Originally blogged on Slugger:

The politicians and blogging meeting was interesting, not least because with the exception of the Lib Dem chair, Richard Allan the other MP panelists were Labour. Not I hasten to add, a result of bias on the part of the organisers, but an accurate reflection of who is blogging in Westminster.

Clive Soley, said that whatever misgivings MPs may have about getting involved in blogging, they must ask themselves, �where is this going? How am I going to communicate if I don�t do this? He went on to suggest that it could be even more productive in getting out messages that writing in local or national titles.

He went on:

“The reality of advice surgeries is that you can very rarely cover much more than a half mile radius and if you do it for a long time, you very quickly discover that you get the same people coming back to you over and over again and you also, if you are not careful end up with people treating you as a giant social worker, and you are not actually dealing with the issues that you came into politics to deal with”.

As an example of how blogs can affect things on the ground Tom Watson pointed to his Boycott Lidl Campaign, which had its roots in the problems of some of his constituency with a particular store. After getting no response, he began to post on his blog. Readers stories came in which confirmed similar corporate behaviour in other parts of the UK. Eventually the story caught the eye of several Norwegian journalists who were looking closely at the company�s plans to move into Norway. The change was dramatic and instant.

Tony Benn began by trying to give blogging some historical context:

“Politics is about communication, it always has been. Moses went up Mount Sinai and came down with the ten commandments. Every one has heard of the ten commandments because they were written on tablets of stone. The start of the printing press revolutionised communication � and you have Milton who protested against the registering of newspapers. When people were arrested and put into prison for communicating what went on in parliament you realise that the battle to communicate and the resistance to that communication is absolutely the essence of all political development”.

He went on to quote Jim Callaghan’s line that “a lie goes half way round the world before the true can get its boots on” suggesting that blogging offers a direct route to challenge easy or hasty journalistic judgement.