My first ever appearance on live UK TV this evening, on SKY to talk briefly on the ‘anonymous blogger’ issue. Why of all the bloggers in the UK they hit upon me is a mystery. But they did.

Not an easy occasion, since the intro had me down as thinking that the Times was ‘right’ to end Night Jack’s anonymity, which is not my view at all. Sigh.

The one point I tried to get across was a simple if not banal one: that were I to be a person in the FCO blogging anonymously and rather critically about what went on there, I would not be surprised if journalists and others tried to find out who I was and (if successful) revealed it.

Which afterwards got me thinking.

What if public bodies turned the whole question round and allowed their personnel to blog anonymously in their spare time about their work experiences, subject to some sort of proviso that they not make assertions or accusations which they would not make at work?

What might happen?

The great majority of employees, having a life, would not blog. Of those relatively few who did, a proportion would be hopeless and unread. Of those who were read, some would be mainly positive, others mainly critical.

Things being as they are, the critical blogs would catch the wider public/media eye. The more critical, the better. 

So a Minister would start to have to fend off accusations that s/he was running a ship full of disgruntled people with reservations about the policy line in important areas:

"If the Minister can not persuade her own staff about the wisdom of her policy, why should we take any notice of her here in Parliament?"

What if an anonymous FCO blogger started to make disobliging noises eg about the way Muslims were being treated at work (too generously, or too unfairly)?

A small or even footling point made by someone with a personal axe to grind or without a clear knowledge of the whole picture could create a public rumpus about nothing. Other colleagues might well get fed up having to deal with the ensuing controversy, complaints, audits, investigations and so on.

None of these and other possibilities are insuperable difficulties. But they do point to the fact that the ‘public interest’ argument cuts in many ways simultaneously.

The public (parts of it) are nosey and love gossip, so there is a public interest in peering deep into anything which is not utterly public just for the hell of it.

The public also wants its civil servants to act loyally and work hard to get results, not find themselves distracted by or even given new burdens by daily and maybe unfounded or dishonest criticisms of what they are doing, as posted on the Web by someone somewhere in the building.

Bottom Line?

Faced with all this, any Minister is likely to be easily persuadable that the best thing to do with the current rules is nothing – leave the current ‘ban’ on private blogging/writing anonymously or otherwise in place.

But there is a case for not being silly about well-intentioned internal concerns/criticism. So really encourage people with complaints or concerns to make them known within the Ministry, perhaps on a staff Intranet designed to let people blow off some steam anonymously there.

I in fact suggested this back in 1998 when the FCO was just starting to edge towards the Internet age.

The response? "But how could it be controlled?"

No, fatheads, the whole point is that it will be a valuable source of suggestions and ideas for reform and better policy precisely if it is 100% not controlled. That said, if anyone posts nasty abuse on the Intranet, he/she will be tracked down and brutalised.

Back to anonymity.

Bloggers are not a single category of noble Knights in the Quest for Truth to serve the general public.

Bloggers are the general public, albeit at the tech savvy end of the spectrum.

So within the Blogosphere you’ll find everything you look for: obsessives, brilliant writers, twerps, liars, bombasts, publicity-seekers, weirdos, people writing about cats or compost or the weather, muddled people, sad people, angry people, idealists, pessimists and so on.

Many of them write under their own names, as do I. That allows a ready way for others to try to check ‘where they are coming from’, so as to aim off for evident hypocrisy/dishonesty and so on.

Many use pseudonyms of different sorts and hide their identity. Their choice.

But one thing keeping that minority of malign or obnoxious ‘anonymous’ bloggers from behaving disgracefully has to be the possibility that sooner or later they will be unmasked. And that threat is there because English law does not protect that anonymity.

You get away with being anonymous for just as long as you do, and no longer.

The more you demand/attractattention by moving into controversial or provocative blogging areas, the more likely it is that someone will be annoyed or intrigued enough to track you down and expose your name, with whatever Consequences for your reputation and livelihood may come from that.

Do you feel lucky, blogger? Go ahead! Make that accusation without really knowing the facts, or libel that colleague, or insult ethnic minorities. You may get away with it once again.

Or maybe you won’t.

A beautifully self-regulating system, methinks.

Now to wash off all that SKY TV makeup. Do women really wear this stuff a lot?