Completely unbeknown to me a debate has kicked off in the last couple of days about what Labour and Conservative bloggers in the UK will do if the UK gets a Tory government sometime soon. Charlie Beckett kicked things off in The Guardian, and Iain Dale has joined the fray. While this debate has been starting online in the UK I’ve been in Vienna at a Party of European Socialists conference where I made a presentation about online campaigning and participated in a debate about the issue. A discussion about blogging was one part of that.

What, overall, is the recipe for success for a decent political blog? First of all it’s better to be an individual writing, someone that visitors can relate to. Second it’s important to know your issues, get your teeth stuck into something, and aim to be consistent. While I’m a Labour Party member I don’t primarily blog about Labour Party stuff - Britain’s relationship with the EU is the issue with bite for me. And while I might rile eurosceptics I hope they at least think I’m consistent (if wrong). Essentially it’s trying to develop a one-person global microbrand.

So, essentially, for me it’s not an issue of left or right when it comes to making a decent blog - it’s latching onto an issue that you care about. In the red-vs.-blue environment of UK politics that normally means you have to latch onto a party and write your blog about that. Compare that to the experience in Denmark - the Liberals are in government, and the Social Democrats in opposition, but the Liberal blogs are more vibrant and regularly updated, latching onto the very live debate about liberty in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons debacle.

While I’ll personally be in a fit of depression for months if Cameron gets into power that won’t make this blog better or worse. I still won’t have access to Westminster gossip, the lifeblood of many UK political blogs. The only slight change might be that I’ll dislike Cameron’s EU policy more than I dislike Brown’s, and hence my critique could be stronger, but the essential recipe will be the same - try to have a consistent, logical and ideologically-based approach to the issues that matter to me.

So then, lastly, what can be learnt from the very fact that I was even invited along to the PES conference in Vienna? In short, the PES takes a different approach to political communication than the Labour Party in the UK does. I know people in the PES read what I’m writing, and I’m somehow part of a debate about the direction of European social democracy which, by default, has to take place online as people from Helsinki, London and Lisbon can’t physically meet up all that often. Labour on the other hand still is stuck in the Mandelson-Blair mentality of political communication and internal party dynamics, namely slavish loyalty wins the day. Only when the party loosens up a bit, welcomes bloggers of all hues of red into the tent, will anything approaching the system in the US or even the PES be achieved.

As I said in my presentation yesterday, think Barack not Blair when it comes to political campaigning online.

I’ve just made presentation at the PES Activists conference in Vienna on how to campaign online. It’s all straightforward stuff if you’re a usual reader of this blog, but it might be a handy summary. The presentation can be downloaded here (4mb, ZIPped). If you want to use it for something then please at least give me some credit… Rikke Skovgaard Andersen (former editor of Yourspace) also made a presentation about how best to use Facebook for politics - her presentation is here (1.4mb, ZIPped).

In the debate one person mentioned live blogging of events - problem here in Vienna is there’s wireless in only 1 room, so it’s not simple to report what’s happening. So much for the Lisbon Strategy and the EU being the most dynamic, knowledge based economy…

Hell. If it’s not McCreevy saying he’s not read the Treaty of Lisbon then it’s French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner stating his ignorance. As reported by the Financial Times Kouchner today said: “No one understands the institutions and no one’s interested. No one understands anything, not even me.” What a bloody idiot. Bernard that’s what you’re paid for. You’re French Foreign Minister.

Let’s underline it - the French Foreign Minister, responsible for chairing at least 5 General Affairs and External Relations Councils (GAERC) in the next 6 months, is saying he doesn’t have a clue how the EU works. GAERC is the crucial decision making body for EU foreign affairs activities, and it comprises foreign ministers from all 27 Member States. Kouchner will also be present at European Council meetings and is supposed to play a major role in the running of the Presidency.

Yet each country’s Presidency of the European Union is a delicate undertaking, a balance of administrative competence, neutral deal brokering, and agenda setting. The worst Presidency this decade was the previous French Presidency that culminated in the acrimonious summit in Nice in December 2000. Looks like Kouchner and Sarkozy (with his bull-in-a-china-shop approach) are setting out to surpass the acrimony of the start of the decade provided by Chirac and Jospin.

So the Polish President Lech Kaczynski is refusing to sign off the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. Czech President Vaclav Klaus may do the same this autumn, even if the Czech constitutional court gives the Treaty the OK. It seems that the No vote in Ireland has given these 2 populist politicians the opportunity to break cover and public express their views about the Treaty of Lisbon and, if they do deliver on what they say, essentially condemn the document to the dustbin.

But before those that oppose the Treaty of Lisbon crow ‘thank goodness’ reflect on this: Klaus and Kaczynski, like the population of Ireland, have power to say No to something within the EU, but what do the Presidents of Poland and Czech Republic actually want? Presumably sticking with the Treaty of Nice doesn’t really make them happy either. But better, I suppose, to score a few cheap points in the national media than try to behave in a forward looking manner towards the EU.

As the days go by after the No vote in the referendum in Ireland on the Treaty of Lisbon so more articles and statements emerge, asking questions about the future direction of the EU. Today David Marquand (in The Guardian) and Robert Kagan (in the IHT) have penned articles asking how Europe can view its role in a globalised world if it cannot even manage to get some basic institutional changes approved. Scarily I find myself quite in agreement with Kagan’s article - and he’s an adviser to John McCain.

Mark Leonard’s think tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations, has also weighed in with a statement about the EU’s role in the world, signed so far by 43 heavyweight political figures. Problem is that among the 43 only 3 are women, and the average age of the 43 of them is 59 (DoBs for a few were not available, but you get the idea). So while it might be a think tank with a nice smart logo and young boss, the ‘ideas’ come from rather traditional sources.

So, however reasonable Kagan’s or Marquand’s arguments might be, and however much experience ECFR’s heavyweights have, what chance is there that any of this comes to pass? That politicians will be bold and brave in their leadership, persuading nervous populations of EU countries that they need not fear the future? I worry it won’t happen as these commentators, just like Brian Cowen or José Manuel Barroso, are too much part of a political class that is failing to connect on EU questions presently.

Labour MEP Glyn Ford submitted a written question to the European Commission, asking how the €162,387,985 EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) money should be spent. I’ve twice posted about this matter before, when it looked like the Treasury would try to keep 2/3 of the money for its own uses to make up for reductions in the UK rebate. The response from Danuta Hübner, Regional Affairs Commissioner, states: “Any amounts not spent or spent for ineligible operations will be recovered by the Commission”. So the Commission will demand the cash back if it’s not used for flood aid. Now over to the MEPs in the areas that were flooded to make sure that happens!