Anders Hanson

Today I’ve added some content to the Liberal Democrat page. I couldn’t decide what to do with it and so it’s ended up being bullet points of my party background and a few random facts about my involvement. It’s nowhere near finished yet, but it’s getting there.

Well, my new website has now existed for a week and I’ve done reasonably well so far at keeping it up to date. I’ve added some thoughts as time has gone on and largely resisted the trap of ranting about something that has just occured to me without thinking first about what I really want to say.

So the new bits added so far:

• Added a few posts on topics ranging from the wonders of Sheffield to what I’m reading to Welsh devolution.
• Added my “About Anders” page so people know who I am, but realised that I need a better and more up to date photo.
• Added a bit on the “Family History” page so at least there’s something there when people read it. It also means that my website doesn’t look completely obsessed about politics and Sheffield.
• Failed to add anything on the “Liberal Democrats” page, but this should come shortly. On my first blog I wrote a long piece about how I ended up in the party, and I should probably now update that as the introduction on my involvement with the Liberal Democrats.
• My biggest task has been trying to put up a simple CV on the site with the key facts about me. I wanted this page to be an offshoot from the About Anders page rather than adding yet another link to the main tabs along the top. The problem was that after creating it I couldn’t work out the URL or where it had gone. Now, several frustrating days later, I have finally worked it out and you can access it properly from the About Anders page. Techy web things have never been my strong point.
• I also have a links page which I need to add to. Although I like having a section devoted to blogs and websites of friends, I have suddenly realised that I hit a problem when I get to know someone but am unsure as to whether they should be a friend or not. Oh well, the problems of being popular!

I now intend just keeping it up to date and making sure people that would be interested are aware of its existence. I notice that when you search my name on Google it now picks up the address of this site as the main site, even though my Blogger blog still exists. Oddly though, the URL for my old blog that hasn’t existed for a year and is being used by someoene else still appears as the top listing - very strange.

One thing I will do is add to this site a few postings from my old blogs that might be of interest. Most will be opinions bits but will save me having to repeat them again.

Considering the number of times I have tried to create my own website or blog, it’s surprising that I feel excited at the idea of writing the first entry on a new website.

But that’s it really. This is a website and not a blog, and it looks so much better than the ones I’ve had before. Plus I can do loads more with it, although it will no doubt take me a while to get used to all the features.

When one of my friends found out about one of my previous blogs he said, “I wouldn’t have thought you were arrogant enough to believe that anyone cared what you thought.” I suppose it was a bit of a backhanded complement. But it did make me think about why I wanted a website, and so I hope the rest of this posting goes someway to explaining it.

I do have opinions on lots of things, and although no one might care what they are it is good to feel that you can get them off your chest. The great thing with the internet is that you can these thoughts of your chest but at the same time you might also find out that someone out there is interested in them and it starts a discussion going. The readership of my website is probably restricted to the handful of people who know me and those people who might not know me but know the name because of my involvement in politics. When I had my first blog I was astonished by the number of people who I bumped in to at Lib Dem events who said they knew about me because they’d read my blog. I was also pleasantly surrprised by the number of people who said they’d read my posting on such and such a topic and agreed exactly with what I’d written. I also though found out from bitter experience how things you write can be used against you and in my case used to criticise the Liberal Democrats. That is why I have become very wary of blogging. It would be a huge exaggeration to say that I was at the forefront of Lib Dem blogging, but I was certainly in the first tranche, but I also abandoned my blog at exactly the time when it really took off and started to look slightly less geeky.

So if I want to make my opinions known, why am I changing to having more of a website than a blog. The reason is simple. My life is more than just politics and I want to have a website so that I have a way of publicising those things. Genealogy is one of the things that has led to a huge boom in internet useage and so I want to take advantage of that by having my own website where I can write a bit about my own family history research in the hope that I will make contact with others who are researching the same people or places that I am. I also enjoy photography and although I don’t have a decent camera I have started my own profile on Flickr which shows some of the photos that I’ve taken recently. But I want to link my photos to everything else I do and so having one website that is the point to access everything else I do seems logical.

