Mary Riddell is hot

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): In the next entry below I mention the strange indifference of the most of the upmarket media to the structures of our country's democracy. An exception is Mary Riddell (but then she is a columnist not a 'hack'). In today's Observer she covers the waterfront opened up by of Brown's proposals and recognises their potential ambition. She has a well written, comparative paragraph on whether a revolutionary crisis is needed to create the conditions for a new constitution. (An issue that has led to an interesting and informed exchange of comments about Switzerland in OurKingdom.) Riddell writes, "Sometimes a new settlement is not inscribed in blood, but traced in the dust of a nation that has lost touch with who it is, what it stands for and who is in charge". She also acknowledges the role OurKingdom and openDemocracy played in breaking the story of the Brown team's decision to change the constitution as a whole (how they will do this is another matter). This is in marked contrast to the Independent's Andy Grice who on Friday morning borrowed all three direct quotes of what Jack Straw said from my OurKingdom post as if they were his own. He then quotes me independently, as though openDemocracy had nothing to do with the story, although he told me he would source it. It is as if, patronisingly, his acknowledgment of our existence was attribution enough - an example of media meanness and perhaps also an attempt by the old media to deny any influence to the new.