Think before you blog!

Object lesson for bloggers in the story of the Medway Tory Councillor, John Ward, now resigned, who posted about sterilising so-called 'welfare mothers' on his blog:

"A pushy cold caller at the door got me so irate and upset that I didn't finish what I was doing correctly".

Despite his rather Nazi-like sympathies (Lynne Fetherstone gave a good example of where this thinking would lead), I actually felt sorry for him. He can think what he likes (and one look at the Mail's comments shows just how prevalent this type of thinking actually is) — it helps no-one if he blogs it without thinking through and in anger (or blaming someone else who's trying to make a probably very small living).

There are lots of resources and support for blogging councillors and many have now been doing it for ages: all the perils are well understood, explained and out there. Did the council actually support his blogging and do any of that, I wonder?

Try Designing for civil society, David Wilcox's blog, and a host of others in my eGov links.

NB: Ward has a really badly designed site - but it's not as bad as this ... get out the sunglasses.