Why I am writing for Left Foot Forward

A new collaborative blog has been started in the last few weeks under the editorship of Will Straw (yes, that Will Straw). It is called Left Foot Forward and its aim is to advance the cause of progressive politics through the use of evidence and to counter reactionary and conservative (with a small c) claims in the media.

A little while ago Will asked if I would be involved. I have had a few debates online with him via Twitter and blog comments so I had an idea of where he was coming from. After some deliberation I decided that I would contribute to it.

The way the blog is structured is such that most of the contributors have specific areas of expertise and act effectively as correspondents for those topics. In my case we have agreed that I will be the correspondent on drugs policy and also electoral reform. Regular readers of Mark Reckons will recognise they are two of the issues I cover most on here.

The main reason I have agreed to write for them is because I suspect in a few months time LFF will be pushing its way to the upper echelons of the blog lists and I would like as wide an audience as possible for the evidence that is out there on these two topics. Although I will not be able to editorialise as much as I do on here I can point to the evidence which will I hope allow readers to draw conclusions similar to my own.

I don't expect I will agree with everything that is published on LFF. Indeed I have already spotted one or two pieces on there, the emphasis of which I did not concur with. However that is in the nature of a collaborative blog.

I am looking forward to producing articles for them and indeed have already done a few which you can read here, here and here.

I think I am currently the only Lib Dem to be contributing but I know Will is keen to get input from other Lib Dems who may be interested. See the link at the top for contact details.