Because we want to...

Following on from my criticisms of Dr Richard North's rather snooty attitude to his fellow bloggers, the swearbloggers have also been delivering their own polite but firm shoeing.

Carpsio brings in his perspective, prior to buggering off on his holiday.

The question is really - why do you care? If you're doing that job then great - and long may you continue... I've been a long time reader. But this is a democratic medium, and the second you start pulling the elitist card out of your pocket you sound more like one of the enemy than one of us. Not everyone wants to read a superbly argued factual dissection of the latest piece of EU legislation. Not everyone even can. Some people just want swearing. And why the fuck not? There's a broad swathe of rough and ready concensus out here, but people express it in different ways. That's people. If I can persuade one more person that the EU are a bunch of cunts, just by calling them a bunch of cunts rather than elegantly putting them to the verbal sword, then what do you care?

Go and read the whole thing, and then trot over to read the Reactionary Snob's take (which is rather more of a fisking).

Some bloggers make the news, I am quite happy to dole out the occasional kicking to the Downing Street Punch & Judy Show, fisk Polly Toynbee and highlight the stupidity of leftism in general. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be an investigative journalist.

Often the humour and analysis is about the level one would expect of the 4th form of a second-rate boys boarding school

I don't know. Eugenides, The Devil, Carpsio, The Pedant all like a rude joke. Who doesn't? But behind the puerile humour, sweary words and ghastly descriptions of Polly Toynbee's no doubt volumnous pudenda there is actually rather a lot of high-level analysis.

And this is precisely the point, especially of the group that I am conveniently—and, I think, justifiably—calling the swearbloggers.

Whilst many people are put off by the swearing and gratuitous sexual imagery that we like to conjure up, many people enjoy it and, indeed, find it very funny. This is not speculation: I have had numerous comments and emails saying so, and nearly as many from readers pointing out that they visit The Kitchen because it is sweary.

If you want serious, stiff-backed political analysis, then by all means read the papers or the more straight-laced blogs; EU Referendum, for all that it would like to be thought otherwise, is one of the most establishmentesque of blogs, its style of presentation is pretty much that of the MSM. For sure, it is often better researched for, unlike most MSM staffers, it is written by people with a good deal of experience and background in the specialist areas on which it comments. I respect EU Referendum's throughness (if I did not, I would have called Richard "a paranoid, arrogant cunt, with a massive chip on his shoulder, who should fuck off into the middle distance" by now. After all, it is not as though I am particularly bothered at attacking the pomposity of the established blogosphere).

But if you want your news and analysis presented by a bunch of people who make allusions to the general condition of Polly Toynbee's mons (loose, sloppy, and sparsely scabbed with tired, grey hairs. I would imagine), the best way to feed Patsy Hewitt into the propellors of a light aircraft (feet-first), how to react to Tony Blair (you cunt, you cunt, you fucking little cunt), why Jo Brand is an ignorant, worthless cow then you can read the rather more colourful bloggers.

We present news and view in a way that the MSM absolutely cannot and we enjoy doing it too; for many of us, it is therapy and a valuable social good: it is far better that myself or Mr E vent our spleens online than rant at people (too much) in the pub or at passers-by in the street.

Me? Whilst I find EU Referendum a valuable resource, I enjoy reading the swearbloggers far more. So, in conclusion, why don't we turn ourselves into a relica of the MSM? Why do we blog as we do? Well, as young Billie Piper put it in her cutely chavtastic way in her irritating Essex accent, "because we want to."

UPDATE: Richard's at it again.

Nevertheless, the combined effort of the blogs that did engage, with the help of a cross-party and cross-House alliance of Parliamentarians, the support of Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph and the intervention of The Sunday Times, the Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne was forced to purchase armoured vehicles for our troops.

This does show the power of the political process when it is harnessed properly and focused, hence my irritation when the growing power and influence of the blogosphere is frittered away on trivia and puerile "tee-hee" comment.
...

By his own estimation, Iain Dale's site is third in the rankings of top British political blogs and thus in a position to influence the political process for good or bad. And, while it is not entirely fair to single out Dale's abysmal efforts, his output typifies much of what is wrong with British political blogging – and illustrates how it is failing to capitalise on the blogosphere's growing power and influence.

Perhaps we should start some kind of "Self-Righteous Irritant Watch"...?