baldysblog.co.uk

My opposition to ID Cards is not based upon Civil Liberties or any such issues, it is based upon what is an obviously flawed technology and a poor design by people who do not understand the problem and therefore should not be proposing solutions until they do.

That software companies want to sell their wares to the British Government is fair enough except that politicians are just not qualified to make a decision on it. This came to mind again when I noted in PR Week another classic cock up about to be made by the Labour Party.

Excalibur

Prior to the 1997 landslide victory for Labour, they had set up a team and operation called Excalibur which was designed to kill off any negative stories about Labour that appeared in the Right leaning press. It was a very slick and highly successful operation which was able to keep the pressure on the media right across the board and make sure that New Labour drove the news agenda.

Of course as in everything, success carries within it the seeds of destruction and the habits learned then, became the normal method of operation of Government where the traces of “spin” still exist to this day. A good example being Gordon Brown who deliberately misquoted George Osborne and even though hard pressed by a Reporter from Sky to acknowledge that, refused to retract what he had said. Unfortunately this type of downright lying and misinformation is buried deep within the Labour DNA and they are desperate now.

What a Hoot…

Apparently Labour are concerned about negative stories circulating in the Right Wing “blogosphere” and they have called in a former Lobbyist called Derek Draper to advise them on just how they could repeat the success of Excalibur today but apply it to blogs rather than just standard media because they are aware that blogs can drive the news.

Now in this instance it once again demonstrates just why politicians should not meddle in technical and cultural things that they don’t understand because they are nuts to even want to try. Their problem is that they imagine the “blogosphere” is just like the print and broadcast media but “out there” on the Internet well, it isn’t.

Sure, with the Reporter’s blogs on the BBC (pussy town), the Daily Telegraph and all the other web active media businesses, they can apply a similar pressure to them as Excalibur did in the late 90′s to print and broadcast media. In fact they have been doing so for some time by infiltrating left wing “Trolls” on to right wing discussion boards but they do get picked up and then picked upon by other contributors and are then often ignored.

Making a Tactical Mistake

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs out there, most personal but many like this one both personal interest and politically based and they cannot attack them in the same way that the media organisation ones can be with “Trolls” simply because it is my blog and it is my option to allow comments to be published or not plus people cross linking can really take you on a merry go round.

Also and if the “Labour Machine” tried to go after the individual sites such as this, they would risk concerted attacks upon them from the whole community which may even escalate to “Denial of Service” attacks if they really upset the wrong Geeks.

But the real big mistake would be to even try because all that they will do is bring publicity, fame and the public to blogs that otherwise nobody would know about like this one. Labour has more than just an image problem, it is carrying on its back the detritus and failure of 11 years of past policy mistakes and people see the consequences all around them.

What has actually happened is their “story” has ended, the narrative from high hopes on a May morning in 1997 has run its course and like a Greek Tragedy will end in abysmal failure. The truth is that people stopped buying into Labour and Brown some time ago and even their Conference this week was totally introverted, they made no attempt to speak to the electorate, their time has come and gone, they are now the last guest who refuses to leave the party and go home.

Mess with the blogosphere by all means, I can do with some attention but really, most of Labour would be better off revising their CVs, they will shortly need a new job.

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