Usually we like to spend our Monday mornings on the blog dissecting the perverse tastes of Observer readers as revealed by our hi-tech real time website traffic data click-o-meter. But today it is broken.
Slaps real time website traffic data click-o-meter. Fantasises about hurling all computer technology from Severn bridge. Remembers very high fence on bridge and traffic on M4. Relents.
But we can still trawl the blogs for evidence that our readers love and respct us. Or not. Tim, (you don't mind if we call you Tim, do you Tim?) was unimpressed by one of the numbers in our story about Tesco being accused of labour exploitation. He awarded us (or possibly Action Aid, who gave us the story) an Economic Idiocy award. A bit harsh, perhaps? Perhaps not. Loyal Blog readers will remember that we was robbed in the National Press Awards and our trophy chest is looking a bit bare. So we won't be fussy. Except when it comes to shopping at Tesco, then we will be very fussy indeed.
Meawnhile, the good people Backing Blair take exception to Peter Hain's comments in the Observer's lead story from the weekend, taking the opportunity, we notice, to drop another Blair/liar Googlebomb - a noble enterprise, but one that has been getting a bit one-sided of late. (Attacks on the various swivel-eyed loons of the fringes don't count.)
In election season bloggers should perhaps honour at least some of the spirit of the Representation of the People Act and apply their google-rank subterfuge evenly. One website representing a certain cold-blooded scaremonger is an open goal. We've read the site, and it's clear that no one will be linking to it to provide their readers with useful information.
Peter Hain's comment ...
There's now a kind of dinner party critics who quaff shiraz or chardonnay and just sneeringly say, "You are no different from the Tories",' he said. 'Most of the people in this category are pretty comfortably off: it's not going to be the end of the world if they get a Tory government. In a working-class constituency like mine, this is a lifeline. It's not a luxury.
... looks to us like a slightly more nuanced version of a generic Labour 'you've had your fun now come back to the fold in case we get a Tory government' strategy. It is also a salvo in the great dinner-party leftism war that we are pleased to see is being waged largely in the comment pages of the Observer. This week: John Harris.
And while we're on politics, a thought that came up in our leader conference last week: how is it that everyone has accepted 'dog-whistle politics' as the metaphor to describe the Tory tactic of sending out a message targeted at a particular support base to the exclusion of everyone else? The problem is, we can all hear it.
The Blog suggests 'dog food politics' as an alternative, because the effect of the Tory campaign is rather like someone opening a tin of Pedigree Chum in an enclosed space. Everyone can smell it, but only dogs want to eat it.
