Campaigning for Sadiq Khan

In my free time I’ve been campaigning for Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting for the past 8-9 months since I moved to the area.It has been fantastic to get involved. I’ve met some fantastic new people – it’s true that Labour might not have the money that the Tories do, but they certainly have an enormously energetic level of active support and the team in Tooting are a hard-working, welcoming bunch.

Sadiq has worked exceptionally hard for the people of Tooting since he was first elected in 2005. He was born and raised in the area so he has a natural affinity with the people and a deep-rooted understanding of the issues Tooting residents face. For more information on Sadiq, have a look at his website. It is a new address because he can’t use his old website anymore due to campaigning rules.

He was kind enough to agree to post a message for my blog which is below.

Every US Presidential ad since 1952

A colleague has come across a website that has every US Presidential TV ad since 1952 available to watch. It is absolutely fascinating to see how campaigning has changed since the I Like Ike cartoon ad.

Enjoy -

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/2008

Never hold an election when…

This weekend, there are State elections being held in South Australia and Tasmania. Those two important events, plus the discussion about the date of the UK election, although we all know it will be May 6, made me think about the unwritten rules of calling an election in Australia.

Some states and cities have fixed terms, so these rules don’t apply, but Federally and in Queensland, there is a guide as to when you should never, ever call an election. If you have a few more suggestions, let me know.

(For anyone reading this who isn’t Australian, all of our elections are held on a Saturday and of course, we have compulsory voting.)

• Never hold an election for Rugby League or AFL Grand final weekend. No one cares about soccer, so that’s ok
• Never hold an election during an ashes test, or the first test of any series to be honest
• Never hold an election during the holidays or any long weekends
• Never hold an election during school holidays in December or January (summer holidays)

US politico makes huge twitter gaffe

Chuck Todd, NBC political pundit, author and personally a pretty savvy journo made an enormous twitter gaffe after the Canadians beat the US for the Ice Hockey gold medal last night.

During the medal ceremony, Todd tweeted;

Now the Canadians are really rubbing it in; they have the better anthem. #americathebeautifulshouldbeouranthem

I bet you can imagine the storm of angry tweets that followed that one, especially since the Americans would have already been sore from losing. You would have thought that an American political pundit who has his own daily political show would have known he broke two cardinal political rules in the US.

1. Know your audience
2. Don’t mess with American patriotism, especially when they just lose to Canada

West Wing – almost best scene ever

When looking at the archves of my blog, I realised I was uber boring, nothing fun, nothing a bit crazy. So I promise I’ll do more interesting inane posts.

In the meantime, I’ll post what I believe is one of the top 5 scenes from the West Wing – I really need a non-political hobby. Oh well, enjoy!

Should journalists keep their opinions to themselves?

I know a number of journalists very well and I myself trained as one, so a question put to me today by a fairly senior journalist at Lloyd’s List made me think.

Do journalists, such as Melanie Phillips and Polly Toynbee deserve the platform as opinion leaders that they receive?

The theory behind the question is that journalists generally report on other people’s opinions. Once they start reporting their own through opinion columns and tv programmes, do they cease to be journalists to become opinion leaders?

At what point does a journalist graduate to this position? Most columnists, unless they are celebrities, start of as journos but once they gain a significant level of experience and a high enough reputation will often become columnists and opinionistas. But what is their experiential basis to write on certain issues.

Polly Toynbee often writes on political theory and messaging, which is fair enough as she has probably been around the workings of politics for most of her journalistic career.

Melanie Phillips however seems to often write and speak on environment and socialological issues. But when did she become an environmental scientist or sociology professor? Does she work with environmental or socialogical scientists?

I believe journalists and colomnists should be able to report on issues, but I’m not sure if their experience or their position necessarily allows them to analyse issues, unless of course they have trained in the sector or have been part of the issue.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

What the Glasgow North East victory means for the General Election

Not much. I’ve noticed a lot of Labour activists getting excited and saying Labour is on its way back up. This may be true to an extent, but when you look at the details of the by-election, it isn’t that cut and dry. Willie Bain won with 12,231 votes which equates to a majority of 8,111. The SNP got silver with 4,120 votes. The Tories must be disappointed with just over 1,000 votes, the fact that they haven’t made a statement suggests they are trying to ignore it.

But regards to the importance of the outcome, Labour has more or less owned that seat for 74 years and the most recent 10 of those years have been effectively uncontested as Michael Martin was Speaker, thus the Tories and Lib-Dems didn’t stand against him. You couldn’t get more Labour heartland.

Also of interest is the turnout; a record low in a Scottish Parliament. We have no real way of knowing what the turnout at a General Election will be until we have one. This is obviously at the forefront of Labour thinking, Tom Watson MP has already tweeted that the no vote party were the clear winners of the day.

