Watkins on Blogs

Tracy Watkins blogs:

I like David and he’s definitely one of the sharper knives in the drawer around Wellington, but sadly he seems to have lost his mojo. Back when Labour was in power, he did a sterling job of running issues and was the outlet for the voice of opposition. But nowadays he seems to be floundering over his purpose. Cheerleading is okay but it’s not why people started reading Kiwiblog.

Funnily enough, just a couple of days ago, Audrey Young blogged:

Key’s nervousness is aided no doubt by continued critical commentary on the right including from David Farrar’s Kiwiblog most recently on the Boscawen bill

So one political editor says I’m cheerleading and another says my continued critical commentary is making the PM nervous 🙂

It should be no surprise to anyone that Kiwiblog is less “edgy” with National in Government. Of course I am going to be happier with more of what the Government does.

But I do reject the label of cheerleader. Hell, I ignore most of the announcements from Government as boring. And I thought I had been pretty vigorous in opposing the Government’s moves to ban handheld cellphone use in cars. I’ve said many times I don’t support at large Council seats for Auckland. I have called for the anti-smacking law to be changed numerous times. I’ve continued to advocate Nancy Wake getting honoured (despite the change of Government) and have also said several times that the immigration allegations around a National MP should have gone to an independent inquiry.

But I hold centre-right beliefs. I enjoy pointing out lunacy and hypocrisy from the left, and while they keep providing me material, I’ll enjoy keeping that up.

This probably appears somewhat defensive. I think Tracy is probably quite right that Kiwiblog is not the same as in the last years of Labour – I agree. But I don’t like or accept the term “cheer leader”. My purpose in blogging is much the same as when I started – to have my say on anything I am interested in.

Anyway back to Tracy:

Whale Oil: I’ll admit it… once I got over my squeamishness, I quite enjoyed his blog. Utterly nihilistic and entertaining

Nihilistic – that’s a good term for it!

The Standard: They have picked up where Kiwiblog left off and do a good job of running issues as the voice of opposition. It’s a Labour blog in the same way Kiwiblog is a National blog, I guess, so it makes sense that they would fit more comfortably within the blogosphere now Labour is in Opposition. But The Standard is not yet required reading in the same way that Kiwiblog was during Labour’s final few years in government.

I said both before and after the election that I thought The Standard would do better in Opposition, and I agree with Tracy that they are. They seemed to more an anti John Key blog, even when he was in Opposition, than anything else, so having Key as PM gives them much more material.