I think of you as a left-wing Iain Dale - I can just see you both chuntering over a pint of best bitter saying, ''ee, it weren't like that in my young day' :-)

I think its ok that you cover the more populist issues or attempt to 'popularise' serious issues.
As an example your piece on knife crime was very successful. The fact that many find it (your approach) problematic or distasteful may say a lot about the left. However, like a lot of left blogs, etc I don't think you cover the absolute basic issues enough: housing, welfare, poverty and inequality, umployment/unemployment, migration, etc..

I also like your writing style, though sometimes the attempts to 'get with the youth' are a bit embarrassing.

'I have frequently pledged to myself to give up completely on far left sectariana. But I keep going back there, because I secretly love it really, and so - I suspect - do the core readership. Look at the number of comments such posts attract'

Oh, for me and i suspect many others, this is one of the biggest failings of leftist blogdom, discusssing the minutae of tiny sects: its boring, irrelevant and a turn off for less comitted readers.

Dave keep on blogging, as Frenetic says, your writing style is good and this problem is not you but the British Left, much of it hasn't got over the fall of the USSR and still has problems grasping the very real problem in real people's lives or living in the 21st century

you know, no matter what you wrote there would always be some negative snide comment made by others, you can't win, so don't even try,

write what strikes you as interesting, amusing or relevant, anything else comes over as contrived, please yourself cos you'll never be able to please some others

I'm not one of your regulars, Dave, but I like the blog and read it about twice a week.

As a blogging man myself, I don't think that you can ask your punters what they want, partly because everyone will have a different idea, but mainly because if you take those ideas on board then it ceases to be your blog.

I noticed that you had jazzed the site up with the tabloid stuff. I went down a similar route about two years ago when I started offering sleaze for the same reason. I broke the story of Stephanie, the stripping stewardess, on the blogs and the hit counter went through the roof. I run photos of the Girls Aloud crew and Michelle Marsh and the same thing happens.

You and I both want more hits, and we go about it in a similar way. The idea is that they come for their sleaze or tabloid stuff and maybe hang around for the rest. Or not, as the case may be.

The problem that you have is that I have noticed complaints from your regulars about the tabloid entries. I don't get that very much and it tends to come from people who hate the blog anyway.

So are you annoying those regulars with the tabloid stories? If so you have to make a choice:

1. Ignore the buggers - this is your blog.

2. Find another hook to bring the punters in with.

Good luck!

leeds loiner -why the tautological name? I have to doubt your claim to be a loiner; every yorkshireman knows that there is no such thing as 'best bitter' there is bitter and there is best but never the two shall meet -except when the bitter drip tray is emptied into the best barrel at closing time.

Back on topic, I really like this blog. I like the fact that the articles are written less than daily which means there's time for some discussion before the next one comes along. I enjoy the sectariana as much as the real stuff, but also your criticism and dissection of mainstream journalism is good without coming across as hysterical. Keep it up.

Political polemic from a strongly left wing perspective with a few transgressive notes and nothing too po-faced. Like it.

The formula needs the occasional foray into sectarian gossip to keep the blog personality distinctive.

Splintered Sunrise. Blood and Treasure. Yorkshire Ranter. Dave's Part. Nothing to see here. Subtopia.

More like these, please. I loved it when you announced you were doing "theory" Dave...and we heard no more.

Some of the best and funniest stuff in Dave's Part was the coverage of Tommy Sheridan. You did not have much of an inside track, but you played a weak hand very well I thought.

Keep it off-beat, fresh, mix the obvious topics with stuff from outside the news agenda.

This is my favourite political blog - largely because it's well written and occasionally humorous. Though it could do with a bit less pessimism (not that I'm not profoundly pessimistic meself but we could all do with a pick-me-up), and a bit more promotion of activism. I get the impression that Dave's just sitting on the sidelines these days at a time what we still rather pompously call The Movement needs activists with insight and intelligence.

You have an excellent writing style.
Good humour, engaging pieces written with comment,opinion and flair.
Your is always thoughtful. generally a good mix of comments too. Many Left wing blogs are unreadable by anyone outside the faction.

