Iain Dale publishes a “Daley Dozen“. It is not exactly clear what this Daley Dozen is supposed to achieve, but presumably it is meant to represent the best of the blogosphere. Most casual observers have observed that it tends to present far right Tory views, mainly Euroskeptic ones where possible, and it never presents a non-Conservative view unless strongly in praise of the coaliton or highly critical of Ed Miliband. Keen observers have in fact drawn exactly the same decision.
Labour List is edited by Mark Ferguson, by most observers, extremely well. It acts as a hub for intelligent debate about contemporary issues in Labour; it certainly does not indulge in crazy tribalism, and certainly does not shy away from debate. It is a flagship blog for Labour, in producing breakthrough journalism such as this article on Chris Grayling’s crime figures.
It is therefore somewhat surprising that in a sample taken from November 7th 2010 – November 30th 2010, it does not feature once in Iain Dale’s “Daley Dozen”, compiled as the best of the blogs by Grant Tucker and Iain Dale. In fact, 50% of the top 12 Labour blogs haven’t appeared once in this period of about 3 weeks at all.
The Top 12 is as follows, with the figures in brackets the number of appearances in Iain Dale’s “Daley Dozen”.
1 (0) Labour List
2 (4) Tom Harris MP
3 (0) Hopi Sen
4 (1) Next Left
5 (2) Alastair Campbell
6 (4) Political Scrapbook
7 (1) Luke Akehurst
8 (2)Labour Uncut
9 (0) Penny Red
10 (0) Hadleigh Roberts
11 (0) Socialist Unity
12 (0) Anthony Painter
And what was the Daley Dozen of Dozens in this time period? A fairly predictable list, but it was worthy to see Ed Staite, a media analyst, who is described by Boris Johnson as, ““A veteran master of strategy and all round general of the political battlefield – I would recommend him to anyone who wants to win any comms battle” Dale has blogged frequently on how much he will be sad to see Tom Harris MP. It is sad for Dale’s readership that the death of Tom Harris’ blog may mean a relative lack of representation on a regular basis of any Labour blog in the Daley Dozen, if this Daley Dozen is as influential as Iain Dale claims. On a positive note, the pressure is on Political Scrapbook to post articles which attract the attention of Grant Tucker or Iain Dale, being known officially as a’left-leaning blog’. Paul Waugh is well known to be highly critical of Labour, especially Gordon Brown. Finally, congratulations to Stumbling and Mumbling, which describes himself as an “extremist not a fanatic”. This blog (here) looks very intelligent indeed. The full list is as follows. Many congratulations to @WalaaIdris whose entertaining and passionate posts do deserve leading this list, which incidentally consists of 128 blogs in total (not this one, curiously). This is undoubtedly a massive tribute to the ‘Daley Dozen’ that they cover so many blogs in a matter of 3 weeks, with no particular favouritism, when they could have showed much more preference towards certain blogs. However, the fact that LabourList does not appear once is either a reflection on their view of LabourList generally, or the Conservatives, or rather Iain Dale, is very partisan – and very proud of it.
1. Walaa Idris
2. Dan Hannan
3. Tom Harris
4. Paul Waugh
5. Guido
6. Political Scrapbook
7. Norman Tebbit
8. Dizzy
9. Mark Wallace
10. Benedict Brogan
11. Ed Staite
12. Stumbling and Mumbling
