A Very Public Sociologist asks “How London-centric is political blogging?” by studying posts on Liberal Democrat Voice, Conservative Home and LabourList between 10 October and 9 November. So how did we do?
Let’s start with the Liberal Democrats. Between the dates there were 84 blog posts made by 55 contributors. Of these 24 posts came from 18 Londoners. The next highest was 21 posts from the WestMids (all bar one the work of the prolific Andy Boddington). The next largest number of contributors was the EastMids region with eight. The next was the South East with seven (but 10 posts) and three apiece for the South West, Eastern, Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire. The North West has two, the North East one and Overseas one. While London had a clear plurality at least every region of the island got an airing. London-centred? Certainly. But overly so? Not by much.
And how did that compare to the others?
That means 72% of LabourList’s contributors were from London, 67% of ConHome’s, and just 33% of LibDem Voice’s. In terms of output, London-based bloggers provided LabourList with three quarters of the month’s content, for ConHome it was 70% and LibDem Voice just 29%. It’s not very often you’d find me congratulating Liberal Democrats, but at least its editors are aware that political thought can happen in the provinces too. That it’s a voluntary operation and both its co-editors live outside London could have something to do with it, I guess.
So, we came out of it quite well, but I think we would have come out even better if editors’ posts had been allowed. Mine from Scotland and Stephen’s from Sussex would bring the London average down still further. Also, as Tony Greaves, for example, is a peer, his post has not been taken into account, but I wouldn’t like to be the person who suggested he didn’t come from the north west.
Our team is fairly widely spread too – Joe from Sheffield, Nick from Rochdale, Mary from Surrey, Andy from Shropshire. Mark, our Readers’ Editor hails from Suffolk and our technical guru, Ryan, is from Lincoln. The one area of the country I really worry about, though, is Wales. I’d like to see us do a lot more coverage. Anyone fancy being our Welsh correspondent?
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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6 Comments
I nominate Peter Black, if he can find the time. vaguely wondering if within that time frame the lovely Mr McGregor counted as East mids or Yorkshire or both? 😉
I wonder if we could get some writing done by members in Northern Ireland – and then we might take the whole of the UK into consideration not some of it.
Alison Goldsworthy may be England-based, but she is definitely a Welsh Liberal Democrat.
I’m sorry – I live in London. Does that mean that I shouldn’t comment any more ?
I too worry about Wales. If only our lack of representation on LibDemVoice were our most serious problem.
I too worry about the Party in Wales. If only our lack of representation on LibDemVoice were our most serious problem.