Category Archives: Online politics

Alex Foster

Revamp for Prater Raines sites

By Alex Foster | Tue 11th August 2009 - 8:50 am

An email arrives from web guru and Lib Dem county councillor Tim Prater, who is the public-facing half of Prater Raines, the hugely successful company that now supply local websites to a large proportion of the nation’s Liberal Democrat local parties, council groups and MPs. (The full, awesome list, from Aberconwy to Yorkshire and the Humber is here). It’s no small boast that they probably run more political websites than anyone else in the country.

They have a good track record of innovating and keeping content going online. But things have changed in the seven years since they first started to provide their content management system to the party, and they are now proposing a major upgrade to the service they offer.

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Also posted in News | Tagged | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

Are Tory bloggers less trustworthy than Labour or Lib Dem ones?

By Mark Pack | Fri 7th August 2009 - 9:56 pm

Rather bizarrely, that looks to be the view of the Conservative Party’s Press Office. At the tail end of July, their attitude towards bloggers caught some attention following the refusal of a Conservative press officer to even email an already published letter to a Conservative blogger.

PR Week this week reports that the Conservatives have now changed tack somewhat:

The party has adapted its blogger relations policy after a staffer caused a storm in the Tory blogosphere by admitting the party’s press office does not consider blogs ‘important’…

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Helen Duffett

Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2009

By Helen Duffett | Thu 6th August 2009 - 5:06 pm

The Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, run in conjunction with Lib Dem Voice, are back for their fourth year. As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony at the party’s autumn conference in Bournemouth. (There’s further information on the event over at the Lib Dems’ Flock Together site). Click on the following links to see last year’s Shortlist and the Winners.

This year’s awards are as follows:

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Also posted in Best of the blogs and Conference | Tagged and | 7 Comments
Mark Pack

Full disclosure: what should be disclosed and documented on a political website?

By Mark Pack | Fri 31st July 2009 - 2:45 pm

I’ve been asked by someone creating a new website to give some advice on what legal and other text they should have on the site. Imprint – obviously. Reference to data protection and, it being a Lib Dem site, being covered by the party’s data protection registration for petition data and so on. Also a good idea to write down the moderation policy (note to self: remember to add one to my own blog).

But exactly what words to use for the moderation policy? And what else to say? Perhaps in the interests of financial transparency any affiliate links (e.g. to …

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2 Comments
Mark Pack

Parliament edges towards allowing footage to be put on YouTube

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th July 2009 - 1:40 pm

Good news from Section 10 of the minutes of a recent meeting of the Commons Administration Committee: slowly, cautiously the House of Commons is moving towards allowing Parliamentary footage to be put up on YouTube.

Credit to Jo Swinson, who has been campaigning steadily on the issue and kept it going through the slow wheels of Parliamentary decision-making.

Here’s the relevant part of the minutes:

The Committee considered a paper from the Director of Broadcasting (Tim Jeffes), about the use of parliamentary footage on searchable websites. As agreed by the Committee at a previous meeting, he had agreed with PARBUL a

…

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Also posted in Parliament | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Japan adds Twitter to the list of internet services banned in elections

By Mark Pack | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 8:48 am

Last year I blogged about the unusual attitude towards the internet in Japan:

It’s been a democracy for over 50 years.

60% of its population has access to high speed broadband.

More blogs are written in its native language than in any other language.

And the country is … Japan, where: “Once an official campaign has started, candidates are barred from updating their

…

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Alex Foster

When twitter gets… heated

By Alex Foster | Sat 18th July 2009 - 6:29 pm

A friend sends me a link to a news story about a spat between two councillors – one being interviewed on the radio, and the other responding simultaneously – and robustly – via Twitter.

The story is here – but don’t click it if mild profanity might offend.

Like so many things, there’s the funny side of the story, which is why the link was sent, and the salutary lesson. In this case the lesson is that twitter is very informal and can sometimes encourage the use of, erm, unparliamentary language. And should you be an elected representative, swearing …

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Sarah McCulloch

Opinion: Calling all #libdem supporters – it’s time to tweet

By Sarah McCulloch | Fri 17th July 2009 - 4:00 pm

Twitter, for those who don’t know, is an online social network where people can post 140 character messages known as “tweets”. Tweets can be a cool link you found, a question to your followers, or just an idle comment about what you’re doing. Although small at 5 million users (Facebook has 60m), its annual growth stands at over 1000% (200% for Facebook). It’s pretty hot stuff.

