Today the Daily Politics stages the battle of the bloggers — on the New Labour left, Dolly Draper, on the libertarian right, Guido Fawkes — and we do so on a day when we have a compelling example of how the internet is re-shaping our media and politics.
After Gordon Brown delivered his speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, he was subjected to a three-and-a-half minute riposte in the Chamber by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, which many thought devastating.
Established broadcasters, while recognising that the Hannan attack was a cut way above normal party political banter, didn’t quite see how “Tory MEP savages Brown” made it a story. Then the bloggers got a hold of it — they have made it not just a story but a phenomenon.
The right-wing bloggers posted it and emailed it around. Before long, the speech was racking up tens of thousands of hits on YouTube and, not much longer after that, it made the Drudge
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