Nasty, brutish and short

This one's bark is as bad as its bite

APOLOGIES for the radio silence on the Hearth, but I have been distracted by Another Place over the past two days. On Wednesday I spoke to the House of Lords Constitutions Committee on the issue of referenda as part of their ongoing enquiry into this rather unBritish political device.

Why me? Well it wasn’t on the strength of my interest in the referendum topic, which would have made me no different from half the Welsh blogosphere, but rather because as a very young teenager back in 1997 I was the National Organiser of the Yes for Wales campaign. My fellow evidence giver was a person of far more significant stature, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who had been the Director of the No campaign in Scotland at the same time. We had been asked to give evidence from the basis of our experiences from campaigns that we both agreed now felt almost a lifetime ago. We agreed on much in our responses to some very clever and probing questions.

The central thrust of my evidence – and a theme to which I returned on several occasions during the hour – was that referenda are subject to misinformation and obfuscation. The next one in Wales will be a particular victim of such challenges to reality.

To help remedy this, one suggestion that I made in my brief written evidence to the Committee was that:

“The Government of Wales Act 2006 contains provision for the calling of a referendum to move from Part 3 to Part 4 powers for the National Assembly for Wales. As you are aware, we can expect this referendum to take place during the life of this Assembly (before May 2011). This makes this inquiry particularly timely for those interested in democratic engagement and debate in Wales. The nature of the question to be posed is both complex and liable to misinterpretation. It cannot be presented meaningfully in simple terms without context and it would be helpful therefore if a neutral explanatory paragraph also appeared on the ballot paper. The involvement of the Electoral Commission would be critical in drafting both such a paragraph and in framing the question to be posed, and it is therefore welcome that the Commission now has a role in framing the question.”

This role for the Electoral Commission arose out of the Political Parties and Electoral Reform Act 2000, which for the first time has created a backdrop in law for the operation of referenda.

My remarks on this issue were also picked up by Tomos Livingstone in the Western Mail yesterday, who led instead on my views on the power of internet campaigning and how this would make the next referendum very different from the last. Here is an extract of the article:

“Moves are under way to hold a poll on turning the Assembly into a Scottish-style parliament, and debate is already raging online over the timing, question wording and outcome of the poll.

An interesting debate which builds on what I said can be found over on the Welsh Ramblings blog. In a very unrambling post, the writer takes issue with my assertion that dark is the light of the future. He or she wrote:

“In conclusion, the idea that ‘attack blogs’ will have any impact on the next referendum is wrong because there are no attack blogs left in Wales. Neither will significant amounts of voters be aware of what is going on on the blogs. Nonetheless, the blogosphere’s ability to instantly frame debate, float ideas and shape agendas is as vital as ever, and the nastiness of the past seems to have entirely vanished. The idea that the Welsh blogosphere is ‘quite often a nasty and vile place’ should be dismissed because this hasn’t been the case since 2008.”

There is much that I agree with in the Ramblings post. Ultimately, as Ramblings suggests, I agree “that traditional campaigning, canvassing and leafleting will be how most voters are reached.” But we both also agree an online battle will form a key part of the war of minds.

Defending my position, the first thing to say would be that I was speaking about the blogosphere in general at the time and not just the Welsh one. I’ll need to check the record when it comes out to make sure that is clear, but that was certainly my intention. And, like Ramblings, I feel the Welsh blogosphere is a far gentler place than its bigger brother or sister.

But, as I have also commented on Ramblings’ site, I do not believe Welsh political blogs always refrain from attack. Even the mildest mannered janitor has the potential to change, even if that might seem uncharacteristic from general tone. I have snarled on occasion myself, despite my generally passive and positif disposition.

And you can bet your bottom dollar that with an Election en route and a referendum promised soon afterward that attack will return to the fore: blogs that string together some of the nastier comments left on the blogs of others will return.

For the General Election the UK blogosphere will lead the way of course, but in terms of the referendum the bile channels will be home grown. If attack blogs don’t exist now, they will in six months. And they’ll last the length of a referendum campaign. And they’ll be on both sides of the campaign.

To borrow Hobbes’ expression, the next online referendum campaign in Wales is likely to be nasty, brutish and short.

On Wednesday Freedom Central described me as King of the Bubble. Yesterday Welsh Ramblings was kind enough to refer to me as the Welsh blogging community’s spiritual leader. I am starting to feel like Henry VIII. He was also the first person to attain the title Defender of the Faith. God forbid I should receive this mantle too but I do have faith in the innate good nature of the Welsh blogosphere. And in the positive way this site too can help shape that.