conservatives and the language of the left

It's interesting to note that the Tories are now getting in on the blogging bandwagon as part of their pre-election campaign; Conservative Home, started by Tim Montgomerie, former political secretary to Iain Duncan Smith and former head of the Conservative Renewing One Nation unit, is up and running, and advocates 'social conservatism', apparently.

Like Bloggers4Labour, the site is independent of the party it professes to support, but 'supportive of it', although it operates less like a hub for the right's online presence (as B4L does for left-leaning blogs), and more like a think-tank blog with an electioneering twist.

It looks good, if you like that sort of thing, although it's oddly childish in places - aiming to deconstruct 'leftish' (the form of English spoken by Guardian readers, basically), it defines 'the woman's right to choose' as 'I'm not listening anymore'. Well, quite so; how dare these people - women, particularly - assert their right to make up their mind about something which the right feels qualified to lecture them about.

The editorial nature of the blog makes it better reading that Bloggers4Labour, but I can't help thinking the gloss will wear off when it becomes apparent that, having sweetened the pill by talking about 'social conservatism', the architects of the site will apparently go on to urge the return of 'one nation' Tory politics, which is presumably when all the arguments will kick off. Meanwhile its rival site continues to bring bloggers on the left together without stamping on faultlines.