Getting the revenge in first

Apparently the Ukanian King of Blogging, Mr Iain Dale is going to write a critique of Welsh blogging on his site later on today. Because of my nocturnal hours I won't see it before most of the rest of the Welsh blogosphere has either torn it to shreds or praised it to the hilt! So I'm going to follow my great grand dad's advice about possible conflict and get the revenge in first.

The first point is, of course, that the opinion of an outsider, is to some extent unimportant. A lot of the Welsh blogs discuss Welsh issues and are only of internal interest, their interest and appeal to the wider world may be minimal - but so what? Wales needs and deserves a forum in which Welsh issues are disseminated.

The population of Wales is only 3 Million, just 5% of the population of the UK. Wales has more blogs and more readers per capita than any other part of the UK! Simon and I may be sliding down the list on the Wikio rankings, for personal reasons, but Wales based blogs still have more than 5% of the top 100 rankings. So Wales, as Chanticleer, notes is punching above its weight in the blogging ring.

Of course there are certain areas of the blogging scene in Wales that Mr Dale can not access. Thankfully he doesn't see Welsh blogging at it's bitchiest!!!

When I started to get an interest in party politics in the 1960's and 1970's I use to attend public meetings arranged by the different parties. OK I might leave them unpersuaded but at least I heard their argument and considered it before rejecting it.

During the Thatcher-Blair era that element of politics disappeared.

I think that blogging has bought the era of listening to your opponent's point of view back into politics because polibloggers tend to read and respect each other, even when we disagree! We hear what the other side has to say.

Whatever Iain has to say about Welsh blogging, I am proud of being a part of the Welsh political bolgging scene. I doubt if many votes are won or lost by Welsh political blogging, BUT the respect that people of differing parties and opinioins gain for each other through our on line debates must be for the common good!