Saving LabourList (Seriously)

Iain Dale reckons that everyone's favourite trampy editor is leaving his labour (no pun intended) of love. And there is an interesting (for that site, anyway) article up about what the future holds for LabourList. I'd be surprised if anyone writing for that site ever manages to make their way to this blog, but fuck it. I'm going to offer my advice anyway.

The first thing they need to do is choose who they want to write for that place, and stick to it. They have had pretty much everyone in the Labour movement bar the PM sticking an article on there, and it doesn't work. You never know when you head to that site whether you are going get some (ex) Minister on there who you have less respect for an STD, or someone you've never heard of from the depths of one random section of the Labour party or another. The website doesn't really stand for anything. It doesn't represent anything. It is just a mouthpiece for Labour leaders when they can be bothered to promote their latest half-baked policy, and a forum for everyone else in the Labour movement with access to a PC to bounce ideas around on. And to get those ideas torn apart by more sensible people outside of the Labour movement.

Once they've decided on who is going to write for the site, they then need to let people find their voices. The best blogs out there never really emerged fully formed onto the interweb. It tends to be a long, sometimes torturous process of the author(s) finding their voice. It is only once that voice has been found, then people will start visiting the site regularly.

On the best and/or most widely read blogs, you know what you are going to get. You can log on there anytime, and have a good idea of what you are going to read about and, at the very least, what it is going to sound like. Love him or hate him, you know what you are getting when you visit Guido's place. Likewise, if you head to the Kitchen, you know what you are going to get. The same with Eugenides, the Dude, Manic, Obnoxio, Dale and even Terry fucking Kelly. Like it or hate it, those people have evolved identities and have built up (in some cases) respect and a readership through finding an identity. This whole idea that Draper would be able to bypass this process and come up with The Best Website In The World Ever was always toss. If LabourList actually wants to escape the torturous birth pangs it has gone through and truly become a respected website, then it needs to earn the high regard it has arrogantly laid claim to. As it stands, it comes across as an arrogant gaggle of would-be politicos and bloggers.