Alex Massie Alex Massie

Au Revoir, Tom Harris

Blogging is a risky business for any MP*. There are some whose blogs would persuade one to cast a vote for almost any other candidate, regardless of party. But if I lived in Glasgow South I’d be quite happy to have Tom Harris as my MP. Hell, I might even vote for him despite disagreeing with him on many issues. Admittedly, since it’s a safe seat this is not such a sacrifice but I think electing good people to parliament is as important as the colour of the rosette they wear.

So it’s disappointing, even a shame, that he’s decided to stop writing his blog. (At least for now.) He must be one of the few people to find blogging less fun in opposition than in power. Then again, freed from the burden of supporting the government in the division lobbies, Harris’s disappointment with the current Labour leadership has not been so very thinly veiled. It’s not hard to see how this could cause him problems, nor to imagine that his blog – and the attendent suspicion that he’s a dangerously independent thinker – could have played a part in his failure to win a place in the Shadow Cabinet or on the Labour frontbench.

That’s one of the perils of blogging – especially for an MP who has no desire to be part of the self-aggrandising awkward squad whose rebellions are too often simply an excuse for preening. One suspects that some of Harris’s colleagues were somewhat jealous of the celebrity he’s enjoyed in the miniature world of bloggers and print pundits. Most backbenchers are mostly anonymous; Harris’s blog earned him a certain renown. (And the praise from plenty of political opponents – something that might also make the Brothers suspicious.

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