Politicians of all colours ought to be embracing the internet with gusto, but British political parties appear to be falling behind other countries when it comes to using the web to market themselves and their policies. Visit any of the three main party websites and you’ll come away wondering why you had bothered. They’re uniformly dull, tedious and worst of all, non-interactive. They talk ‘at’ people rather than converse with them. It is small wonder that several political blogs attract more hits than the three main party websites put together.
Everyone expects the next general election to be the first ‘internet’ election, in which political parties compete for votes using technical wizardry and web know-how. In some ways they will be right, as money previously poured into billboard advertising is used to place banner advertising on websites, but that is as far as it may go. None of the parties are remotely geared up for fighting an election on the internet and they have squandered the opportunities presented to them over the last two years to build up their internet presence.
The Conservatives (www.conservatives.com) still operate a website which, although it has had a (terrible) design makeover, is still operating on back-end technology originally built in 2000. The site is seven years out of date, which in internet terms is more akin to seven decades. It is difficult to navigate, search and use and needs replacing urgently. Despite these difficulties it is still better than Labour’s offering, (www.labour.org.uk) which treats its users as if they had a mental age of five.
The LibDems’ site (www.libdems.org.uk) is very, er, yellow, but its functionality is simple and it does what it says on the tin. But still there is no attempt to involve the user. If you want to find Ming Campbell’s greatest speeches or a list of LibDem press releases the LibDem website is the place for you. But apart from signing up to email lists, there is nowhere for people to give their own views. And perish the thought that you should want to email someone at party HQ. Each of the three parties appears to make it as difficult as possible for you to contact them.
In truth, the internet frightens politicians. They don’t like what they cannot control. Because they can’t control it, they see it as a threat rather than an opportunity. They view websites and blogs as time consuming and dangerous, containing words and information which could be held against them at some point in the future. What other explanation can there be for the fact that only thirty out of 650 MPs have blogs?
Blogs cost nothing to run, offer an opportunity to bypass the mainstream media filters and editors, reach voters directly. You would think that every MP would want one, and want one now. But MPs love to quote the rare occasions when a blog has blown up in a politician’s face as a reason not to have one. Ann Widdecombe (www.annwiddecombemp.com) says that if she was a young MP, starting her career she would undoubtedly blog, but is now too set in her ways. Two MPs with successful blogs can’t imagine life without them. Labour MP Derek Wyatt (http://www.derekwyatt.co.uk/), who sits on a very narrow majority of only 79 votes, says his blog gives him control of his message. “It shows voters what I do.” He maintains more than a million people accessed his website over the last twelve months. Tory MP Nadine Dorries (http://www.dorries.org.uk/Blog.aspx) says she blogs “to provide a forum by which my constituents can really get to know me, my values and what I stand for - and, if they wish, take issue with what I write via the comments facillity.” Her blog has become cult reading among MPs of all colours. She’s honest, lets her emotions run riot and a breath of fresh air. But may Tory MPs use her blog as a good reason for them not to follow suit. She’s so honest that her opinions have got her into trouble with the Tory whips on more than one occasion. The phrase ‘publish and be damned’ could have been invented for her.
As my recently published GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING 2007 will show, the size of the British political blogosphere has doubled in the last year. There are now more than 1,200 political blogs in the UK, each with its own slightly anarchic view of the political world – and this doesn’t even include the thousands of people who have started to blog on the Telegraph blog platform. The truth is, everyone has an opinion, and a blog gives people the chance to voice it. For political parties this can be uncomfortable. Their priority is to keep people ‘on message’ and deliver the same message all over the country. The slightly anarchic nature of blogging makes it more difficult for them. Not only MPs have shied away from blogs but so have political candidates. Perhaps understandably, they think that if they go slightly off message they will be reprimanded and disciplined by those on high. Bearing in mind how difficult it is for candidates (as opposed to incumbents) to get publicity, you’d think every candidate would want a blog. Far from it. Fewer than thirty Conservative candidates have them. The only way that will change is if CCHQ issues an edict that all candidates should embrace blogging as a key part of their campaigns.
So if the political parties are failing to use the internet to open up democracy to the masses, who is? The answer is you. Individuals all over the world are discovering that they can make their voices heard, whether it is to protest, educate or inform. Gone are the days when the only way a citizen could make his voice heard would be to write to the letters page of the local newspaper. Email, blogs and websites have opened up a whole new world of empowerment of the individual. You want to protest at the failure of the government to hold a referendum on the EU constitution? Sign the petition on the Daily Telegraph website. You want to tell me that my fortnightly column in the Telegraph is rubbish? You can leave your own views at the end of the online version of the article for all (including me) to read. You want to find out if there are others, like you, who care about the imminent extinction of the Lesser Spotted Weevil? Google will tell you. Online democracy is here and it is here to stay.
