SEVERAL regular readers have pointed to the increasingly acrimonious tone in this blog’s comments box, and have suggested that I start deleting comments, and even banning individuals of which they disapprove. However, I don’t plan to go down that road. Well, not yet, anyway.

There are number of reasons why I want Dave’s Part to stick to a full-on freedom of speech format. Not least of these is that I actually enjoy a good old fashioned no-holds-barred comments box slugfest. That’s not everybody’s style, but it is mine.

That’s why this blog is designed for people who are passionate about their politics, and ready to argue the toss in support of their position.

Some widely-read British far leftist bloggers routinely take down comments with which the main writer cannot deal. Others rely on moderation. OK, these things are up to the proprietors, but to my mind, such measures kill the flow of debate.

In almost four years, I have removed removed less than half a dozen comments from this website. Mostly this was unavoidable; some comments were plainly libelous, others identified people who wish to remain anonymous online. Apolitical abuse in obituaries written about personal friends also got the chop. Other than that, I have abided by the title of an old Chuck Berry song as a rule of thumb: let it rock.

Accordingly, I positively welcome comments from rightwingers, including those on the hard right, provided only that they come up with reasoned arguments. Hey, Tories! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!

People like Bill Corr are obviously a million miles from this blog’s openly socialist stance, and yes, I do think some of his contributions are racist. But my gut instinct is that he says nothing with which you lot cannot deal.

On the other hand, this bloke is upsetting sections of my core (or should that be ‘non-Corr’?) readership. Are you guys man/woman enough to take it? Opinions, please.

I also positively welcome comments from the mad as fuck ultralefts. However, I was particularly incensed by this recent jibe from the execrable Southpawpunch:

I agree with Eddie and John above and someone else who made a similar comment yesterday, that this blog is heading way downhill due to the “collection of racists, fascists and idiots that infest the comments”

I think the blog owner needs to decide whether he wants comments here from Lefts, such as myself (maybe he doesn’t) or the aforementioned – as, for me, it’s going to have to be one or the other.

By way of context here, readers may be aware that I am facing a four-day jury trial at the High Court in April, in front of Mr Justice Eady, in response to an action brought by the subject of one of a 2007 post.

One of the grounds on which I am being sued is a comment left by the above-mentioned Southpawpunch, who has disgracefully proved too pussy to provide a witness statement, lest the British state rumble the identity of this fearsome revolutionary. Thanks a lot, comrade.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t give a shit whether our heroic self-proclaimed ‘Left’ ever comments here again or not. But even in these circumstances, Southpawpunch most emphatically is not banned.

So let me throw this topic over to the masses. Would tighter control make for more intelligent discussion, or is it better to reject censorship and let people – from all points on the political spectrum – sometimes talk crap?

At this stage I will restrict myself to an appeal to one and all; keep the comments box political and at a halfway decent theoretical level in 2010, please folks.

Happy New Year. Even if it brings a Tory government and a couple of BNP MPs at Westminster, opening up a decade of domination for the British right as the left continues to flounder in its own stupidity.