Here we go again
Welcome to the new Harry’s Place which has been relocated, redesigned and revamped in order to provide a more attractive, reliable and reader-friendly blog - I hope you will enjoy the new site which will continue to offer open comments on a range of contemporary political issues.
I set up the original Harry’s Place back in November 2002 as a place to share some ideas and links with friends but before long the site had taken off as one of the few blogs in the infant UK blogosphere of that time to offer a democratic-left perspective. I realised it would be far more interesting with other views than my own and invited Gene and Marcus to contribute to the site and after a smart redesign we moved over to the bloghouse servers and added David T and Brownie to the contributors. It was under this format that the site enjoyed a growing popularity as a forum for debate about the post 9-11 political situation.
In particular, HP was the venue for heated discussion of the Iraq war, the ‘anti-war’ movement, the Islamist far-right, the decline of the Marxist left, the rise of left anti-Semitism, the slow death of internationalism, Zionism and Anti-Zionism and also examined issues relating to religion and secularism. Those are the issues that HP continues to be known for.
Gordon, Brett, Graham and Adam Lebor joined the list of contributors while Johann Hari had a spell on the site and I myself dropped out of active involvement but despite the changing personnel the aim of the site has remained the same - to provide an open forum for the democratic, secular, anti-fascist, liberal, anti-totalitarian left and - via the comments boxes — a space for our opponents (and friends) to answer back. A change of home will not change that commitment.
Harry’s Place won many plaudits and friends over the years because it offered an analysis (although never a ‘line’) which was under-represented in the media and in mainstream party politics. The views associated with the site seem less isolated these days with the Euston Manifesto having acted as a pole of attraction for like-minded people, campaigns such as Engage having shown that taking a stand in practice can result in real changes and books and mainstream media articles appearing which have challenged the presumed hegemony of the Guardianish left.
Just as politics has changed, in these past five to six years, so has the media - political blogs are no longer, as they were when HP began, on the fringe of debate but have become an essential component of political discourse, read by all those seeking stimulating exchanges of opinion and ideas.
The New Harry’s Place, HP 2.0 if you like, will remain in the tradition outlined here but as it continues to evolve there will be more new voices and fresher opinions coming to you over these pages. The increased use of guest posters, with specialist knowledge, will be given a fresh push in the coming weeks and there are other interesting developments in the pipeline.
But we cannot deny that while winning friends, HP has also always got on the nerves of many people - the Stoppers, the Gallowayites, the Livingstonians and the Islamists, hate to have their dealings finally exposed to scrutiny. Some Labour Party supporters frown at the independent stance taken by the site towards the party and some erstwhile friends of the site find the diversity of opinions here to be unpalatable and evidence of some sort of ‘sell out’.
To friends and foes alike, I can only say that Harry’s Place would not be Harry’s Place if there were limits on the debate here or if there were attempts to imprison bloggers within the framework of some ideological uniformity. After all, we chose our motto for a reason and we are right to be fiercely protective about upholding the essence of liberty which it proclaims.
Welcome on board the New Harry’s Place - “Liberty, if it means anything at all, is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.”
PS: We will be expanding our links to the left in time, including the Republic of Blogs. Please don’t take your absence as an exclusion. Cheers.
Comments
| 1 May 2008, 7:40 am |
Harry, et al,
Congratulations on the new blog. I hope it is even more successful and influential than the last one.
| 1 May 2008, 8:23 am |
I miss the dolly bird at the top.
| 1 May 2008, 8:32 am |
Rather obvious point, thought of putting up a notice at the old URL? I wasted whole hours not getting here in time.
| 1 May 2008, 8:41 am |
HP continues to engage, excite and annoy in equal measures.
We fight on, we fight to win.
| 1 May 2008, 8:42 am |
Love the new look site–congratulations and more power to HP! Just feeling a bit miffed at being left out of your blogroll, but I hope your hints of an upgrade will put me back on the list.
