…

03.26.2008 · Posted in Britain, Government, Politics

Things are getting heavy for Gordon Brown as he heads for his premiership’s first real electoral test in May. Between them, the local government elections, the London Assembly and Mayoral elections, will provide him with a stern test as his first full year draws to a close. Over at Brassneck, I’ve argued that in the ...

Review: The Telling Year

02.21.2008 · Posted in Journalism, NorthernIreland, Politics

Northern Ireland is no longer the compelling reading it once was. With the sublimation of its more fundamentalist elements into a nascent parliamentary democracy, the working out of big politics has left the streets. It is now more conducive to work out difficulties within the smoke filled offices of the First and Deputy First Minsters, ...

Brassneck: blogging at the Telegraph…

09.24.2007 · Posted in Journalism, Media

I’ve just started a companion blog to Slugger at the Daily Telegraph: Brassneck. The idea is to try take a similarly dispassionate view of British and international politics, and try to get a view of what’s going on underneath the headlines. the blog is notionally after Brass Crosby a former Lord Mayor of London, who ...

Why a blog is like a pub…

07.04.2007 · Posted in Blogosphere, Media

I was up in London last night co-hosting a session with London based colleague Paul Evans: we’re collaborating on a couple of projects. This pub session was to help us progress with a policy focused site we’re working on by gathering criticism from a small group of experts/enthusiasts for constructive civic engagement with government. Earlier ...

Cameron faces the battle of his short political life…

07.02.2007 · Posted in Britain, Politics

Frazer Nelson is one of the sharpest observers of the New Labour project. All the sharper for being well outside Labour’s domestic melodrama of the last few years. On the occasion of Brown’s ascendency he offers some insight into what faces the Tory’s most popular leader since, well, John Major. They can, he now argues, ...