Stanislas Magniant wrote about what happened after he gave a presentation about online politics:

During the Q&A session, one person helped me put things in perspective, in the most humbling manner. That person is a member of the Parliament in Lebanon.

Because of political threats on his life and that of his family, he’s been forced to live in highly secure locations, with bodyguards 24/7. And because he can no longer go out and meet with his constituents, he’s resorted to use Facebook to keep in touch with them, to exchange ideas, and to prepare for next year’s election. I don’t know if it’ll be efficient or not, but it was very humbling, to realize once again what it means, in countries where the rule of law and freedom of expression are jeopardized, to be able to get through to people and fight for democracy. By that point, I didn’t care how many applications he had installed or whether he had the biggest friends’ wheel. I was just he was able to communicate with the outside world. (From epolitics.com)

The latest figures from http://www.opinion-tracker.co.uk/ about the online coverage being garnered by the London Mayor candidates show Brian Paddick as the only one out of himself, Livingstone, Johnson and Berry to overall be getting more positive then negative coverage. Full details on their site.

… will kick off at 11.35pm on One this Thursday, and will feature a regular bloggers’ spot on the programme itself and an accompanying minute-by-minute blog of results, news, anecdotes, pictures, groundless speculation and, please god, a few laughs.

Your present correspondent will be in the yellow corner, diametrically opposite to, and equidistant from, Iain Dale and Luke Akehurst. Part of the premise is that we, El Bloggers, are going to try to beat the Beeb on getting results in. Our blogs will be syndicated to the BBC blog and because we don’t have to get it right wait for confirmation, we can get results up as soon as we hear about them from our own sources.

And in my case that means YOU, LDV eggs. If you’re going to be propping your eyelids open at a count, or you know someone who is and don’t mind blearily transmitting some news in the small hours, the Beeb wants to hear from you. It can be exit polls, early indicators, unconfirmed results, unexpected developments, rumours, amusing pictures, breaking news on the tea and coffee facilities… All suitable disclaimers will be in place and you can let me know if you’d rather not be named as a source (as if, you shameless attention-seekers). Choose your weapon:

Comment below. I’ll keep the page open throughout the night. I’m sure there will also be a sounding-off thread on the night which I’ll also have open.

Facebook message or email me. Details on my blog.

Comment over at my gaff. There’ll be an entry there soon.

Twitter at me. @AlixMortimer. My mobile will be switched on and my parents are under strict instructions not to call me and tell me I’m on TV.

If you have a blog and rattle off any posts of your own over the course of the night, please drop me the link on any of the above, likewise if you see anything good on someone else’s blog.

Blogger Chick Yog believed that the Lib Dems are staffed by robots.

This proved not to be the case.

Although some believe our fearsome leafleting capability is due to an army of robotic leafleters, the sad truth is in most cases it’s a handful of overworked activists punching way above their weight. And so it is in LDHQ - although the output might look like it is the result of a fearsome supercomputer processing all known political information and spewing it out in dozens of helpful different feeds… in fact, it’s just Will Howells and Mark Pack, with, between them, a finger on every button on the internet.

Snaps for Mark and Will.

Just in case you missed it, yesterday Brian Paddick had a piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free

Londoners want a serious alternative. Time and again during this campaign people have said to me: “Ken did all right for the first few years, but power has gone to his head.” But they have also said that they can’t imagine letting Boris run a bath, let alone London’s transport system. Typically they conclude that either Ken or Boris is marginally less bad than the other. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but that’s how most of us vote most of the time.

Read the rest here.

Isn’t it nice of Labour to be running a special website asking Gordon Brown whether there are enough police in Downing Street?

So says Hitwise, the internet traffic analysis company, in this interesting report.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, this interesting tracker of online discussion says that Brian Paddick is getting the most positive online buzz, though Boris Johnson is the person most talked about.

What could have been a rather interesting piece about the internet and politics in The Economist is rather undermined by two of the statistics at the core of its analysis and one major oversight.

First, the relative website traffic levels are taken from Alexa. Now, I’ve used Alexa in the past myself and their statistics have their uses - but only when taken with several pinches of salt because, as pointed out in one of the comments made on the piece, they are also one of the most controversial sources of statistics too.

Second, the comparison made between website traffic levels for the BNP’s national website and the national websites for the main political parties in the UK is deeply flawed. Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all have a large number of active websites run by their local parties - far more than the BNP. They also all have a range of sister national websites, often concentrating on specific topics or services - again, a pattern very different from the BNP. So only comparing the traffic to each party’s main national website is rather like comparing PC World with Dell and concluding that PC World must be the bigger company because it’s got more shops. Err, no. Different setups, different approaches.

