Right-wing blogs. We still exist Iain!

So, it seems Iain Dale is worried about the future of the Right-wing blogosphere. Fired up by a disappointing drop in conservative blogs in the latest TotalPoliticics Blog Awards list, he used his column yesterday to ask where the next generation of right-wing bloggers were, and why there had been a drop in interest from that side of the spectrum.

"The comparative decline of the right is not because existing right-wing blogs have been performing badly, it is because there has been no new blood."

I think one of the commentors on his post had it right. When your Party is in power, the impetus to blog about what you disagree with is considerably weakened. Put simply, the anger isn’t there. Rather than risk blogs becoming tribalist lists of real (or imagined) success, they instead become defunct.

Some events can re-fire interest. The Blue Guerilla came out of mothballs for this summer’s Conservative Future election campaign, as to a certain extent did London Spin. They helped fill a gap in the ‘Tory yoof’ stakes created by Tory Bear’s seeming lack of blogging time. Once the results are announced next week, though, it will be interesting to see if they keep up the pace. As I have found, time for blogging is generally short, particularly when you have a day job outside politics, and a demanding toddler!

Anyway, if Iain Dale is putting out a call to action, then I’m stepping up to the plate. I may not have the most impeccable of national sources to send stories my way, but nonetheless toes will be dipped outside the calm waters of Epsom slightly more often from now on. Iain, fancy giving me your little black book?

Pollwatch - Thank God!

It seemed like another setback when last night's Times/Populus poll had the Conservatives and Labour neck and neck at 38% in its 'poll of marginals' last night. Thankfully, as Iain Dale has pointed out, the figures headlined by the press today do not tell the whole story.

This was not a poll of all marginals, it was not even a poll of all Conservative/Labour marginals - this was a poll carried out in the 51st-150th marginal Labour seats, and shows a ~7% swing from Labour to Conservative in those seats. This by no means seals the deal in those areas, but it will provide a welcome boost to activists after a week or two of what can only be described as poor media coverage. If, in turn, their efforts can boost the blue share of the vote in the next poll, it will be interesting to see what that does to projections of a potential Conservative majority.