HP has made, and continues to make a real difference to the left. Like keeping it alive and a place of hope rather than of cynicism and despair. Thank you for that….
| 1 May 2008, 8:53 am |
Nice new design - roll on HP.
One niggle - maybe it’s just me, but apart from the couple of posts here from May 2008 the remainder seem to be from April 2007. Has the last year been a hallucination?
| 1 May 2008, 8:59 am |
Yes, Tim, we’ve all be in Albert Hoffman’s medicine cabinet.
| 1 May 2008, 9:13 am |
I don’t check in as much these days, but happy memories of past fights abound! The new blog looks great. Must catch up sometime!
| 1 May 2008, 9:24 am |
We’re gradually importing the old entries - within a day or so we’ll be seamless.
| 1 May 2008, 9:29 am |
Congrats on the new site! Very modern and uncluttered, a big improvement on the old site.
“thought of putting up a notice at the old URL?”
That would be a good idea. I found out about the relaunch from Tim Worstall’s site…
| 1 May 2008, 9:42 am |
Good luck with the new fresh look; it’s to my mind a considerable improvement.
| 1 May 2008, 9:51 am |
Ah, but HP may be decadent. Tim Worstall is crapulent.
| 1 May 2008, 9:56 am |
Unfortunately, the old site is still down. I was hoping it would be up today, so we could put on a redirect.
Not to worry - it will eventually come up again and then Harry or one of us will do a Last Post.
| 1 May 2008, 10:11 am |
Looks like a Banksy design on the masthead.
Nice to see Harry Steel back. He was always my favourite contributor on HP.
| 1 May 2008, 10:11 am |
Was the old site a victim of a Livingstonite-Gallowayite denial of service attack?
| 1 May 2008, 10:19 am |
No, the old hoster was impecunious, and we were basically her only big blog. We were supposed to move ages ago, but porting over the comments and articles has taken an age. Very buggy software, which Nabu Media spent ages sorting out.
| 1 May 2008, 10:35 am |
Looks great. Glad I’ve found you again - a week without HP was like eggs without the sauce (well, that’s how I like them).
| 1 May 2008, 10:38 am |
Congrats on the new digs guys. I am glad to see your RSS is easy to find on the page. I would hate to miss a post.
| 1 May 2008, 10:42 am |
Has the last year been a hallucination?
Perhaps not, but what about the last five?
Norman Johnson’s still waiting for Brownie to say how many bodies make an indecent man’s burden.
Still, at least we’ve seen the back of the Ha”yaya”y “cyrillic”.
Now it’s reclaim the streets remixed.
Any moment now David T will be exposing himself… as a cunning situationist stunt.
Until then, a tribute to Dr Hofmann.
| 1 May 2008, 10:46 am |
Regulars might be intersted to know that HP has accumulated almost a quarter of a million comments since its inception. Porting from Movable Type to Worpress is difficult if your blog is over 3 or 4 gigs. HP is 96 gigs. Considerable jiggery-pokery was required, but the archives should all be up to date in a short while.
In the meantime, let us know if you encounter any bugs.
| 1 May 2008, 10:57 am |
Will we be getting the opportunity to Digg (and similar) posts with your new platform?
| 1 May 2008, 10:58 am |
Brett,
I do not know if it is possible, but can you add a facility enabling those of us in the comments boxes to edit the comment as a spelling or html error spotted after the comment had been submitted was not able to be corrected on the last site? If it is possible, it would be useful to have a time stamp of the last edit so that it can be seen if someone has changed a post that they have suddenly become embarrassed about.
| 1 May 2008, 11:03 am |
Well done, very clean, clear and elegant. Nnevertheless I hope the commenters do not adopt these virtues.
PS: Where’s Benji?
| 1 May 2008, 11:07 am |
Good luck in your new venue. Ever onwards and upwards.