But just how democratic is it? Some say the internet is an elitist institution as it is not accessible by everyone. Around 65% of British households are now online. With the proliferation of internet cafes and the provision of internet terminals in public libraries virtually everyone can get online if they really want to. Barriers to entry are incredibly low, with Broadband connections now available for as little as £10 per month. The day will soon dawn when direct democracy could, in theory, replace our traditional Burkian representative democracy. The OUR SAY (www.our-say.org) campaign for people to have a more direct say in the way they are governed will gather pace.
The online petitions on the Number Ten Downing Street website (www.number10.gov.uk) are the first manifestation of direct democracy in action. In the past I have been very sceptical of their value, but in recent months one or two of them have genuinely reflected public opinion - the anti road pricing petition being the best example. I would have more time for them if I genuinely believed that at the end of each week the Top Ten petitions were actually shown to the Prime Minister, or a debate was held in Parliament on the petition with the highest number of signatures. That day may well come. It may be a flawed system as it is currently set up, but it has let the direct democracy genie out of the bottle.
We have much to learn about politics on the internet from other countries, particularly the USA, but also France. In part, we have fallen behind them because of the nature of our political system. Both the USA and France know exactly when their elections are going to be held and can plan accordingly. In the USA political websites are not just used for campaigning but for raising money too. American websites concentrate much more on the individual candidate rather than a party policy platform.
Hillary Clinton (www.hillaryclinton.com) used her website to announce her presidential candidacy. All are using web videos in a way previously unthought of. Mitt Romney (www.mittromney.com), for example, is using his site to counter the fears of people who are worried by the fact he is a Mormon. He can’t rely on the media to do it for him so he does it himself via a plethora of campaign videos on his website. But the biggest explosion has been the number of individuals and groups making their own campaign commercials in support of a particular candidate – or more likely to denigrate an opponent. Nearly four million people have viewed a home-made Youtube video portraying Hillary Clinton as Big Brother (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo). Just type any of the US candidates’ names into the Youtube search engine and the chances are you will be regaled by a host of videos saying either how wonderful a candidate is or the opposite. Is this healthy for the democratic process? You decide.
All the presidential candidates have hired so-called ‘professional bloggers’ to harness the American political blogosphere to support them. Perish the thought that UK political parties should recruit bloggers to their cause. It would completely the whole point of political blogs, but rest assured, we are already seeing the advent of US style campaign commercials in the UK, not just made by political candidates, but by pressure groups too. In this year’s local elections South Norfolk Conservatives made a two minute commercial outlining their manifesto and showcasing some of their candidates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQhESF6gr_k). They won by a landslide. However, Eastbourne Conservatives made a slightly glitzier version and were defeated (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EzPgXDNz-E). Neither of these videos were viewed by enough people to have made the difference one way or another, but in a few marginal seats, this sort of campaigning could make the difference between winning and losing.
The last year has also seen the advent of political internet TV in the UK. It was used extensively by the two French presidential candidates to market themselves earlier this year. Sarkozy TV was a huge hit, with twelve million people viewing it at some point during his victorious presidential campaign.
So far none of the three political parties in this country have shown much interest in developing their own internet TV stations, preferring to stick to making three minute videos. The Conservatives’ WebCameron was truly groundbreaking in this field, but has been allowed to wither on the vine, with the site being updated only sporadically. Labour’s YouTube channel, launched with much fanfare earlier in the year, has incredibly not been updated for two months.
Within five years, each of the three political parties will be running their own 24 hour a day internet TV channel. Each of them complain bitterly about media bias, or lack of attention. Now they have the opportunity to bypass the mainstream media and get their message out directly to people. It will need to be carefully planned but 18 Doughty Street, Britain’s first political internet TV channel, has shown that it can be done, and done at a reasonable cost.
Politics on the internet is still in its infancy in this country. While we are light years ahead of most European countries we are several years behind America in adopting internet campaigning as a core part of our election strategies. The political party which puts the necessary resources into internet campaigning will be the one to reap the electoral rewards. Sadly, I see little sign of it happening.
Iain Dale’s blog is at http://iaindale.blogspot.com
Britain’s Top Twenty Political Blogs*
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1 |
Iain Dale's Diary |
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2 |
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3 |
Dizzy Thinks |
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4 |
Conservative Home |
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5 |
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6 |
Devil's Kitchen |
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7 |
Croydonian |
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8 |
Nick Robinson |
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9 |
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10 |
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11 |
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12 |
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13 |
Archbishop Cranmer |
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14 |
Benedict Brogan |
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15 |
Tim Worstall |
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16 |
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17 |
Norfolk Blogger |
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18 |
Paul Linford |
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19 |
Prague Tory |
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20 |
As voted by 500 readers of Iain Dale’s Diary
From Iain Dale’s Guide to Political Blogging 2007, published by Harriman House, £12.99
