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What's Left?
Iain Dale and Labour historian Brian Brivati have compiled a list of the top 100 most influential leftists in Britain (he loves his lists, does Iain).
Can't really disagree with the top ten: El Gordo, Blair, Scots Nationalist Alex Salmond, David Miliband, Balls, Straw and so on. Then comes a Top 20 filled with Brownite apparatchiks, union leaders and shadowy party communications strategists. The real fun, and more recognisable names, begin to appear after we get outside Gordon Brown's magic circle.
It's unusual, to say the least, to see John Kampfner, affable editor of the minority New Statesman magazine at 25, while Alan Rusbridger, who edits the Guardian, at 42. And is Independent columnist Yasmin "Yazzmonster" Alibhai-Brown (at 35) really more influential than Gordon Brown's favourite journalist, the Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire?
George Monbiot ranks 55. Previously one of the many who put "mentalist" in environmentalist, Monbiot surely deserves a higher ranking than this. Environmentalism is one of the most pressing causes in politics; Monbiot is perhaps its most prominent British campaigners. He seems to have moved away slightly from his "happy natives" alterglobalism of recent years, even seeming mainstream at times. Perhaps that's just the mainstream - or us - moving towards his analysis. Still, 55 seems low. Odd to see Ken Loach, France's favourite Briton, at 94. No-one in the UK bothers to see his films, but on the continent and further afield he's feted as one of the nation's great social commentators and revolutionary thinkers.
Only a couple of bloggers on the list: The excellent Norman "Normblog" Geras comes in at 77, while Sunny Hundal, of Pickled Politics is at 72. Typically the Telegraph doesn't include links to the bloggers it references.
Perhaps there will be more bloggers on the list of influential right-wingers, should Iain and Brian get round to doing that... if only because bloggers are among the only people happy to describe themselves as right-wing these days.