There’s lots more I could write about why I want this site, but I hope I have given a bit of a flavour. The problem that I have always suffered when I have had previous websites or blogs is that I start in great enthusiasm but it then peters out as I find I have less time or get bored of endless writing. But another benefit of a website over a blog is that it is more flexible and isn’t just about changing content but having decent static pages too. With WordPress I can also link in to things like the Lib Dem Blogs aggregator that will mean that I can make contact with other Lib Dems easier whilst filtering out my ramblings about things non-political.

There’s quite a bit more to do to it in terms of content and at some point I’d like to give it a better URL. Bht here it is and long may it be of interest to someone and not just me.

Despite all three Lib Dem leadership contenders promoting the bloggers that are backing their campaigns, it is interesting that none of the contenders are blogging themselves.

Blogging has been heralded as the new way that politicians will reach out directly to their electorate, and indeed there are numerous examples of MPs from across the political spectrum who have their own blogs. So perhaps it is even more surprising that none of the contenders have seen blogging as a way of reaching out to party members during the campaign. Both Ming Campbell and Simon Hughes have “blogs” on their sites, but both of these are just news stories from the campaign and in reality just collections of endorsements and press releases. Chris Huhne does at least have the honesty to call the equivalent area on his website the news section.

Although blogging is still growing within the Liberal Democrats, I suspect some of this reluctance may come from the party getting its fingers burnt in the Hartlepool by-election. Jody Dunn, who was one of the best by-election candidates that we have had, wrote a blog on her election website. I understand that she did write this herself and it was then checked for obvious mistakes by members of her campaign team before it was posted. Unfortunately they never expected a fairly innocent and light-hearted comment about one unnamed road in Hartlepool being full of drunks, vicious dogs or semi-naked men to be exaggerated by the Labour party. If you read Labour leaflets you would think she’d made a slur against everyone in Hartlepool. This comment was one of the main reasons that Jody Dunn failed to be elected, as it also reminded people that she was outside who was now also slagging off the town. I think Jody Dunn was unlucky, but it shows how easy it is to say something on the internet that can be misinterpreted.

I like the idea of blogs and I think they are a useful way of letting off steam about things that happen, getting across your view on your interests in a personal way to anyone who wants to read it and being able to respond spontaneously to events. I suppose those are the reasons why I have an attraction to blogging and why I have restarted a blog. I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who clearly read my old blog and as a result feel the need to either say to me in person or on their own blog how much they agreed with something I’d written. But it is this very spontaneity and readership that can cause problems. With the advent of blogs like Lib Dem Watch your opponents can pick up on the slightest slip that you make. I suppose that is the reason why I also keep questioning my own wish to have a blog, and why my last one was ditched last year.

It is this risk that I believe will stop blogging from really taking off in politics. As one Lib Dem once put it to me after seeing the reaction to Jody Dunn’s blog, “why on earth do we spend all this time carefully choreographing the campaign messages that go on leaflets and then ruin it all by allowing our candidate to write whatever they want on the internet.” He had a point, but we shouldn’t stop candidates and MPs from having blogs simply because they might say what they really believed. In fact if I was a true conspiracy theorist maybe the whole point of the leadership contenders promoting supporters who blog whilst not having one themselves is so that they can get across their campaign messages, including the negative ones, without them being implicated directly.

Jody Dunn showed some of the pitfalls of candidates having their own blog, and I have also found comments that I have made quoted on Lib Dem Watch. But most political blogs have not been as controversial. In fact many of them, and I suspect mine as well most of the time, have been deadly dull. However blogging by candidates should be encouraged as it allows them to speak for themselves and to think more freely. Posting on topical issues may allow a debate to be had with the wider community before they finally decide on their own view. It is this freethinking that should be encouraged, and I think last weeks vote on whether to ban smoking on public places shows how free thinking is a major positive. Whether you agreed with the outcome of the vote or not, allowing a free vote on the issue gave the perfect opportunity for MPs to show themselves at their freethinking and honest best. If we encourage MPs to think more freely more of the time, something that blogging allows, we might improve politics and political decision making considerably.

I suppose like most things people will learn the techniques for writing blogs and will learn about what they should or shouldn’t say on them, whilst still being true and honest. Indeed, how do we know now that those that appear to be written personally and from the heart are also not scripted in the same way as those that are more obviously just a collection of press releases and news stories?

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON “ANDERS HANSON’S BLOG” BUT WAS MOVED TO THIS WEBSITE WHEN THAT SITE WAS REPLACED