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Even the BNP, quick to call foul over mainstream media coverage, is in favour of Google-style politics. Simon Darby, the BNP's press officer, says the internet is fairer to small parties because it's unregulated. "There are elements within the BBC that are biased against us. And there are commercial people like The Daily Mirror, who ran a full campaign against us. People can make up their own mind on the internet."

The internet also smashes the myth that the British electorate is disengaged with the political process. Broadcasters have pushed politics to the fringe of the schedules - ITV scrapped its flagship politics show, Sunday

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Edition; Question Time seems to start later and later, while Sky One has no political programming at all. But on sites such as YouTube, Dale's blog and Guido Fawkes (which attracts almost 400,000 visitors a month to www.order-order.com) the debate never stops, fuelled by an endless supply of lively, frequently un-PC comment. Politicians would do well to take note: the public still cares about politics.

So will a strong online campaign or groundswell of support on YouTube sway the election when Brown and Cameron face the ballet box in 2009? The US Pew Research Center claims 42% of 18-to-29 year olds regularly get their campaign news from the internet, outstripping all other sources. But until British MPs start to realise that the internet is the best way to engage with voters, they seem destined to miss out. "It's a challenge for politicians, a lot of whom don't come from this generation," says Sayers. "There's almost a structural problem with it - there's an inevitable suspicion about top-down internet setups."

Only when the British politicians pull their finger out will we see the swingometer move from offline to online, as it has in the US.