The rise and fall of LabourList

No one can doubt that the excruciating effort that is LabourList has been a welcome distraction to the veteran blog reader.

One of the first posts I remember reading on that site concerned itself with the idea that the “tories did not get the web” and did not know how to use new technology.

There was no basis for this claim. It was a straw man. Essentially Draper and crew attempted to retread the idea that those on the right are stuffy and out of touch. They all have blue rinses so could not possibly work out how to use the web. Their assumptions had to doublethink to survive. Tories did not get the net but LabourList exists as an attempt to regain the blog from the Right, from Ian Dale and Guido. From this rather pathetic start only good things were bound to flow.

Lets be honest. Draper was given a very simple order by Downing Street. Get Guido.

The order-order.com website is a phenomenon. It has scalped two government ministers and is currently pursuing the Home Secretary. It is this activity that the Brown government wants to shut down because it hates the scrutiny. That and the fact he has successfully introduced the job title of Prime Mentalist into the British political phrase book.

Draper was to deploy a counterbalance to Guido et al. He was to send into battle a group of heavyweight writers who would forever change the way the internet voted. The only problem was that when you control the dead tree press you control the debate. When you step into our back yard anyone with a blog has right of reply. And when the great fisker bloggers like Devils Kitchen get involved you are going to be destroyed.

Don’t get me wrong. The plan was sound. Just the execution was complete fucking horseshit. It reminded me of Sean Connery in The Untouchables. Draper brought the knife.

When I think of this situation I think of it like the old sea battles of old. Guido sails around the Westminster blogosphere in a mighty battleship. He has identified a product, a customer and a style and has spent years building a brand, getting name recognition and becoming an armour plated large calibre force.

Draper launched a 10 ft wooden dingy, called it HMS Dreadnought and was crushed in the ensuing [brief] battle.

Like a Ritalin deprived ADHD sufferer Derek had not laid the foundations because he could not wait. He had not built up the loyal, partisan following. He instead launched a small website, put the Labour brand on it and expected instant status and standing because of it. Then when he has the tiniest advantage to exploit he makes the classic leftist mistake. He thinks the rules only apply to others.

We have all been there. You get into an argument with a leftie and when they know they are losing they start building the straw men. “all you fascists hate faggots” I have heard before. When challenged apparently these bastions of equal opportunities claim that they use this kind of language because it “shocks” us and is to confront our prejudices. They use the self same offensive language they they claim the other lot do. Projectionism while they destroy the village to save the village.

So it was thus that Draper, while attacking Guido for not removing 5 remarks that he himself had judged racist (and to devalue his opinion about 10 that were clearly not racist but were clutching at straws trying to build a narrative) he managed to call the Guido fanbase “window lickers”.

When called on this stupid use of language the trained 40 year old clinical psychotherapist claims never to have heard the term used as abusive to those with Downs. Indeed he claimed he thought that it related to kids who “licked the window of a sweet shop” because of course everyone knows that the windows of a sweet shop taste of KitKat.

When faced with a situation he could not control, orchestrated by individuals who are immune to his bully boy rhetoric he resorted to base insults and made him the laughing stock.

It is Draper that does not get the internet. It is he who is playing by someone lses rules and trying to change them to his own. But he will fail. And while he does it gives us an excuse to constantly post pictures of the woman who inexplicably chose him as a mate.