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 ...
Charlie Beckett notes that all this capacity to dig down in depth into other news bases does not mean that somehow there is a new, internet-based global market for news… It’s sort of borne out by this visualisation from the PDF EU event in Barcelona of the patterns in online conversation which take place in ...
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 ...
On Slugger, we’re currently in the process of packing down a tight set of rules which we hope to share with other political blogs who are keen on promoting civil engagement between their commenters. Top of the list of things we hope to capture is a clearer understanding of the difference between a breach of ...
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: ...
H/T to Mark Pack for his direct to a piece by Steven Pinker in the New York Times: …the constant arrival of information packets can be distracting or addictive, especially to people with attention deficit disorder. But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of ...
I’ve been asked to give the keynote speech at the Parnell Summer School in Avondale, Wicklow this year on Sunday 8th August. Tim Pat Coogan is to open the event and Joe Duffy is chairing the opening discussion.. ...
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I’ll be speaking at Green Templeton College, Oxford on 26th November between 12:00 – 14:00, and speaking to the suitably intimidating title: How the web is saving journalism, and making it better. ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...