Because something is Popular doesn't mean it isn't newsworthy. Winehouse buys a pastie.. who cares.
But gary glitter... There is a whole story that actually has some real issues of crime, punishment, media sensationalism, the unbelievable response of the Home secretary, hysteria policing, globalisation and celebrity.
Why shouldn't you make something of it you want just because its in the Mail, its your blog.
{not saying you were planning to write about Mr Glitter of course. just an example]

Will add my own thoughts later but just wanted to comment on this;
@Brynley
"Some of the best and funniest stuff in Dave's Part was the coverage of Tommy Sheridan. You did not have much of an inside track..."
Actually Dave probably knew / knows more about the situation regarding Tommy Sheridan than anyone else on the English left.

This is my favourite political blog - I mostly like the style & the content. The jokes are cringey though, especially the sex ones.

you're best when you let us know what's going on on the left

Well... I'm not so sure about "I love you, and that's forever"...but, in general, Dave:

JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (Billy Joel)

Don't go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore
I wouldn't leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are.

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
What will it take 'till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you.

I said I love you, and that's forever
And this I promise from the heart
I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are.

Jim

You cracked open the alcopops already :-)

Hi Dave,

Mostly, I like your blog because you're clearly well-informed and your ideas, background and experience are different from my own. Your arguments - even when talking about ephemera - are always pretty good.

Personally, I'd like to see more posts on the grand scheme of things rather than always focussing on what's current.

Anyway, I enjoy reading your blog, so don't change too much. I'll echo Jim Denham except that I prefer the version by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

xD.

I enjoy this blog tremendously, partly for the analysis, and partly for the range of topics you cover, so I don't think you should change your basic approach about what to include. Besides, it's the mark of a good writer that she/he will have a broad range of interests that can then be articulated in the course of an article or posting. I also think that some of the theory oriented posts you had a while back were excellent, and I only wish there had been a bit more discussion on the issues you were trying to raise. So, "don't change a hair for me" Dave.

Dave, I enjoy your blog, i think sometimes you will play the devils advocate to get a reaction, but thats good, because it stimulates a good debate. Keep it going!!!!

you're on my feed reader as I know what to expect from you every day - consistency is a virtue, honest. Well written, thoughtful mid-length comment pieces. Perfect for phone-reading on train (thanks to your kindly including the full text in RSS). keep it up please. ta!

I like reading your blog also.

It was my older brother who first alerted me to your blog, said it was worth checking out and he was so right.

I like your clarity of style and you know what your posting about.

Keep up the good work

The knife post was good in that it attracted a lot of 'normal' people (which wasn't without problems). The difference was stark.

Maybe the knife post was populism, you certainly milked it over 3 articles and hyped it with a tabloid pic, but as you have mentioned before, maybe more populism is good. I wish there was a left equivalent to wankers like Richard Littlejohn or Jeremy Clarkson.

Certainly left sectariana posts can attract large nos. - I've previously compared the nos. you will get posting about Arabia versus some SWP news, but it's a lot of the wrong people. I'd stick to the issue but that doesn't mean not posting about say, LP membership, because that will attract Trot comment. It's the method, not the issues.

Personally I like the 'get with the youth stuff' and the sex jokes (maybe because I write similar) but it's a bit worrying to find that people may dislike that so much - I mean normal people, not conservative feminist moralist types - so maybe I should stop that too.

I think this blog is widely read because there isn't that much competition over quite a wide stretch of ground.

Within a broad definition of Far Left from Labour Briefing to CPB to SWP to Trots such as Workers Power; the big ones are Socialist Unity, Lenin's Tomb and this one. Those like Harry's Place is a lot more right and there are also non serious ones with too much lifestyle stuff such as Stroppyblog.

Out of those three I only commentate here as I find Socialist Unity's Andy Newman unacceptable. Lenin's Tomb politics are better than the other two but it's main author has no concept of accountability or it being necessary to sometime criticise his party (the SWP).

So it's really sometimes with a heavy heart I comment here. I really look forward to a blog written by say a CPGB member or a Worker Power member or a similar individual - or even better an international Trot blog - taking off.

This would be great boon in making wider communist propaganda and will enable me to decamp there and wash that dirty taste of slumming it with LP members, and other political enemies here, out of my skin.

But the fundamental problem with this blog is that it can be a bit like the chat around the card room table in the former reds retirement home.