And the major oversight? Well, a more insightful piece would also have picked up on the very high level of government services that have gone online in the UK. Compared with the US, the leader in many things internet, for example, the UK is far ahead in the ability of individuals to hit the internet and make use of a public services. There are certainly an awful lot of improvements that could and should be made, but a more useful analysis would have taken into account what has actually been done so far.

On Friday night, Brian Paddick became the first British politician to use UStream.TV for a live question and answer session, broadcast over the internet. The 60 minute session was hosted by Susan Kramer, Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park.

Taking into account viewers at the time and since, it garnered approaching 1,000 viewers, with the number continuing to go up as the event can still be watched again via the UStream website. There was also a moderately lively chat channel up and running during the event, which saw extra questions being posed and discussions spinning off from Brian’s answers. A few quick photos of the event are also available on Flickr (here, here and here).

UStream’s technology makes it relatively easy to broadcast an event live on the internet. You need a decent camera, mic and internet connection, but beyond that there’s no cost involved and their software is fairly straight-forward. It certainly opens up a whole new potential area of activity as live internet broadcasting is no longer the preserve of those with significant budgets.

Ustream.TV is one of the hot new internet trends in the US, being one of the first sites to provide easy and free live webstreaming services. Brian Paddick is using it tomorrow night to host a live question and answer session as his website explains:

Campaign Manager Andrew Reeves said:

“The live webchat will allow Brian to hold a virtual hustings with Londoners from the comfort of their own home. Using the internet as a new way of engaging with Londoners will help Brian reach out to larger audiences and have a one-to-one dialogue with voters who would not otherwise attend political events.

“Our Ustream.TV video webchat is a pioneering first in British politics and the next step in our ambitious web campaigning programme to promote Brian’s message of change and serious solutions for London.”

UPDATE: The event is already gettting widespread media coverage, including in The Guardian.

A new survey claims:

Women are far more likely to give away their passwords to total strangers than their male counterparts, with 45% of women versus 10% of men prepared to give away their password,to strangers masquerading as market researches with the lure of a chocolate bar as an incentive for filling in the survey.

Hat-tip: Guido Fawkes

PS I wonder if Grant Shapps has a sweet tooth?

File this in the bizarre but true category: take a look at Ed Balls’s website, and in particular his terms and conditions for use of the site:

The User undertakes:
(a) that they will only view the Information for their own private purpose and it [sic] will not publish, reproduce, store or retransmit any of the Information contained in the Web Site

In other words, if you’re - say - a journalist you are not allowed to view his website as part of your job. Hmmm.

P.S. If you do go to his site, I hope you then clear your web browser cache. You wouldn’t want to be caught storing any of the information from his site, would you?

Labour are losing voters - on their own website:

Stuart Message left at 12:13 pm, Tue 8th Apr 2008
I’m a new Labour loyalist. However, I’m in a *state of disbelief* about Gordon Brown and the Government’s chosen path of hitting some of the lowest income tax payers through the abolition of the 10p rate. I’m *ashamed* of the policy and the arrogant disregard for ordinary people who don’t happen to have children. Don’t patronise us with talk about this tax-hike being necessary to help contain child poverty. Childless people do contribute to society, you know, and to hit those of them on low incomes even harder with this ‘tax simplification’ is reprehensible.

Patrick Message left at 07:19 am, Tue 8th Apr 2008
I won’t be voting Labour in this election either. I earn a good salary but this 10% tax is disgraceful - seriously penalising those on very low incomes. Labour use the excuse of tax simplification - what a joke - most people have their tax calculated automatically via PAYE and those that don’t have accountants who use software to do it. Tax credits are a joke - only 1 in 4 who are entitled are actually claiming because Labour have made it so complicated and confusing.

Lesley Message left at 08:20 pm, Mon 7th Apr 2008
I am utterly disgusted by the decision to cut the 10p starting rate of tax. Why do Labour want to penalise single people who earn less than £18,000 a year? I will NEVER vote Labour again! As I am separated from my husband and have no children I will be struggling to pay a mortgage and survive on less than £15,000 a year and I can’t claim any benefits. Thanks a lot!

Sure, there are on-message comments too, but they were not in the majority when I clicked through.

