How do we stop blogging from being abused by the opposition?

I have been wondering all week whether I should stop telling people in the ward I represent, in Liverpool (and the rest of the blogging world for that matter) what I am up to in terms of various campaigns, by using my blog.

There is proof that the "other side" are exploiting my entries for their own aims.

I am a firm believer in using as many forms of communication as possible to reach out to my constituents. I have weekly advice sessions (surgeries), I knock on doors, I phone voters for their views, I visit local businesses, I issue newsletters, I write letters, sometimes political ones on Labour Party paper, sometimes straightforward information briefings on very local issues, using Council paper and I blog.

Lots of people are not comfortable about leaving comments on the blog, although I dont know why, but I do get stopped in the street sometimes by someone who has read about a story they want to know more about, and I get emailed regularly by people who have had similar experiences. I had quite a long series of emails with a whole variety of councillors from all over the country on the item about licensing laws and regulations, although very few comments left.

A few weeks ago a regeneration officer took me to one side at the end of a meeting to say a friend of hers in another part of the country had alerted her to the existence of one my stories about our local police.

And on Friday night a mate phoned me from the pub in Wavertree all excited. He was talking to a mutual friend who lives in Preston but who occasionally comes to Liverpool to socialise with family and friends. The Preston friend told the Wavertree friend that when he mentioned to a Preston colleague at work that he was coming to Liverpool on a night out, the Preston colleague said he used to live in Kensington, Liverpool and knew the area well. They then googled for images of Kensington Liverpool to show each other and there was a photo of me at the market.

My Preston friend said to his colleague "I know her" and much amazement followed.

(I was slightly less amazed myself as I come very high up the list on Google for an awful lot of searches involving Labour, politics, Liverpool, regeneration, decline, decay and Kensington to name but a few).

Anyway, all this is proof to me that blogging works as one of many different forms of communication and that I should keep it up.

However, and this is where the point of the post begins - not sure why it has taken me so long to get there, but I wanted to give you some background - there is proof that other parties are taking advantage of the detail of some of my campaigns, to instruct officers and agencies to take action and steal my thunder.

In some ways of course that is a very good thing because it means the residents will get the result they want, but it is also very galling and sneaky and underhand on their part (nothing new there then).

I have discussed this with my agent and others, and some think that I should stop providing information that can be nicked and used against us, but others say that it will be a crying shame if such a good example of best practice is stopped.

I dont want to get into specifics and finger-pointing because that is not the purpose of this debate, I would like to hear views about blogging, the opposition, case-work and campaigning, should I stop doing it or stand up to them?

And lets have the debate in here for a change, instead of out on the street and by email - you can post anonymously, I wont mind.