A quick point: will the old site continue to be around so that links from other blogs to particular entries will still work or will there be an automatic redirect to the new archive entry?
| 1 May 2008, 11:16 am |
PS: Two suggestions:
1. Is it possible to have a “Preview” button for comments, just to make sure you can test them for broken links, etc.
2. Is it possible to add an RSS feed for comments - for an example, see Socialist Unity. Saves having to hit “refresh” to see new comments for articles you’re interested in (and presumably, also saves on your bandwidth).
P.
| 1 May 2008, 11:24 am |
David T wrote: Not to worry - it will eventually come up again and then Harry or one of us will do a Last Post.
So HP posters are all buglers too…I’m impressed!
| 1 May 2008, 11:28 am |
Fucking bastardsshitscum rubbish mackem own-goal, piss like and shite.
Where is mi ticket to the opera like?
| 1 May 2008, 11:36 am |
Paul,
I agree with you. Numbers for the posts may be also be useful so someone can refer to post number 186 or an appropriate easy reference.
| 1 May 2008, 11:48 am |
Welcome back. This new site looks good.
Regarding the blogroll, apparently it’s DSTPFW not DSTFW…
| 1 May 2008, 11:52 am |
Comments and suggestions in this thread are received with appreciation and will be collated and reviewed, and we’ll try to incorporate what we can.
| 1 May 2008, 11:53 am |
Regulars might be intersted to know that HP has accumulated almost a quarter of a million comments since its inception
200,000 of them from Benji.
| 1 May 2008, 12:07 pm |
Please add Engage to your blogroll and please get rid of the desperate Google AdSense ads, if you’re looking to monetise the site please go back to the Amazon affiliate links, much more in keeping with the blog.
| 1 May 2008, 12:21 pm |
Looks great but could we have the comments in the rss feed please like on the old site.
| 1 May 2008, 12:24 pm |
Congratulations on the new site & look. I like it.
Picked a suitable day for the move as well.
| 1 May 2008, 12:24 pm |
well done,
nice clean design
agreed preview is a must, fortunately various wordpress sites implement it via widgets etc just a matter of finding the right one
as for spelling checking, its probably better that people do it locally from within their browser (or the burden on the server might reduce response times), here’s quick solution:
1. use firefox
http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
2. install a real dictionary (which scans the text as you type)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3#dictionaries
any misspellings are highlighted
that’s the easy method
| 1 May 2008, 12:25 pm |
Regarding the blogroll, apparently it’s DSTPFW not DSTFW…
… or better yet, remove the link altogether — please. We don’t need/feed the trolls.
| 1 May 2008, 12:25 pm |
Well Harry,Sir, I admire your indefatigability!
| 1 May 2008, 12:30 pm |
Nah, we will keep it up - I still like reading DSTFW, some good stuff in between the retro-Millie stuff.
| 1 May 2008, 12:35 pm |
Retro-Millie? I like that.
We’re not paying the poll tax
We’re not paying the poll tax
Nah, nah, nah, nah
Nah, nah, nah, nah.
| 1 May 2008, 1:07 pm |
This looks modern and organized, very proper, although a bit too how do I describe it ’strict’ and businesslike, the informality of the old design has given way to a no nonsense professionalism.
But this is better, not a haphazard collection of posts. I like the font you are using for the masthead, nicely done. Which one is it?
| 1 May 2008, 5:26 pm |
KB player,
thanks for reminding me, after re-visiting spittle foaming at the mouth Poppinjays I remember why I found it so boring, 90% of the comments there are deleted and some sub-Father Jack crap substituted
shame, cos when they’re not doing a Father Jack they can make some intelligent comments
| 1 May 2008, 7:27 pm |
Congratulations, we missed you for a few days but the new site is worth the wait. Looks fine using Opera 9.01 browser.
| 2 May 2008, 2:53 am |
Cheers, congratulations, etc.
Also, for the fellow who was asking about grey foxes on the Orwell/spring thread, we only have them on the West Coast. Eastern red foxes have in fact intruded on their territory. Being from Massachusetts I think they look odd too. Pretty beasts, though. Like ballerina cousins of coyotes.
Write a comment