But the biggest issues that is of interest is that this was a battle between incumbents. Labour, who rules the roost nationally, versus the SNP who runs Hollyrood. Neither are particularly popular that is obvious, but this, in a way, was a referendum on one or the other. Labour won this round, as it did in Glenrothes. This suggests the SNP are on the nose of the local populace, more than Labour.

Potentially, this is good news for Labour as the Tories still aren’t going to be able to take that many seats in Scotland, no matter their showing in England. I’d also suggest Labour needs to base part of campaign on the fact that Cameron has said he wants to take away Scottish seats in Westminster. I don’t think the Scots would go for that without a promise of independence.

Scotland could appear to be a bit safer than it was about 12 months ago, which will mean Labour won’t have to spend its money and time trying to keep heartland seats at the expense of marginal seats in England and Wales.

Don’t get me wrong, Labour is going to have to work hard in Scotland and would be stupid to neglect it, but the fact that a Labour heartland seat didn’t fall to another party must be a relief to the electoral strategy team.

But, the fact remains, Labour still has a lot of work to do and according to the latest polls, they are still behind by 10 points, enough for a decent Tory majority in the House.

Is this the beginning of Labour’s revival, I struggle to see that it is and I think it is more of a realignment back to the status quo than anything else. I’ve said it before, I think the polls will come closer together, but let’s wait and see.

Thoughts?

Why politicos shouldn’t fight online

I love the way new media and digital communications have become intertwined with political discussion. It will hopefully lead to a bright future of government, political debate, public interaction and general engagement. But It is important to remember, just because it is a public conversational tool, doesn’t mean you need to have a public conversation. People who use social media for reasons other than just saying hi to your friends, should be clever about it and aware of potential ramifications, especially people who are in positions of respect and power.

This was what David Cameron meant when earlier in the year he said that twitter could cause problems for MPs because tweets can be taken out of context or the MPs could get involved in conversations that normally they shouldn’t. These conversations are also permanent and can be dug up at any time.

It is with these comments in mind, over the past few days, I have been watching an argument between Kerry McCarthy MP, Labour Twitter Tsar and Shane Greer, the executive editor of Total Politics.  Both of these people are in positions of power and respect. A senior and respected Member of Parliament on one side and a journalist who has a vast number of followers and loyal readers and edits a magazine with no-particular party politic on the other. People follow what both of these individuals say with interest and they, as a people’s representative and as a member of the fourth estate respectively,  are in a position where it is important where they act and carry themselves properly.

But as you can see from this twitter conversation, things have become a bit out of hand. Remember this all started over what music people should like as a display of their political ideals.

I won’t go into detail about what each said, but to be sure, it has clearly been a case of misrepresentation by both parties. Kerry McCarthy is at fault because she took the bait. But what is concerning is she has taken the bait before as you can see from these conversations with Nadine Dorries MP. In this case, as the Labour Twitter Tsar, Kerry should know better.

Shane Greer is at fault because from what I read, he is being antagonistic from the start. Reacting to a reasonably irreverent comment from Kerry, Shane has gone overboard. The tweet that made Shane bite was “@wallaceme @shanegreer To use that well-worn political phrase, I’m not taking any lessons about Northern Ireland from you two. Or music.”

As you can see, Shane went into a diatribe about being from Northern Ireland and his time there which sounds awful. But if Kerry hasn’t met him or heard his accent and she is right, there is no reason for her to research Shane’s birthplace or personal history. She is also right to suggest it is fairly egotistical to suggest she should know his heritage and she is right to not apologise. He then proceeded to blog about it with gusto.

A spat between these two is fine, it happens. But when these two started off at each other, each others followers and supporters joined in and attack each other. Together they produced this;

• Kerry digs a hole
• The charmingly titled post Kerry is a weapons-grade *&$% end
• Precocious Punk Girl Kerry McCarthy
• Greer’s Law: Kerry McCarthy responsible for Irish Troubles
• As well as a large number of tweets over the matter from everyone’s respective cronies. Here is a sample.

As I said, both of these people are in positions of power and respect. Arguments like this turn people off politics, getting involved at the local level and engaging. As you can see, it is a pack mentality, but that is politics, but sometimes, someone needs to be the adult.

This whole argument won’t have any severe ramifications. It won’t lead to resignations and won’t even make the news. But it turns people off. As I said, it is important that people use social media conversational tools wisely.

What are your thoughts?

Is the public option worth removing abortion rights?

by Nick Osborne

I’m sure you have all heard about the House of Reps in the US finally passing the Healthcare Reform Bill, which is a huge step in the right direction for the US health care system.

But, for it to get through, there has been some interesting give and take inthe back rooms of Congress. An amendment to the bill has ensured that there will be no public funding for abortion. Essentially, anyone who is recieiving health subsidies from the government will not be able to get insurance that includes provision for abortion.

