Left-wing blogs silent on CCHQ violence

The left wing of the political blogosphere has let itself down today. Almost every blog has either ignored or glossed over the violence seen yesterday at CCHQ's Millbank Office as the work of a few or as a distraction, and most seek to absolve the demonstration and the NUS of any responsibility for it. 

Political Scrapbook's runs with 'What you didn't see on Sky News: student protesters booing those who threw fire extinguisher'. Thus the site's only mention of the violence is an attack on Sky, accusing the broadcaster of misleading reporting because it failed to show footage of protesters booing the student who dropped a fire extinguisher on the police. It makes no criticism of the violence, only calling the guy on the roof an 'idiot'. 

Labour List's Mark Ferguson says 'Young people are angry, do you blame them?' His first paragraph contains some criticism of the violence as 'Inexcusable, self-defeating and plain wrong' before quickly absolving the protest of any responsibility for it. It's clear from this and the rest of his article that he's more concerned about the damage done to the image of the protest than he is about the attack on CCHQ. 

Left Foot Forward manages to call the violent protesters 'idiots' and link to NUS President Aaron Porter's tweeted criticism of the violence before, like Labour List, launching into a paddy about how this will distract from the real issues at stake. And like Labour List, this is a blog post about the fee increase with a cursory mention of the violence, rather than a flat condemnation of it. 

Sunny Hundal on Liberal Conspiracy goes so far as to urge his fellow lefties to stop 'self-flagellating' about the violence (I'm not sure what he's been reading because I can't find any such 'self-flagellation'). Deciding not to offer any criticism, he instead sounds giddy as he contemplates the beginning of a nationwide campaign of local protests against the coalition. Then, in this astonishing comment, he laughs off the violence and describes the media, police and Tories as 'wusses'.

Dave Osler on the same site gets nostalgic for the glory days of the 1980s and again offers absolutely no condemnation of the violence, instead postulating that some of the protesters might be the children of the miner's strike and poll tax. As he says: 'You only need a couple of hundred of us and - let the state be in no illusion about this! - we are more than capable of organising civil disobedience.' 

Next Left has absolutely no mention of the protest, just like prominent MP blogger Tom Harris and former spinner Alistair Campbell. Maybe they've got better things to write about, or perhaps they decided that if they couldn't write anything criticising the violence then they'd better not write anything at all. 

Only James Forsyth over at Coffee House, the Spectator's blog, manages any outright criticism of the violence. He unambiguously states that 'It's essential that those responsible for today's violence feel the full force of the law.' Good on him. 

It has been noted that this year left wing sites have risen in prominence and, according to the Total Politics Blog Awards 2010, now occupy 4 top ten places, compared to to one last year. Yet these blogs seem to be far less critical of their own side than blogs on the right. Leading right wing bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes are totally unafraid of attacking the right when they see fit. Conservative Home is similarly unafraid of saying what it thinks about the Tories. Why is this so hard for those on the left? It should be pretty easy for them to find the courage to openly and unambiguously condemn this violence, but for some reason it isn't.