Features

The three main British political parties are years behind their American counterparts in terms of online presence, but there's evidence that they're beginning to make an effort. We evaluate their attempts so far.

Labour

The worst of the lot. Labour isn't blessed with a leader with a natural knack for public speaking, but, even so, Gordon Brown's stilted, insincere launch of the party's YouTube channel has to be seen to be believed (www.pcpro.co.uk/links/163politics) - not least because he seems to be talking to a small child about 50ft to his left rather than the camera.

Many of the other videos on Labour:Vision are of talking heads or MPs discussing politicians' latest Labour wheeze. Ed Balls' 11-minute discussion of responses to Labour's Children Plan is indicative of the rot. Labour has gleefully seized upon YouTube as a platform for delivering press releases free from the shackles of Ofcom-regulated broadcasters, instead of encouraging debate or showing its work in communities.

Labour is at least enthusiastic: with nearly 120 videos, it's the most prolific of the three big parties. We asked Labour for its opinion on its site and how it might improve its online output. Despite repeated requests, we heard nothing. Hopefully, it's working hard

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on Labour 2.0.

Conservatives

The Conservatives' much-mocked webcameron at times lacks sincerity, but the party has at least grasped the fact that successful online videos are short and sweet, with none of Cameron's vlogs running to much more than six minutes; most are less than three.

Cameron's camcorder accompanies the opposition leader around the world, and Cameron discusses what he's doing in each place, from meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel in the Swiss resort of Davos to opening boxer Amir Khan's gym in Bolton. The interview-style videos are also much more watchable than the straight-to-camera delivery of Labour.

Webcameron might be a beacon of light, but what about Conservatives.com? "[People] are not going to go to the Conservative Party website because there's no interaction with people," says Dale. Conservatives.com is, however, miles ahead of Labour.org.uk: cleaner, a more user-friendly design and boasting plenty of videos.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have the second best of the big three's sites. Tidy design makes it easy to navigate, but the main focus isn't a news section, as it is with the Tories, so there's less incentive to check back every day.

While the Lib Dems' YouTube videos can't match webcameron for style, they don't fall into the talking heads trap as often as Labour. Videos recorded for Nick Clegg while on the hustings to become party leader are interesting and give a genuine insight into the man. Others are rather flat, but most run for less than two minutes.

However, they score poorly for topicality. Clegg's New Year message was still the latest entry on the site at the beginning of February. Charles Kennedy appeared on Have I Got News For You more frequently than that.

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