Alex Foster

Living up to the “wired” reputation

By | Mon 24th March 2008 - 12:59 pm

A few years ago, we in the Lib Dems were billing ourselves as Britain’s most wired political party – I remember all too well because I had to watch my typing very carefully or risk printing tens of thousands of leaflets calling us Britain’s most weird political party.

Our netted reputation is going from strength to strength.

First, Lib Dem MP Steve Webb, himself no stranger to the internet, caused a stir by showing Lib Dem MPs were better represented on Facebook than those from other political parties.

Then, just a few posts ago, Mark Pack demonstrated our MPs have a greater presence online and are easier to contact by email than the other parties. This itself was hot on the heels of the Twitter revelations.

Now, independent confirmation comes from the Wardman Wire. In a piece he’s drafting for a research paper, he has compared the nettedness of the three main parties, and finds the Lib Dems out in front.

Strangely, the perception from his research is that it’s not always been the case, and he identifies a surge in 2005.  I wonder whether this surge comes up at much the same time when Lib Dem local party website gurus Prater Raines were really starting to expand.  It’s certainly the case that most of the difference, in Wardman’s estimation, is due to local party sites.

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This entry was posted in Online politics.
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2 Comments

  • Stuart 24th Mar '08 - 6:20pm

    Interesting paper, although an odd decision to use a blue line for the LDs and a yellow line for the Tories. A small point, I accept.

  • Anonymous 24th Mar '08 - 9:00pm

    If the Lib Dems have some sort of list of advise for the webmasters, to submit their sites to DMOZ, they are clever indeed. Or are Prater Raines submitting sites hosted by them to DMOZ?

    However, I suspect that the surge in the number of Lib Dem sites listed is due to more active voluntary category editor(s) in the Lib Dem category than in the categories of the two other parties. But it might still be worth to advise the Lib Dem webmasters to submit their sites to DMOZ, in the case the editor of the category hasn’t noticed some of them.

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