Pendle One to Go It Alone

Was the writing on the wall when Irfan Ahmed withdrew himself from the Lib Dem Voice Blog of the year awards. He was happy to take plaudits only the month before from all and sundry in the Total Politics Blog Poll, which people are more prone to withdraw from but not from the party whose allegiance he wore on his blog.

Well today he withdrew from the Lib Dem Blogs Aggregator and posted the following.


As one of the veterans from the early day of Lib Dem blogs the only people to have gone off the aggregator since it started are either those who have left the party, or those whose inactivity has led to their removal. Indeed for a while during my own long dark teatime of the soul this blog fell into that later category. I do not recall anyone voluntarily withdrawing from the list for any other reason other than a change of allegiance.

Last week Bernard Salmon urged Irfan to stop trolling. Many other bloggers at times have pointed out to him either the illiberalism of some of his posts, the error in taking everything that the opposition want to say at face value, or the ludicrous naivety of some of what he said. So to want to go it alone is an interesting one. He wants to distance himself from the aggregator where like minded individuals congregate. He still has on his blog his Total Politics Lib Dem lists buttons and the Lib Dem campaigns widget, however if we are to keep an eye on him and to clarify his errors (and I make no bones about using that word) we are going to have to go to him, without preview.

Is this a step to revealing his true thoughts away from the watching eyes of the Lib Dem Blogosphere. He is looking for an independent readership away from Lib Dem Voice actually I recently did a look at my own readership over 90% of which does not come from Lib Dem Voice. Does that mean I don't need it, no it doesn't, in the same way that many others of the 19 blogs above Irfan in the Lib Dem list don't pull off that list. It is a way that the other LDV users can stumble upon a particularly good post.

I don't expect every LDV user to read every one of my blog posts. However, when I do a good one I can't wait for the Golden Dozen, of Scottish Round Up to their their weekly round ups. Or Iain Dale or some other blogger to do their own list of must read. If it is good they will come all other stuff is a bonus, that is why links through are important from whatever source. Of course looking at which of Irfan's posts have made the LDV Golden Dozen shows just how controversial a character he has been, none of them in my humble opinion has been a piece advancing liberal democracy. Also many of the rest of us have achieved Golden Dozen inclusion merely by mentioning his name in the title.

Irfan therefore is either cutting off his own hand to save his face, or really is running before we cotton on to him fully.