Rapid Rebuttal? – My take on the initial Tory reactions

By Derek Draper

Well, needless to say the Tory trolls, as Tom Watson points out in his comment on our first post, have been out in force, but then who thought they’d be out with friends or lovers on Saturday night? Only kidding, after all, look where I am! Seriously we can dismiss these people as the impotent irritants they are. In fact, I am already so bored by them that I will henceforth be taking advantage of our fantastic “trashcan” facility. Our moderation policy explains this as follows:

“In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or Trolls in our trash can. These comments can, however, still be viewed by users by clicking on the “include trash comments” button under each post.”

I am 1000 x more interested in what the serious right are saying, so I thought I’d draw attention to these responses:

Tim Montgomery on ConservativeHome has written:

“… Derek. I wish you luck with the project and hope that we’ll learn from you as you’ve been “inspired” by us – as you are kind enough to acknowledge. My advice to you: Don’t just recycle party lines. LabourList will only work if you represent the breadth of opinion within your party and wider movement.”

And a Tory, Steve Tierney (notice, trolls, he uses his own name!), on LabourList itself said:

“I’m a Tory. I’m just saying that in order to be open and honest. Now I’d like to congratulate LabourList on its forthcoming launch and wish you the best of luck with the site. I may not agree with much that Labour supporters say but I do believe that political discussion is exceptionally valuable in all its forms. As such I hope this website helps bring debates forward and encourages people into the political arena, whatever their ideological colours.”

And Obnoxio the Clown (ok, not always serious but he is here) said:

“That nice Dolly Draper has asked me to tell you that they do, in fact, allow critical comments on their blog. And they do. I don’t know for how long, but I will give them their due, they do currently allow it. They will also be publishing material critical of the government. Allegedly. (I don’t know why Dolly’s stooping to my level to big up his blog, he must be drunk and confusing me with Guido. ) But I will say this: it is a good start and I do actually wish them well with the blog. If nothing else, it should give me a lot of ammunition before Mandelsnake kills it.”

Well, apart from that last bit (and as you may see, Obnoxio, in the next few days, Peter – far from killing us – will be feeding us), this all seems rather constructive. Amidst the noise from the Trolls, there is sensible, insightful, even well-mannered debate to be had. I am relishing the idea of it!

UPDATE

I also thought you might be interested in a reply I have posted to Jon Worth’s critique:

“Jon, thanks for what you say. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. On the technology front the specifications involve daily e-mails and other innovations (still to be revealed). That could not be done on such a platform. Also i am particularly proud of the way that comments link to threads which provides a much better user experience… I think that we need to break out of a narrow “blogosphere” mentality and involve thousands if not millions more people in taking some politics online. I suspect that will happen slowly and when it does I also suspect that they will be more intetrested in reading what Spencer and Alan have to say than you think – after all millions of people will be reading Alan’s article on social mobility in the Sunday Times tomorrow… of course, we need to do both – get exciting new, niche writers involved AND the big names. That’s what you’ll get on LabourList!”

Oh, and just to show how open to feedback we are, thanks to Daily Referendum for this: