So this time last month I posted some visitors figures for the first time and was largely told off for caring about such things. Bloggers, you see, are only supposed to be secretly obsessed with their readership figures. My mistake

It’s not the number of visitors that matters – it’s about finding a niche and filling it well. My niche seems to be ‘being a Lib Dem that drives everyone nuts’ and long may that continue.

Be that as it may, Guido was in a mischievous mood and linked that stat-porn post on his, ‘seen elsewhere’ bit which seemed to put me on a few more radars than I was before (and gave me a very weird sort of thrill, too – to my shame my heart skipped a beat when I realised what was going on), and the result is that this month there’s been 12,512 of you visiting, which for me is absolutely loads and makes me feel like a Propa Blogga. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m quite chuffed by this (even if I have been pipped by Mark Reckons this month, the bugger!). I managed to squeeze into quite a few Daley and Golden Dozens whilst sneaking links from the most unexpected places like over on Tory Bear which resulted in me having to sponsor Jennie Rigg to carry ‘Charlotte Gore is not a Tory’ banners. At the very last minute I was delighted to have been linked by Devil’s Kitchen, too, which means I haven’t completely aliented libertarian readers whilst I’ve been messing around with lists and other sillyness.

I should say thanks for visiting. I’m thinking I’ve done with the blogging medium now, I’ve peaked, mission accomplished… and so now wish to experiment with communicating a libertarian message through the medium of dance, puppetry or performance art. Hmm.

Sunny Hundal, over at my favourite blog, Liberal Conspiracy, has always given the impression of wanting to be Britain’s answer to Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of DailyKos – the leader of an online grassroots of progressive political activists. Not quite there yet though, it seems.

Unfortunately for Sunny, Markos’ success came from running the leading anti-Government blog whilst at the same time being equally critical of the DNC and the sorts of candidates they were selecting (like Hilary Clinton with dubious records on Iraq) and wanting to get fresh faced people like Obama selected instead (with good track records on Iraq). Liberal Conspiracy, on the other hand, rarely has anything new to say or anything interesting to bring to political debate. It’s the same old, “The state should do this!!!” concept repeated ad-infinitum, convinced the failure of the left is due to the specific implementations or the personalities of their leaders.

Wrong. All that fretting and worrying about policy is such a complete waste of time. I’ve heard it over and over on Labour Home, I’ve heard it over and over on Labour List and it’s been done to death on Liberal Conspiracy. All of them looking for the new idea, the new brilliant policy that’s going to somehow going to reinvent the left, bringing together the benefits of redistribution and a monolithic public sector without economic stagnation, unemployment, crushing of innovation, a welfare subculture, Government enabled Monopoly corporations and all this without the authoritarianism and ‘unfortunate’ need to take as much wealth as possible from as many sources as possible to pay for all these adventures and ideas.

In short, there’s no way to ‘reinvent’ this crap. It’s a flawed, morally bankrupt premise that depends on people being willing to allow the state to decide who wins and who loses – shafting one group in order to boost another. It amazes me that people still believe it’s possible to make this hideous faith system work in the real world without experiencing exactly the same outcomes over and over again.

So while DailyKos is community generated and focused on real action that people can take, Liberal Conspiracy is a collaborative blog desperate to figure out ways of ‘reinventing’ the failed ideology of Social Democracy.

DailyKos was a successful campaigning tool not because of policies and ideas, but because they threw their full weight behind what they knew to be a highly attractive candidate for grassroots Democrats – Barack Obama.  So it’s not a new Democratic Party in terms of policy. It’s a new Democratic Party in terms of presentation.

I’ve long argued that the Left doesn’t need reinventing: The malaise of the Labour Party and the left in general has come not from a failure of ideas, but complete lack of that kind of charismatic leader that can blag the British people into renewing their subscription to “Marxist Bollocks Monthly” Brown’s complete lack of charisma and ability to communicate exposes the emptiness of the ideology underneath. There’s nothing there, at all, and without the pretty smile and handsome charm of a true Progressive Leader, this ugly truth is left naked for all to see. Long may Brown continue in his role.

If Liberal Conspiracy really wants to reinvigorate the Left, all it needs to do is find that charismatic new leader. If you want power Sunny, it’s yours – just find the leader, that’s it, and embrace the inner Authoritarian and spank your Command Economy monkey to your heart’s content. Just don’t pretend you’re achieving anything else.

Apologies. The content of this post has been deleted.

A month ago someone emailed me to offer me an e-Cig starter kit in return for a plug on a blog post I’d written on the subject many moons ago. I actually didn’t accept that offer, because the e-Cig technology, whilst being very promising, still has some kinks to be worked out – the batteries can’t cope with the demands placed upon them, and they’re limited by size and modern battery technology which remains one of the biggest technological bottlenecks still to overcome (that and anti-gravity hoverboards). 

Despite this I was very surprised then when a week ago a publisher got in touch and asked if I’d be interested in having a book sent to me. I said, “sure” and was sent a copy of “When the Lights Went Out” by Andy Beckett, which so far is a very accessible and absorbing history of the 1970s, and surprisingly balanced, too. I’ll be putting up a review once I’ve finished it. 

Going to the blogs is smart marketing, I think. This particular book is aimed at exactly the sort of people reading political blogs, so I hope the experiment pays off. 

Interestingly, I’ve seen review copies of computer games before, but never books. They’re hard-back sized but bound like paperbacks, with functional covers rather than covers designed to attract the consumer’s money. Fascinating.