Essentially, to garner one Republic vote from Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, the Democrats have seriously annoyed the pro-choice movement.

I personally am pro-choice, but I would love to know your thoughts on whether it is a good deal, especially when it hasn’t even gotten through the Senate yet.

Nick Osborne

The mother of digital parliaments

By Nick Osborne and Ged Carroll

The Internet has been changing every facet of modern life, even the mother of parliaments (at least to a certain extent anyway).  An exact state of affairs at parliament would be tricky to gauge, as innovation seems to be happening in different places.

Examples include the recent guide to Twitter, published by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which outlined how the micro-blogging service could be used to share policy information and engage the general public around issues of interest.

The main political parties have shown enthusiasm in adopting social media as well, although this hasn’t necessarily translated across to their respective Parliamentary Members where there is the more familiar range of adoption patterns from early adopters to laggards to complete technophobes. Pretty much every Member of Parliament and election candidate not contesting a safe seat has a web presence of some sort, whether that is through a party backed website, or through extensive social media branding.  Most of these are run through constituency or Westminster offices however, there are few MPs who are leading the way in the digital space.

Amongst the social media front-runners are:

• Tom Watson. The Labour Party MP for West Bromwich East is known for being the first blogging MP and lists the digital world and social media as being keen personal interests
• Kerry McCarthy has been made Labour’s Twitter Tsar, managing social media engagement in the lead up to the next General Election, as well as being an active tweeter and blogger
• Jo Swinson. The Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire has 1.901 followers on twitter and may have been the first MP to tweet from the House of Commons Chamber and was definetly the first MP to mention Twitter in a Parliamentary Debate
• Tom Harris. Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South, was recent voted the best MP, Scottish and Left-of-Centre blog by readers of Total Politics
• John Redwood MP. The Conservative MP for Wokingham was recently voted the second best MP blog by Total Politics readers, losing his number one position last year to the aforementioned Tom Harris

Apart from the lack of uptake of social media tools across the Parliament as a whole, the biggest area where there seems to be a lack of understanding about social media is that it is a conversation. Although Twitter lends itself nicely to sound bites there doesn’t seem to be that much political engagement going on. There also doesn’t seem to be that much awareness about the impact of what they can be talking about. For instance, one MP recently complained about the workload required to deal with constituents.  In another case, an automatic news feed on Peter Hain’s Facebook page prominently displayed an embarrassing piece of coverage.

Despite the high profile digital campaign of Barack Obama, the US generally isn’t anywhere near the level of near universal digital and social media adoption that one would expect. For example only 29.5 per cent of US Congress members and Senators are on Twitter – 123 House members and 35 Senators out of a possible total of 535. .

But the fact is, the next election is going to be a hard fought campaign and this is likely to have a transformative effect on digital politics as a new generation of politicians come through.

So where is the opportunity in digital for parliamentary and public affairs campaigns?

The most obvious use of social media is for campaigning as it is easy to demonstrate support for a cause, through re-tweets or number of members in a Facebook group.  Social media both facilitates and reveals groundswells of popular support. Nixon’s famous silent majority, are no longer silent or invisible to politicians.

For electoral candidates, Obama’s secret was always to tweet asks and Calls-to-Action and this should be harnessed by MPs or PPCs. There is no particular need for an MP to tweet about what they are having for breakfast, although the ‘inane’ tweets do personalise the tweeter so they can be beneficial.

But the key is, actively engage and converse with users online by asking supporters, party members and voters to do something. Come to my rally, get one friend to help deliver leaflets, donate £5 to the party, come knock on doors with me. Tweets like these that actively call for support and include the public are far more likely to help the candidate get elected.

This method of personalised engagement and Calls-to-Action can also be harnessed for out and out public affairs campaigns. It isn’t something that will transfer well to asking for support for a bank’s or defence company’s campaign, because the public will always be wary of sinister motives. But it will transfer brilliantly to campaigns surrounding NGOs, charities, patient groups, green and sustainability projects, local engagement and welfare organisations due to the need to rally support through calls-to-action.

A second and underrated factor is providing content for researchers. Like the rest of the UK, parliamentary researchers will often hit Google as their first point of call when finding out about a new subject and developing a point-of-view for their MP. Providing the freshest, most relevant content around a particular area, particularly if it has an industry rather than a specific corporate slant is one of the best ways to influence from a digital point-of-view.

There has been an increasing level of political social media analysis in the recent months. Tweetminister essentially aggregates tweets by Members of Parliament, as well as blogs on interesting issues surrounding communication and an open Parliament while the Hansard Society has recently published a report into the use of Facebook by MPs.

We would love to hear your views on the matter, so please feel free to leave comments.

Cross posted with Ruder Finn Dot Comms.