[sunday blogfocus] two issues for the price of one

Continued … One of the first off the mark was Bryan Appleyard, who said: Now [Straw]'s shouting, 'Look at me!' again, with his suggestion that the Muslim veil is socially divisive and his request that they remove the veil when discussing Blackburn stuff in his surgery. He prefers to talk face to face. That profoundly repellent slimeball George Galloway has, of course, intervened to interpret Straw's request as 'a male politician telling women to wear less'… I propose everybody should wear veils and have done with it.

Chris Dillow has second thoughts: Was I wrong to call Jack Straw an idiot for calling for Muslim women to remove their veils? Mick Hartley puts the strongest counter-argument I've seen: [The veil] is an affront to an unspoken understanding that in public places, where people interact, you should be able to read their faces...it shows a lack of respect for the open social interaction of the streets. And Shuggy stresses that wearing a veil introduces a non-reciprocality into relationships, as only one party can see the other's face. If this is the conscious desire of veil-wearers, it is to be regretted.

... which Melanie Phillips agrees with but Stephen Pollard takes her to task over: Melanie Phillips, who is a brave and far sighted writer on the issue of the threat from militant Islam, is I think wrong in this instance: Wearing this veil is thus a political statement of cultural and religious hostility to the British state. I feel uncomfortable when I see my fellow Jews in full Hasidic garb. I do not think I have anything in common with them. But would I want to tell them to dress 'normally'. Of course not. How dare I. That is how they choose to dress, in accordance with their beliefs.

Clive Davis gets political: Trust these two to miss the point: The Conservative policy director, Oliver Letwin, said it would be a "dangerous doctrine" to start telling people how to dress, while the Liberal Democrat party chairman, Simon Hughes, dubbed the remarks "insensitive and surprising".

... which Gavin Ayling continues: Jack Straw has been “courageous” to say what he thinks about his Muslim constituents who wear the veil. And I think he’s right. The trouble with his comments is that, as a member of this government, it is expected that what he wants will be introduced as legislation. This is why Letwin has offered the warning that the state should not prescribe what people may wear.

Continuing in a political vein, Prodicus surmises about the reasons for the Straw outburst in the first place: As Up Pompeii says, Blair & Co will have known about Straw's face-veil comments in advance. Maybe, though, just maybe, there is more to it than merely knowing beforehand. Sniffing the wind, I detect a distinct change in the weather. Immediately - and this is a minor point, so let's get it out of the way - there is the Reid factor. This old street-fighter recognises an electoral current when he finds himself swimming in one. More cunning than most of his colleagues - shrewd enough to grasp a trend without the help of focus groups - he sees the electorate, as yet unconsciously perhaps, turning Right and daring to speak out, assertively, on matters of race and immigration.

And Iain Dale goes all religious, quoting Bishop Tom Wright: Yes, as the Americans say, I don’t have a dog in that fight; I don’t know quite what he was trying to get at by saying that … but if for some Muslim women that’s like saying ‘I want you to take your blouse off’ or something, then if they feel deeply embarrassed at the thought of revealing this private thing called their face to a stranger, then the last thing I want to do is embarrass them in that way.

Almost finally, the Man of the Olives sums it up: Meanwhile the CiF column has one of the best responses ever from someone who identifies as a British Muslim lady: I'm a British Muslim female, and while I don't like Jack Straw, I think his argument can be summed up as such: You wouldn't throw a barbecue in downtown Jeddah serving a big fat roast pig.

The final word must really go to Black Quill, who says: Ivor Pinion’s blog conversely gives the drinking man’s view of things. Ivor, married with six kids somewhere in deepest Wales, wishes his wife would opt for the veil rather than eschew it. As Ivor so eloquently put it, “she can shake the cellulite with the best of them now, an’ I must confess she is prone to ripping off her clothing on a Saturday night —especially after a twenty pints. But I joke you not boyo, she can stop a clock at twenty paces an wither away a man’s rampant parts with a grin. An’ mark you now, if it wasn’t for Tesco paper bags I doubt we’d ‘ave any young ‘uns, mirror wouldn’t work you see.”

Issue 2: Expanding your blogbase

Not a blogger himself but a commenter on blogs he enjoys, Scots Tory B has made an interesting statement about how he organizes blogs in his mind:

I have evolved a hierarchy of must reads, occasional reads and weekly [or less]. There are no set criteria except for the political and the ranters. I gradually move blogs up or down in my bookmarks depending on, simply, my enjoyment of them. You and 6 or 7 others are static and others mobile and if I have visited once and found it interesting and then return to find that was all they had to say [to me] then they are moved down and finally deleted. Content is important.

As I suggested, I think of your blog as a wide ranging world magazine, finding interesting articles I would otherwise miss. You are not, however, a mandatory daily read, but the blog equivalent of a mandatory, minimum twice weekly. Take that as the compliment; it is meant to be. Quality is important as are quality links [how I found you and raincoaster, DK, Eugenes et al] [and] consistency [is the issue]. I do not care if you blog 10 times a day or once weekly as long as it is good.

This was touched on slightly differently by DK: After all, it is hardly as though we bloggers do not link to one another all the time: it is the life-blood of blogging. Even if you did not make any of the Lists, and this must necessarily include many relatively new bloggers, there is no reason why these new readers should not find you via one of those "A-Listers" that they have heard about. And if you write good stuff, then they may well stay and, of course, through you, discover other bloggers.

I’d have to agree. How else can we expand our base unless we make contact and how can we do that unless we leave comments and people see them and we see theirs? We can then follow links we often don't have time to ferret out ourselves and sometimes we make a new friend and sometimes we leave it be. Surely it’s not too hard to allow someone’s comment on your post as long as 1] it’s germane to the issue [vaguely] and 2] it’s not offensive?

Oliver Kamm was diametrically opposed to this, writing: I try never merely to link to or quote another writer, for what otherwise is the purpose of a web log? Norman Geras answered: Not all blog readers roam the internet all day, and there's no reason to suppose that every visitor to a particular blog will know about what the blogger quotes or links to. That, anyway, is why I do some of what Oliver says he tries not to do.

This brings us to the purpose of the blog in the first place. If your sole purpose is to write up parliament and chat with your mates, then you’re going to take quite a dim view of the little people in the blogosphere and won’t see the necessity to give them a break: Comment moderation is on. Having a bit of trouble with various newbie trolling comment posters who seem to forget this is not a public service. Get your own blog...

Clear enough message to the blogging community. Far be it for a newbie trolling comment poster such as myself to intrude on his world, which I once tried some months back. On the other hand, someone like Paul Linford, who seems a pretty reasonable sort and whom I’ve tried three times to leave comments with, has as impossible a commenting system as Tim Blair and perhaps that’s the general idea. Perhaps not. Iain Dale, though using moderation, does make it much easier for serious commenters and perhaps that’s the type of attitude which has contributed to his popularity.

Other issues not touched on today are DK’s UKIP Flat Tax proposal, mentioned by Tim Montgomerie and too many issues to cover by Tim Worstall, Mr. E, Stuart A, Serf, Dave Hill, Macadamia, Katy Newton, the P-G, Johnathan, Vox and Ellee.

More on Wednesday.