Brown's monoblog, not dialogue

Following my earlier post on Gordon Brown's leadership campaign site, I checked back with the blog today and read former-MP Oona King's latest entry.

I won't go into detail about the post except to say it read more like a piece of puffery for Gordon's campaign and Tony Blair's legacy.

Having well-crafted blog entries are one thing, but I find Oona's post a little too well-crafted to draw me in and engage with the points she's making. Try this for size:

"Naturally I can’t yet detect my toddler’s political preferences, but given his propensity to end up in A&E (this is the third time this month), I’m assuming he wants more money spent on the NHS. Gordon is his man. This year an extra £8 billion is going in, a cash increase of 10%. Last week we spent a night on a spanking new ward. Out of the window my little boy was extremely excited to watch several Bob the Builders building a new hospital from scratch."

Just on the sound-bite side of authentic for my liking. Although on the one hand at least Gordon is taking steps to interact with party members and the public.

But then you read the comments...

When I first saw GB's blog on the day he launched his campaign I thought: "Brilliant. I bet the blog is swamped with comments. It'll be a good ol' debate."

But looking at Oona's second post on A&E services I found 10 comments which read varously like this:

"I think the NHS is brilliant! ...Whats more Gordon seems to be saying he is not going to rest on these laurals but give us more - more hospitals, more doctors and more nurses. He is going to give us a NHS for the 21st Century and one worthy for the people of Britain! ... Go Gordon!"

There are also some critical comments suggesting funding the NHS by scrapping Trident or ditching PFIs, but even these are broadly supportive. Again, nothing wrong - p[er se - but where is the real dissent? I'm sure there must have been some.... even the odd negative one would make me think that a balance is being struck.

But another thing is odd. No-one has left links through from their own sites. I suppose that's because they may be non-blogging members of the public or perhaps the blog's policy doesn't allow it. But then there's no clear blog policy... and why no comments yet from high-profile Labour bloggers?

GB - and argubly Labour - needs to build a network of online activists if he/it is to suceed in the longer term.

Technorati tags: Gordon+Brown; Prime+Minister; political+blogging; NHS; Ooona+King