Skipper

Jackie Ashley today addresses the question of whether the internet has revolutionized political communication, and contributes much good sense. The first thing to say though is that Simon jenkins' recent take on this topic was a bit wide of the mark. His piece sought to debunk the idea that we are living through a revolution at all, arguing that, beneath the hype of new technology, most things remain the same and, for example, that:

Most people send emails back and forth twice a day, roughly the same exchange as the Victorian letter post achieved.

My experience is exactly the reverse of that in that most people I know send zillions of emails in a year and many, many more than the elaborately nib scratchingly written epistles sent by the Victorians. My son regularly spends hours engaged in one huge multi-addressed online letter exchange. But the topics discussed are mostly trivia- gossip and pop music- or what we grown - ups might call 'rubbish'; Ashley is concerned with the bit of the net facilitating political communication. Politicians often suggest that a 'revolution' has been forged in this area.

To some extent they are right: for example, the idea of being able to tune into an informal address by the Leader of the Opposition based in his own home, would have been unthinkable even a few years ago. But Ashley computes the numbers. Once you subtract the 43% of households who do not have net access- proportionately more working class, and in the north- plus older people, the very young and then the huge tranche who have no interest in politics at all you are left with the reality that:

The politically enfranchised, active internet community is very small indeed. If Guardian sites are any guide, bloggers tend to be disproportionately young, male, angry and rightwing.

Most bloggers reading this will know it to be true. The two most popular UK political blogs are Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale's Diary. Both are well right of centre. The former is exuberantly trivial and entertaining and hugely popular. The latter is almost as popular but is more serious and reflects the fact that its author aspires to become an MP and presumably part of a new Conservative government. If we'd had such a government since the end of the last century I suspect there would be quite a few leftie blogs pulling in the visitors, but the bottom line is that the political blogospere is quite small and is the preserve of rather untypical people.

If the revolution is to be judged by the numbers drawn into the ongoing 'national political conversation' I suspect that there has been no revolution. But so moribund is political participation in our democracy that any additions should be welcomed and celebrated. That doyen of political commentators, The Times' Peter Riddell, last autumn, at the Politics Association annual conference told me he spends at least half an hour a day surfing the opinions offered in the political blogosphere as he found it a valuable extra way of taking the nation's political temperature.

So we are not unimportant. But Ashley is right to remind us that we are most definitely not yet much more than a curiosity, even in the USA where the net is used more widely and scandal mongering blogs have claimed more than a few scalps. I prefer to see the political blogospere, as my picture suggests, as an entertaining and stimulating Tower of Babel. Whether we are an acorn which will grow into a mighty oak only time and I suspect, more technological advances, will tell.