Forgery on the blogsphere + a lot of internet rubbish

 Some politicians, in several parties, think that one Clive Betts is as much as they can handle.

They’re probably quite right. After all, my modus operandi all these years I have worked in Cardiff has been to enter a press conference with the aim of upsetting a few shibboleths.

It’s been great fun, and I think both sides have enjoyed it. Simply because I have always (well, almost) respected the person whose views I have been testing.

I’m the only person with my name in Wales, and the journalist of the same surname who has worked from Newtown is in no way related (at least, that I know).

I was thus rather surprised to note in Comment of the Week from Miss Wagstaff Presents that another “Clive Betts” was writing commentary.

He, or it may be she, was agreeing with a contributor called Daran that politicians in Wales were only small fry because they do not register on a UK screen.

Entirely unsurprisingly, several commentators expressed considerable surprise with these comments. They obviously recognised they were somewhat out of character with myself.

As, indeed, they are. For they were never posted by myself nor with my permission.

Quite a few REAL full-time politicians pour scorn on the world of blogging – and indeed on a lot of the internet – because of its total lack of reliability.

It’s a bit like Private Eye, only much worse. I once knew (indeed, I still do !) a Plaid Cymru full-time politico who sent a story of highly doubtful reliability disparaging Welsh Labour to Private Eye. To his absolute amazement, it was published in full without any alteration or any hint that it might be not quite as reliable as a “By our own correspondent” report in the pre-Murdoch Times.

In those days, The Times was regarded as speaking for the British Government, when that government was responsible for much of the world.

It’s far too easy to post scurrilous rubbish (emphasis on the last word) on the net. If you never read any of it in the daily press, that’s probably because real journalists don’t believe most of it.

If you doubt these comments of mine, just ponder on why Miss Wagstaff has felt the need to delete so many comments.

A couple of London newspapers have started to print each day a short column of blog comments. Unfortunately, I find them rather a waste of valuable space which would be better filled with the views of a competent journalist who knows what he is talking about.

Not that all blogs are a waste of time. Those who comment from a position of knowledge can be of great value; but they are rare.

I gain much more from a couple of hours reading a daily paper than spending the far greater time necessary to peruse blogs, from which I learn much less.

So why am I doing Cambria Politico ? To help the magazine. And, more important, to make use of material which passes my desk for which Cambria lacks the space.