Sits at keyboard. Looks for a moment at unfamiliar software interface. Starts typing.
Over the past year, I've been astonished and delighted by the quality of British political blogs. What's happened reminds me of the punk explosion when I was a teenager. People are ignoring the established system and beating it at its own game. Obvioulsy, there's a great deal of dross, but what is heartening is how much original and intelligent journalism is coming from people entirely outside the media class, whose only chance of talking to the world would once have been confined to a few paragraphs on a letters' page or a few minutes on a radio phone-in.
As I'm on the left I started out with Harry's Place, Normblog and Socialism in an Age of Waiting. But as my confidence has grown I find myself zooming all over the net and listening to people I would have crossed the street to avoid in the past. I've also realised with a feeling close to despair that if I write a lot of nonsense, it will be exposed and dissected. Blogs have raised the bar.
If our blog is as good as we hope it will be, it will be a pleasure to join the argument.