'Back in the day' stuff mixed with lots of castigating of the Youth, no Reds of today' but with the only action undertaken by most commentators here being stirring their cocoa.

The only activity I aware you do is attend LP meetings (which is an anti-socialist activity). That cramps what you have to say, and your knowledge, when it's all just an armchair hobby.

Blogs can just chew the cud but they will be a lot better if they also act as an instrument for action - Socialist Unity has terrible bits but it does at least give news about campaigns, provide materials for trade unionists, announce meetings etc.

The Left fail to use the web as they could. I've previously stated how we could use it to grow maybe to maybe the media influence of say The Spectator if we combined resources to develop a Left portal on the web.

Well informed comment about things I'm interested in.

Please don't change, and particularly please don't react to what other people think. Readng your blog I sense I'm getting honest opinion. I don't agree with you a lot of the time but I don't read your stuff to have my prejudices confirmed - rather I want to have them challenged.

Dave's Part - the Tom Harris of the far left?

SSP made some interesting points,

Dave's has one great, great advantage over Lenin's Tomb and the Socialist Unity blog, etc: censorship and deletions

Dave won't delete comments simply because you embarrass him or disagree with his views

whereas that is liable to happen on many (altho not all) Leftie blogs, including most SWP ones and Socialist Unity

pluralism is not something that's in their political culture, power goes to their heads, thankfully Dave's not like that.

so keep on rolling, more international stuff !

Keep it on, you were born to do this kind of thing.

I would like to know why you (re)joined the Labour Party and what you think can be achieved by doing so.

I am not taking the piss (well, not yet).

Great post Lenin!

oh sorry, wrong blog.

You'll be commissioning market research next. The whole point about the medium is that it allows you to be idiosyncratic and unpredictable.

No more sectariana; stick with the so-called "cringeworthy" subjects, they are important and, as you said, draw different people into the debate in the comments section.

Huh! Read? Covers Subjects (and Objects)? Liked by people! Related to by the broad Popular Masses?

Liquidationist!

I suppose the most irritating feature of 'leftist' blogs (as with books by self-avowed 'leftists')is the inordinate amount of time spent on slagging off other 'leftists'. Right-wing bloggers don't seem to expend so much energy criticing other right-wing opinions. Perhaps that helps explain why the left are so ineffective in combatting the neoliberal ascendancy?

Most bloggers seem to tend towards megalomania, but you seem to be able to keep it in check up to a point!

The problem with your blog is that you are, quite frankly, delusional: you still cling to Leftist views, including some deranged Marxist concepts, like "class" (and I give "class" too much credit, since it's not even a concept: where did Marx define class?).

Worst of all, you are infected with Eton envy: since your family was probably too lazy to work, living with the breadcrumbs Clement Attlee - the worst PM in the UK's history - gave them, you couldn't afford to go there, and now whithers away mumbling about nonsense as "the class politics of UK of Britain's Olympic success", no doubt yearning for a return of the Soviet Olympic juggernaught and for the grand old days of 1976.

Love your blog, Dave, but one minor drawback is that you do tend to attract right wing trolls like Ronnie Raygun.

I guess it comes with the territory.

Very good blog. Check it a lot during the week.

I'm not sure why populist has become a dirty word for the Left ... here was me thinking that popularity among regular folks was one of our aims...

Blog and topics are generally good - a lot less oblique than Lenin's tomb for example. Not as sectarian in its tone as Socialist Unity. However, commentators are generally of a poorer quality than Socialist Unity unfortunately. Many have very little constructive to say, and often degenerate into snide sectarianism. Socialist U has a lot of the latter too, but you can often find genuine debates going on too.

Yours is one of a handful of blogs I check regularly Dave.

It doesn't always grab me - but it does so more than often enough to ensure that I keep coming back.

Mixing socialist politics and real life is always tricky but I don't know of another blog doing it better.

Ronald, do you have a blog? i have an urgent desire to deface it!

It's good stuff Mr Osler; not broke so don't fix it.

I find myself echoing VP.

Dave, your blog is one of the very best on the left. The writing is absolutely spot on - I wish I had your finesse with the language. And your posts are always thought-provoking, even when the winds of renegacy are filling your sails ;)

I don't think you should drop the sectariana - it's not as though every other post obsesses with the doings of the SWP or Galloway.