(Hat-tip - I read about this on the thingbox forum)

Just about every part of Britain has some kind of local Lib Dem website nowadays. So it’s a bit presumptious to make a fuss about the one that I help edit. But we are coming up to our 1000th post for www.onlinefocus.org - and I don’t know have many other Lib Dem sites have written that many yet.

We describe onlinefocus as “News and Stuff for Rochford District” and we started off back in May 2003… You’ll see by the .org suffix that we are not an official Lib Dem site - just like Lib Dem Voice, we are an independent site. (And the address onlinefocus.org seemed too good to miss!)

For the last 18 months we have put something on the site everyday without fail, except at Christmas. We cover council matters, report on debates, and flag up interesting planning applications, with occasional delves into local historical, and scientific matters. Editorial responsibility is shared between 3 councillors.

The benefits of doing an onlinefocus have been …. unexpected:

* The readership is worthwhile but not spectacularly high - we get a few thousand visits a month at the moment;

* The effect on our local party isn’t spectacular either - we are still very much the second party here - but in isolated instances has made a big difference. One chap moved to our district as a Conservative, but had switched over to us before we even met him, thanks to reading the website and exchanging comments with us. So the first time we actually spoke to him he agreed to deliver Focus, and now he’s a candidate.

- One real change is a much more effective relationship with the local news media - we hardly ever have to do a press release any more, the local papers just look at onlinefocus every day. They also appreciate it when we come up with non-council stories that they can use - such as the case of the exploding light bulbs. Because of this more effective relationship, we get a broader local news coverage, and occasionally set the agenda.

* Council officers and people from other parties have also become regular readers, presumably because we write chattily but also fairly. This gives beneficial results all round. Residents will sometimes leave comments on onlinefocus because they know they’ll be read that day by the local press and the council administration.

It’s the unforeseen results that have been the most memorable. Read more »

Two messages today:

Could you display a window poster for our campaign? Just email with your name & full postal address

Then, barely an hour later

Wow - that was a very swift and large response to my message about window posters!

It’s nice to see MASSIVE RESPONSE translating to the Twitter era.

If you’re a keen reader of political blogs you’ve probably noticed the latest bun fight over traffic levels to sites such Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. One bright spot in amongst the postings and comments of, err…, varying quality on this topic is this one from Ministry for Truth, which casts its eye more widely over the Conservative online presence. It’s not a successful picture that is painted.

On the basis that Lynne Featherstone was really the first MP to start Twittering (Alan Johnson’s temporary use of Twitter for his Labour Deputy Leadership bid being the half-exception), that likely means that this update from Lynne is the first Twitter update that’s been done from the benches of the House of Commons.

Conservative MP Douglas Carswell earlier this year became the first MP to blog from there.

Imagine, perhaps, a future that includes MPs doing blogging or Twitter updates as, say, the Prime Minister answers questions at PMQs. It would add a whole new perspective to the event.

As a moderately inactive Liberal Democrat blogger, I read Lynne Featherstone’s piece on ‘are we making the most of blogging?’ with some interest. Her key point was to compare blogging in our party (largely local, anecdotal, and inward-looking), with political blogging in the US (largely campaigning and outward-looking):

What we seem to be mostly missing are those combative, outward looking souls who spot a story and want to help spread or extend the message or the point or the attack.

Or in other words where are the campaigning bloggers? Where are the people who create a story, link up the stories others have sparked, get the traffic moving to a petition site, and mobilise action on and off the web?

I think there are a number of answers to that question.

The first is that the situation in politics is rarely as bad or as good as it appears to be on the surface. Our bloggers do campaign, and the state of blogging in the US is no campaigning nirvana. Like US television we largely get to read the best, or more usually reports on the best, not experience the long tail of low-impact material that we see more of here, largely because we’re looking for it and indexing it on Lib Dem Blogs.

The second is that blogging is a form of journalism, and campaigning journalism has always been a minority pursuit, or rather one that is best done occasionally rather than all the time. Perpetual invitations to give a damn about some perceived slight or injustice can be hectoring rather than engaging. The Independent for example, produces worthy but dull shock-horror front pages every day of the week and is one of the least read national newspapers. You’re more likely to overhear a friend or colleague discuss the latest celebrity gossip in the Sun or Hello than the Independent issue of the day. Guido Fawkes made much this point in his response to Lynne’s original piece.

But people should care, you might rage. Well maybe. But the kind of campaigns that work well by push communications like face to face engagement on doorsteps or leaflets are not necessarily going to play with pull-media like blogs that people seek of their own accord. With a petition shoved in your face you might well agree you’d like to Save the local Post Office, would you actively seek to read about it though? Read more »