Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Monday 12 October 2009

New political podcast - House of Comments

Myself and Stuart Sharpe of the Sharpe's Opinion political blog have started a new series of political podcasts called "House of Comments". The website for the podcasts is here and the first episode which we recorded yesterday is now live and available to download via this page here (raw mp3 file here if you prefer). You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.

The format is to invite one or two other political bloggers each week and discuss a few of the stories that are making waves in the blogosphere.

For the first one, Iain Dale of Iain Dale's Diary joined us and we discussed various issues including conference opinion polls and if they mean anything, Gordon Brown's eyesight and whether it is a valid topic for debate, The Taxpayers' Alliance and their director who does not pay UK tax and General Dannatt joining the Conservative party.

I would be interested to hear what people think about this venture and the first one. We hope to do them weekly (although we have to skip next week due to holidays) and intend to ask a variety of political bloggers from across the spectrum to participate in future episodes.


UPDATE: Stuart has blogged about the podcast here now as well. He has pointed out something I forgot to mention which is that originally we were also going to have a Labour blogger on the first one alongside Iain although they had to pull out at the last minute for health reasons.

6 comments:

Kalvis Jansons said...

Sounds like a good idea. I will try it out.

Kalvis Jansons said...

It seems like a very good quality podcast. I look forward to the next one.

Jennie Rigg said...

Amused that you picked Mrs Dale after all you said at conference. Might listen to it later; I never seem to get around to podcasts. It means turning radio 4 off.

Mark Thompson said...

Jennie

IIRC I said that I thought that there should be more bloggers than just Iain and a few others getting lots of media coverage as it plays into the idea that the blogosphere is largely a Tory thing. I think that is starting to get a bit better though and with this podcast, what we are trying to do it get coverage from right across the spectrum so although we asked Iain for the first one there will (hopefully - if they agree!) be lots of other bloggers, some well known, some not so well known representing different strands of opinion in the future. Hopefully you'll see this as it develops.

I would be interested to hear what you think if you get the chance to listen to it. Also, perhaps you could let me know if it's the sort of thing you might want to participate in at some point yourself?

Jennie Rigg said...

I seem to recall something along the lines of "I could understand if he was the first one they turned to 20 or 25% of the time, but it's pretty much every time..."

How long is it? Can I slot it in when the Archers is on?

Mark Thompson said...

Funnily enough Iain himself made some comments during the podcast asking why he and select few other right-wing bloggers are so often contacted for their views (in the context of discussing the TPA). I think he agrees with me and would like to see a greater diversity in that respect too. Although he did also say that he wasn't complaining!

As for length, about 36 minutes so maybe during the omnibus or split across 3 episodes! Good to hear a fellow R4 listener who also does not like Teh Arechrs.