• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

 1 of 11

Gallery

Was it Google wot won it?

Posted on 9 Apr 2008 at 16:39

So which parties are making good use of the internet? "I don't think any of them are," says Dale, a former Conservative candidate, before loyally adding, "I think David Cameron is probably just ahead." Dale claims his blog (www.iaindale.blogspot.com) gets more hits per day than the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat sites put together. "If I was working for a political party I'd be thinking this is very worrying. You've got to constantly refresh, constantly move on. The Tory website has the same look and structure as it did seven years ago."

Craig Elder, the Conservatives' digital communications manager, vehemently disagrees. "We're very much leading the way in terms of interactivity and online video, particularly webcameron, which has been a particular focus since David became leader." He disputes Dale's claim about traffic, and says that Conservatives.com has had "three completely separate designs... in the last two years alone."

The parties might not have polished their online skills, but there are British websites pushing them along. Sayers believes he has the answer with PoliticsHome.com, which will manually aggregate political news and host video interviews. Will the politicians show more enthusiasm than they do for their own sites? "People are very keen. That was our experience at 18 Doughty Street," he says.

Apart from the big three parties, only the Greens, Sinn Fein and Respect are represented on the official YouTube landing site. YouTube's spokesperson says space is offered only to candidates with seats in Westminster or the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, but that still leaves five parties with no presence, including Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party.

And what about the minority parties, who don't get a look in on the prime-time Party Political Broadcasts? Despite failing to qualify for a spot on the UK Politics site, they remain upbeat about YouTube and online campaigning. Annabelle Fuller, UKIP's press officer, says: "Things in the European Parliament never get coverage. The mainstream media never covers them. We tend to upload lots of videos on YouTube - we don't have the resources of larger parties."

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 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.