The 2004 and 2008 US elections pushed boundaries in online campaign strategy – but how well stacked are UK parties to follow America’s lead? Views shared by the red and blue slides at Activate ’09 suggest one group’s keenness to step up – and a strategic schism between both camps…
— Conservatives: Shadow science and technology minister Adam Afriyie: “The next general election is likely to be something of a technological breakthrough. This is going to be the test – it’s going to be something pretty amazing from the Conservative party. It’s not only about the top-down messaging but the relaxed nature in which we will let community activists … respond on local news sites, mabe taking video footage of events. We’re speaking directly to individual voters and potentially individual donors.” The party already has the lead in the grassroots party blogosphere and has previously converted supporters to virally spread messages by “donating” their Facebook statuses. That’s either exciting stuff or fashionable bluster…
— Labour: Former digital engagement minister Tom Watson, who last month switched to the back benches, was considerably more downbeat: “From my party’s point of view – I know it will be hugely under-resourced, so we won’t achieve what we could, I think. What you’ll get from all the parties is a refined broadcast model with a bit of glossy twittering so it looks ‘honest’. I don’t think we’ve got the space where, all of a sudden we’re going to start listening to the electorate with these tools. There’ll definitely be audio and videdo (in our strategy) – but to get to the granularity where the Obama campaign got to… that’s probably the election after next.”
They’re starkly different outlooks. But then, all the momentum right now is with the Tories. Afriye rattled off a list of commitments to open up public data. Local councils must “publish performance information in standard data formats – a kind of TheyWorkForYou.com for local government,” he said. “There here are too many kinds of data locked away in government vaults – there are too … we will collate the most useful data for 20 areas and make it available for re-use. We’re going to through open the floodgates and harness the wisdom of crowds.”
Separately, here’s Watson’s own speech…