But what I would like to see is some more guest posts (when was the last one?) and perhaps another Carnival of Socialism. It's been two years since the last!

Good point AVPS,

what about a Carnival of anti-fascism?

Spiffing idea, Mod. I'll have to make some enquiries ...

Your problem is not your supposed populism, but your often specious and disingenious arguing, as once again on display in that Respect bashing post directly below, where you let your desire to score political points overwhelm you. I know, it brings the hits in, as you get the "yeah get the Respect/SWP/whatever" crowd in, but it keeps the blog firmly mired in mediocrity.

When you actually try to write on subjects where you don't feel the need to score points, or defend the Labour Party, that's when this blog is worth reading. Other times? Not so much.

I think what Martin is complaining about above is simply Dave arguing his politics. They may sometimes be poor but it seems perfectly reasonable, naturally, for Dave to do such.

Maybe my remarks above about the blog missed out on some of the good things about it. Dave's writing style is maybe the best on left blog land and you can rely on the site to (generally) be discussing the news story of the day - which can be a mixed blessing - but if you want to add your twopennyworth to e.g. Brown's announcement today of the return of the workhouse, you know there will be a space here to do this here.

Dave
I think your lovely.
Please don't change.

Dave
I think you have won a vote of confidence!

Southpawpunch,

If you're looking for an international Trot blog that's widely read, what about Renegade Eye's blog: www.advant.blogspot.com?

Is it really "widely read", Duncan? I can't imagine there being too many (relatively sane) humans who voluntarily read articles with titles such as "The Founding Of The PSUV Youth - A Crucial Battle In The Bolivarian Revolution", "War in South Ossetia – a Socialist Federation of the Caucasus is the Only Way Out" or "Capitalist Nigeria Absolutely Incapable of Solving This Fundamental Problem" (all recent articles). I think SPP might be 'up for them' though - they also seem to have the length of your average Spart paper piece. Or is it all just part of an elaborate Trot version of the Onion scam? On the theme of root vegetables, the food pieces on Renegade Eye do seem worth looking at.

On Dave's blog: ok, some of the sexist-ish stuff is, I would agree, a bit, hm, unnecessary. But who am I to criticise? I only rarely write for my own blog, and Dave manages around a post a day, most of which are well-written and informative. Now if only you were more left-wing than you are, and not a member of the Labour party but of something else instead... (...you probably wouldn't have the time, energy or humour left to keep up to the same standards, I suspect).

SPP: tell all about Brown's new workhouses. I can't find anything about it on the web in my usual (crap bourgeois) news sources.

Not everyone's cup of tea I'll grant you but I'd be surprised if the blog didn't get a reasonably high readership, even if few of the readers get to the end of the articles.

Dave
Interesting discussion.
We've reviewed your blog here

I would not change anything Dave.

Your blog is excellent. The articles are interesting as are the comments from the readers. How much of them do you have to censor? I can't believe you don't get more freaks like the one in this thread using the name Ronald Reagan leaving comments which need to be censored. I used to be against all censorship. Then I set up my own blog. Once I got people leaving messages that were simply left to cause offence and deface the site I overcame my reservations.

I used to find your column to be the only thing I ever read in Red Pepper. Why did you stop writing it by the way? Did you get purged? I noticed something of a clamp down on punk elements there around the time you left. The fat spliff the Agony Aunt was smoking in her picture was airbrushed into a cigarette around the same time. I was therefore very glad to find your blog which was (much) more of the same stuff.

I most enjoy the ultra left sectarian news and comments myself even if it is the political equivalent of secretly enjoying the smell of my own farts. I think that your more populist stuff is interesting and actually more important in terms of dealing with the wider world. It is thought provoking to see an ex-punk/ex-Trot take on issues which are usually presented in Daily Mail tones.

I don't agree with everything you say. That's not a reason for expecting you to change the blog . If I want to agree with everything I read I can I always visit Kim Jong-Il's blog. I am sure that it will be worth the wait.

I personally value the 'retired home for ancient lefties'feel that sometimes can be detected in your blog. Let the whippersnappers wear themselves out, demonstrating and leafletting, arititic hips prevent some of us from being on our feet too long. I must have missed the 'sexist' bits, I don't recall any.

Following on from the above post, it could be a failing memory that causes me to forget such sexist comments.