Now, I don’t know whether any of the Twitter users who read Lib Dem Voice have checked recently, but a tweet search for “libdem” makes pretty depressing reading (Non-Twitter users can check it …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick gets the Twitter-bug

By Stephen Tall | Wed 15th July 2009 - 8:55 pm

The Lib Dem leader is having, it appears, a tweet-tastic week. On Monday he reclaimed his @nick_clegg Twitter profile from a party supporter who had been sending messages on his behalf. Yesterday, Tuesday, was his #askclegg online ‘Town Hall’ Reuters meeting. And today, Wednesday, was his ‘Twinterview’ (not my neologism, I promise you) with the Indy, which m’colleague Helen Duffett highlighted here.

Well, the interview happened, through a combination of Twitter text, 12seconds videos and audioBoo podcasting – and the final results can be read, viewed and listened to over at the Indy’s site HERE.

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Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg in Twitter-only interview: 4pm today

By Helen Duffett | Wed 15th July 2009 - 12:12 pm

From the Independent:

Twitterers and readers of the Independent are to interview Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg on Wednesday, in a question and answer session delivered purely through Twitter. It will take place live on Wednesday July 15th at 4pm (BST).

So we’re looking for Twitterers around the world to join with us to help put questions to Mr Clegg – we are working with Tweetminster, the estimable company that focuses on UK politics and brings news and commentary together with its Twitter service (of which, more soon), and we will launch the first ever (well, so far as

…

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Helen Duffett

Nick Clegg at Reuters: the highlights #askclegg

By Helen Duffett | Tue 14th July 2009 - 11:51 pm

Nick Clegg received hundreds of questions yesterday during his “Ask Clegg” event with Reuters. It was an online version of the Lib Dem leader’s Town Hall meetings, where members of the public were invited to ask Nick any question they liked.

These were received in a variety of ways, including via the Reuters website, on Twitter and even from Christian Payne (aka @Documentally) in the back of a London cab:

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem MPs “more likely to be on Facebook than members of any other party”

By Stephen Tall | Mon 13th July 2009 - 9:00 pm

That’s the finding of the Hansard Society research paper MPs on Facebook:

while over half (51%) of Liberal Democrat MPs have a presence on Facebook, the figures for Labour and the Conservatives are 15% and 9%, respectively. … On a per-party basis, Liberal Democrats MPs appeared more likely to see Facebook as a communications tool (69%) but were the least likely to have personal or inactive pages. Conservative MPs were as likely to have a campaigning page as a personal one (24%) but were still most likely to be using Facebook as a communications tool (41%). Labour were the party

…

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Helen Duffett

Nick live online now in virtual Town Hall Meeting #askclegg

By Helen Duffett | Mon 13th July 2009 - 1:18 pm

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg is taking questions live now at an online social media event at Reuters.

Watch here, but most importantly, put your questions to him!

You can do this at the Reuters website, or via Twitter – remember to include the hashtag #askclegg in your tweets so that they will be picked up and passed on.

I’m at Lib Dem HQ with Lynne Featherstone MP, chair of the Liberal Democrat Technology Board, and we’ll be passing on questions from grassroots activists gathered here.

You can also ask questions in the comments thread below – until 2pm today.

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Also posted in News | Tagged and | 1 Comment
Helen Duffett

UPDATED: Facebook disables Tom Brake’s account

By Helen Duffett | Fri 10th July 2009 - 11:17 am

Tom Brake has now managed to get in contact with Facebook who have advised him that his account was automatically suspended when their system detected an unusually large amount of traffic to and from his account.

Clearly, a social network originally set up for networking amongst university peers needs to evolve to cope with new types of users and their networks, balancing communications amongst large groups with safeguards against spam.

Facebook say they are working hard to get Tom’s account back up.

Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, has had his Facebook account disabled just hours after he used …

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Also posted in News | Tagged and | 14 Comments
Alex Foster

Top RSS tips for local campaigners

By Alex Foster | Fri 10th July 2009 - 11:14 am

The attentive amongst you will have spotted amongst the 30 tips from m’colleague Mark Park for aspirant politicians:

Subscribe to at least 20 sites using an RSS reader, 10 of which are not party political. Using an RSS (feed) reader is a huge time-saver and an effective way of keeping up with news and information. But there’s no point just being an expert on party politics if you want to be an elected official.

RSS readers are many and various – my favoured one is Google Reader – and having just returned from engaging in another of Mark’s tips, a week …

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Also posted in Local government | Tagged , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Helen Duffett

Join Nick Clegg online for The Great Debate

By Helen Duffett | Thu 9th July 2009 - 2:31 pm

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Also posted in Lib Dem TV, News and YouTube | Tagged , , , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

How are Lib Dem councillors using Twitter/Facebook?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 30th June 2009 - 3:00 pm

Today’s Times reports on the growth of Twitter and Facebook among councillors, noting in particular the work of one Lib Dem councillor/blogger, Daisy Benson:

Daisy Benson, a Liberal Democrat member of Reading Borough Council, used Facebook to encourage young people to take part in a scrutiny review of the standard of private rented housing in the area. “I used it because the issue we were looking at particularly affected students and young people and it’s a good way to reach them.”

Benson set up a Facebook group and listed the consultation questions. The group attracted more than 80 members. Among

…

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Mark Pack

What happens when you change your email address?

By Mark Pack | Tue 23rd June 2009 - 1:10 pm

Winding up usage of my old work email address in the last few weeks, after using it for nearly a decade, has given me far more experience than I’ve ever wanted about the idiosyncracies of trying to change your email address on different lists and for different organisations and firms.

(Double black marks to the people running some of the Barack Obama email lists who (a) don’t tell you how to change your address, (b) don’t tell you have to join the list from your new address and (c) don’t reply if you contact them. But then, as you may have heard …

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Mark Thompson

Twitter and the rise of new media

By Mark Thompson | Sat 20th June 2009 - 1:55 pm

Something fascinating happened yesterday. I was browsing through one of the internet forums I regularly visit when I noticed someone posting that people should go to the Daily Mail poll page on their website and vote yes to the poll that asks “Should gypsies jump the queue on the NHS?” in order to mess with them.

When I got to the page and duly voted “Yes” I was astonished to see that the poll was at 93% Yes and 7% No. The forum I refer to has nowhere near enough people to make a dent in the thousands who vote in …

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Helen Duffett

Which party’s winning on the web?

By Helen Duffett | Fri 19th June 2009 - 9:20 am

PR Week has a piece comparing the online strategies of the UK’s three main political parties. With a nod or two towards Obama’s use of social media, the article presents a report card on each party, compiled by their panel of experts.

Each party is examined on its approach, key players, leader and the involvement of MPs and grassroots.

The Conservatives are found to have “attracted the most plaudits so far,” while Labour’s “command and control mentality” is said to be hampering their efforts.

The verdict on the Liberal Democrats is that our “overall understanding of social media is impressive” but that …

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Mark Pack

How to make the most of Facebook, part 2

By Mark Pack | Sun 7th June 2009 - 12:47 pm

June’s edition of Total Politics carries the second part of a two part series from me about how people in politics can get the most out of Facebook.

In the May edition of Total Politics, I went through some of the steps to get started with using Facebook, including getting your privacy settings right and pulling in content from elsewhere. But once you’ve done that, what next?

Facebook groups are a good place to start. You can hunt out groups that cover issues or organisations in your patch and also set up one or more groups to compliment your own …

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Helen Duffett

Video: Nick Clegg on the European Elections

By Helen Duffett | Thu 4th June 2009 - 12:56 pm

Nick Clegg gets a lot of questions via Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Friend Connect, as well as through his website, NickClegg.com.

