Request for Blogs, Answered

So Francis Irving wants to read blogs again:

@yorksranter I never *completely* stopped! omg, yours is still a valid politics blog, partying like it was 2004! any other good ones?

— Francis Irving (@frabcus) March 17, 2014

I was tempted to say that, hey, you hosted the blog all those years, but then the retort is obvious. Actually, traffic has risen gradually ever since the end of bifurcation and the beginning of the self-hosted era, and it’s gone up again quite a bit since the move to Bytemark in November; it seems to be driven by Twitter followers getting hooked on the blog.

So here are some recommendations. I’ve tried to pick relatively recent starts, mostly politics, and ones Francis probably doesn’t read. I’ve also confined myself to English language blogs as I don’t know which languages he reads.

Absolutely heroic reportage from the Mexican drug wars:

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

Intelligent group blog on the US Navy, China, and maritime strategy:

http://www.informationdissemination.net/

BT whistleblower on the failure of Broadband Delivery UK:

http://br0kent3l3ph0n3.wordpress.com/

Punchy left-of-Labour politics straight out of Stoke-on-Trent:

http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/

Yorkshire, Bollywood, and the immigrant experience:

http://bollywoodinbritain.wordpress.com/

My school friend Lola Okolosie’s double hard feminist teacher blog:

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/lola-okolosie/

David Hencke, ex-Guardian reporter now with more time to devote to journalism. Leveson, kiddy fiddlers, corruption:

http://davidhencke.wordpress.com/

Spotlight on Abuse, a blog collating historic child abuse cases. Very much “thank God someone else is writing this blog so I don’t have to”, but while this is a theme in public life we need it:

http://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/

Thinkdefence, spun off from Richard North’s blog but don’t hold that against them:

Home

Freedom from Command & Control, a Stafford Beer-informed blog about public services and management:

http://systemsthinkingforgirls.com/

The Royal African Society’s superb blog on African politics:

http://africanarguments.org/

JW Mason’s heterodox economics blog:

http://slackwire.blogspot.com/

The history of social housing in the UK:

http://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/

Unlearning Economics, does what it says on the tin:

http://unlearningeconomics.wordpress.com/

Frances Coppola, veteran operations/transactions banker, blogs about the boring important bits of banking:

http://coppolacomment.blogspot.co.uk/

Brown Moses, legendary blog on the Syrian Civil War and also on Met Police corruption:

http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/

Red Brick, the London Labour Housing Group’s blog:

http://redbrickblog.wordpress.com/

Watching A4e, a forensic examination of welfare reform and a blog you absolutely must read before going near a jobcentre:

http://watchinga4e.blogspot.com/