8 Comments

• Mark 17th Jul '08 - 10:04am

  About as useful as having a Facebook page, I’d say…

  “People can give us casework through Facebook”

  Or use a phone/email/reply slip, as 99.99% do.

  “We can keep in touch with activists through it.”

  Anyone who regularly uses Facecbook (or has signed up to receive twitter) will also be accessible via email, SMS and quite probably mobile email (ie Blackberry etc).

  “look – we’ve got more Facebook friends than the other candidate!”

  but we still lost the election…

  i.e. pretty much completely useless, then.

  No, I tell a lie, if someone on your campaign team doesn’t have legs to deliver; or a voice to canvass or gather volunteers on the phone; or doesn’t have hands to stuff envelopes or gather volunteers by email; then (and only then) can they waste their time using twitter, or Facebook, or the technological fad du jour.

  Though if they didn’t have any hands that could be tricky.

  p.s. Facebook is bad enough with its “XXXX person is eating lunch” status messages. Why would anyone want a service which followed me around with messages like that?!

• Man in a Shed 17th Jul '08 - 10:18am

  Hello Lib Dem types – what’s you view on the expenditure and tax cutting plans your leader has just told you about ?

• Mark 17th Jul '08 - 10:20am

  I love it, and so will the voters …. if we can persuade some of our more leftwing activists to carry the good word.

• Man in a Shed 17th Jul '08 - 10:56am

  What’s interesting is I think it will shift the debate. The resistance to a smaller state will cave as Conservatives will join and Labour ( since they are attempting to implement Tory policy due to a lack of their own ideas ) will too.

  Potentially is a tipping point in British politics. Your man will deserve credit if he can carry it off.

  However I don’t think the public will believe you straight away, probably not in time for 2010. Those southern English seats are still going to be lost, as they rely on the tactical squeeze on the left of centre (Labour’s) vote.

• Hywel Morgan 17th Jul '08 - 12:22pm

  As Mark knows I’m not convinced by Twitter. However the next few years will see more such services as wireless broadband becomes more common and integrated into phones.

  The likely effect of that is that email/text/facebook may not be around in their current form but the function – people having access to information about what their friends are doing will become much more common. There will probably be something much more “conversation focussed” like an always on mobile version of MSN/Yahoo messenger.

  So to that extent the growth of Twitter is a significant campaigning development. And from that point of view it should be explored.

  However the whole area of Twitter/Facebook etc campaigning does have the issue that it is essentially “opt in” so it’s ability to reach key switch voters is limited. Looking at the people who sign up as Twitter followers of Brian Paddick and Stephen Kearney I’m not convinced its reach is massive.

• asquith 17th Jul '08 - 12:39pm

  A smaller state will be geared towards benefiting the low and middle earners, by ceasing to take their own money and dole it back out to them, for example by a battery of tax credits rather than raising the threshold.

  A large state is not progressive, as we can see from the battery of Labour schemes which have achieved little.

  True economic liberalism benefits those who are on a low income and trying to build a better life, rather than entrenching the already wealthy and preventing the strivers from competing with them as Camoron instinctively does.

• asquith 17th Jul '08 - 12:40pm

  That should be ” a large state is not necessarily progressive, a small state is not necessarily reactionary”. Additionally, large corporations and the state are natural allies, both united against individuals and their small enterprises.

• Man in a Shed 18th Jul '08 - 9:45am

  Asquith – I find what your saying very interesting and appealing. The test will be if your party will really wear it. ( Yes they will all play follow the leader, but will they cut their demands for govt activity and spending ? )

  Electorally – despite what PI100 say your going to get hammered on this as most of your successes come from convincing socialist to vote for you in seat where they have no choice.

  On the right people will vote Tory – instead of voting for the ex-young Conservative who has just bounced his party. ( There are just too many layers of Lib Dem leaflets in landfill sites around the country talking about more spending for people to just forget ).

  What’s being proposed is a long term project that will take a decade to work though – I admire your courage in making a start.