He’s just made a new YouTube video with answers to some of the questions he’s received through his social networks:

What does Nick think of compulsory voting? The Lisbon Treaty? Watch and find out:

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Also posted in Europe / International and YouTube | Tagged , and | Leave a comment

Opinion: e-Campaigning in Kent

By Alex Perkins | Wed 3rd June 2009 - 11:30 pm

So I’m sitting in front of my laptop desperately trying to think of some new way to campaign that will complement shoving pieces of paper through letter boxes and isn’t just having yet another website.

I’m quite convinced, by the way, that only a limited percentage of even the best leaflets get read on their way to the recycling bin – and many local party websites only get visited by activists anyway.

And then my mind goes back to the lecture I attended at City University by the bloke who did Obama’s e-campaigning – and suddenly the brains …

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Mark Pack

Have you got your virtual window poster up?

By Mark Pack | Sun 31st May 2009 - 9:20 am

Window posters have a key role to play in many winning Liberal Democrat election campaigns because the more likely people think we are to win, the most likely they are to vote for us. Seeing lots of their neighbours displaying posters helps raise that credibility.

The online equivalent is to change your Facebook profile photo, Twitter avatar, instant messaging picture (and so on, depending on which services you use).

There’s a graphic below you can use. Just save it to your computer and then use it to change your profile picture / avatar / icon. You may have seen it spreading quickly already …

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Mark Pack

Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology

By Mark Pack | Sat 30th May 2009 - 10:20 am

That’s the headline from The Register:

In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates.

Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately…

Some have argued that those editing from Scientology IPs may be doing so without instruction from the Church hierarchy. But a former member of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs – a department officially responsible

…

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Also posted in News | Tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Get the party’s European manifesto on your iPhone

By Mark Pack | Fri 29th May 2009 - 6:22 pm

The party’s manifesto for the European elections is also available as an iPhone app. If you have access to an iPhone or iPod touch you can view it. Go to apps store and search for Liberal Democrats. The app is free.

And don’t forget, you can also get the party’s TV broadcasts (PPBs) using our iTunes feed.

Also posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

David Boothroyd in Wikipedia sockpuppeting brouhaha

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th May 2009 - 10:21 am

From Dizzy Thinks:

David Boothroyd has had to resign from the “Wikipedia Supreme Court”. David Boothroyd is a Labour councillor in Westminster who comments on a number of right wing blogs including this one. He has an anally retentive insistent on this blog of referring to me by my full name for some reason.

I mentioned this simply because he’s had to resign after admitting to have multiple identities on Wikipedia and spending most of his time editing David Cameron’s page. He also used his multiple identities to get himself elected to the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee it seems.

With more detail in …

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Mark Pack

An easy way for by-election candidates to communicate with voters

By Mark Pack | Tue 26th May 2009 - 5:12 pm

votewise.co.uk – the independent website which lists forthcoming by-elections and candidates (and which I blogged about here) – has recently started displaying page view figures on the biography pages for each by-election candidate. The numbers (even allowing for being page views rather than absolute unique visitors) are generally impressive, with a candidate’s page being typically viewed several hundred times.

Given the number of votes it takes to win or lose an election, and the likelihood that a high proportion of those views are from (potential) voters, that’s not a number to be sniffed …

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Alex Foster

Interesting use of YouTube

By Alex Foster | Tue 26th May 2009 - 4:45 pm

A current Lords parliamentary inquiry is allowing YouTube submissions from members of the public.  The inquiry is on the topic of how people engage with the work of the House of Lords and Parliament more generally.

One such member of the public who has shared her views is, erm, Jo Swinson, in an excellent short video that addresses many of their questions.

You can see the video for yourself here on the Parliamentary YouTube channel, along with many other interesting shorts, including information about the clock that chimes Big Ben.

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Mark Pack

Which party leads online?

By Mark Pack | Sun 24th May 2009 - 11:20 am

Social Media Affairs has just released a report looking at the political social media landscape in the UK (with, ahem, myself being one of the four people contributing introductory remarks about politics and social media).

Any report like this has to deal with all sorts of issues of definition and categorisation but there are some striking broad trends they’ve found.

Liberal Democrat councillors are the keenest bloggers

7% of Liberal Democrat councillors are bloggers (a number boosted significantly by the ALDC MyCouncillor system), compared to 2% of Labour councillors and 1% of Conservative councillors.

This keenness to blog also has a significant …

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