Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation

How the 2010 election will be won by blogs and tweets

This article is more than 14 years old
The rise of social networking sites such as Facebook on the internet has caused an enormous change in politics

The setting could hardly have been more traditional as David Cameron launched the Conservative party's election campaign yesterday in a quiet corner of rural Oxfordshire. A small audience of Tory supporters had gathered at Sansomes Farm Studios, the home of the Oxford School of Drama. Cameron spoke in a converted farm building and received polite applause. There was no razzmatazz. "It was a bit like a constituency event," said an aide.

Back in London, however, Cameron's "new media" team was at work, alerting tens of thousands of followers through instant updates on Facebook and Twitter, giving them an internet link to the full speech so they could download it on their laptops, BlackBerrys or mobile phones. Political bloggers were briefed before they poured their instant analysis on to the web. Film was prepared for YouTube. The day's main TV news bulletins were hours away but the key messages – "we can't go on like this" and "this is the year for change" – were out. Campaign 2010 was under way. "We can just press the right buttons and people know within seconds," said a member of the Cameron team.

At the last election, in May 2005, social networking sites were known to few. Facebook was largely unheard of and Twitter had yet to be invented. YouTube had been in existence for only three months. Blogs were in their infancy and political bloggers, now hugely influential in the flow of news, had yet to evolve. All parties used email, but beyond that the internet remained undeveloped as a campaigning tool.

Election 2010 will show how much the world has changed – and how susceptible election outcomes now are to the unpredictability of events online. As Cameron's speech yesterday, and Gordon Brown article's in this paper today demonstrate, many of the issues at its heart will be familiar: the economy, schools, hospitals and crime. But the ways the main parties use technology to get their messages across to the widest possible audiences will be unrecognisable .

As Barack Obama and his team did so successfully in 2008 in the US, all the main UK parties are devoting almost as much of their attention to how to turn the internet's power, reach and speed to their advantage, as they are to actual policy.

Matthew McGregor, who runs the London office of Blue State Digital, the online campaign consultancy firm which provided the technology that powered the Obama campaign, says the party that wins will be the one that learns most from the Democrats' success. "With the polls narrowing, this election looks increasingly tight," he says. "The new media campaigns really matter because every single vote matters. This time the party that really masters new media could have the decisive edge."

From yesterday until election day (the most likely date is May 6), the output of political material online will be huge. "In previous elections, the main parties would put out four or five election broadcasts throughout a whole campaign, plus four or five posters and a bit of direct mail," said one key Tory strategist at the heart of the new media operation. Back then, they controlled their messages minutely by limiting what went out, and who took part. "Now we can be putting that much creative material out in an hour through news releases, tweets, videos, Facebook updates, reaching hundreds of thousands of people instantly," said the official. "You are talking about a massive upgrading of creative output."

The internet will bring opportunities but also dangers. It will help make election 2010, as Professor Anthony King of Essex University predicts, " the most unpredictable since 1974". Politicians will for the first time in a campaign be able "to talk directly to voters" through mediums such as podcasts and blogs, bypassing the traditional media. Cameron has been doing this since 2006 on webCameron, while Brown now puts out his own regular weekly podcast. But such tools have never been used in the thick of an actual election campaign.

But if reaching voters direct is an asset, other new forces online will complicate the information flow, including the army of new political bloggers who can wreck a party's best-laid plans. All are aware of the internet's ability to capture "gotcha moments" – blunders or controversial statements caught on film and then broadcast to millions, with devastating effect, on outlets such as YouTube. A classic example was Boris Johnson, during his mayoral campaign, filmed by a Labour supporter on a mobile, admitting that his plan to improve London buses would cost £100m – not the £8m that was the official line. The subsequent YouTube video did not prevent him becoming mayor, but it did dent his campaign.

The agreement of all three party leaders to hold three 90-minute US-style television debates during the campaign reflects the public thirst for direct access to political discussion – and adds to the sense of unpredictability. It is particularly good news for the third party in the polls, the Liberal Democrats, who are delighted that Nick Clegg, a good media performer, will have the chance to compete on equal terms alongside Brown and Cameron. A strong performance could notch his party well up in the ratings. "The leaders' debates will be a great opportunity for us to get our message across and show that Nick excels in that kind of event," said Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem leader's chief of staff. For Cameron, however, who is ahead in the polls, appearing on TV is seen as more of a risk.

This weekend some of the broad policy themes of the campaign are being sketched out. Brown is seeking to portray the Tories as the party of pessimism that will destroy public services, while Cameron yesterday branded Labour as the architects of the "biggest bust" in the UK's economic history. In a traditional election, it would have been left mainly to politicians and party workers to promote these themes with the help of hardcore activists. "This time all the main parties are trying to imitate the Obama campaign by mobilising vast new armies of supporters via the internet and social networking sites," said a Labour party official working on tactics.

They want their supporters to talk to their friends about their political enthusiams and to learn the US lesson that people are more likely to be influenced by those they are acquainted with than by politicians, newspapers or experts. Labour has set up its own phone bank which party members can log on to through the party's website. They then tap in their password, and gain access to a list of telephone numbers of members of the public who they can canvas. "You then have a script on screen," said a party worker, "which allows you to ask questions and fill in answers for the party database. It is a complete revolution in campaigning."

The phone bank is based directly on the Obama campaign's model and Labour believes it could have a massive effect if the word spreads. "On the final weekend of the Obama campaign, four million calls were made by supporters to voters in swing states," said one Labour source. The Tories have their own tool, called myConservatives.com, which allows anyone (and not just party members) to help with campaigns, donate money and phone voters "from the comfort of your home".

It is this potential to generate mass activism that McGrgegor says is the most far-reaching change of all. "Blogs and politicians twittering get most attention, but under the radar a new form of organising supporters is happening," he says. "By energising people, and then giving them the tools to get involved and become advocates for the party, thousands of people are talking to volunteers, passionate about the issues and ready for a conversation. It is a new way of doing traditional politics." The desire to control from the centre has been replaced by the need to reach as many people as possible, even if that involves risks. He argues that the effect will be, paradoxically, to increase the number of people willing to take part in traditional campaigning. "New media ... isn't a replacement for traditional campaigning, it allows you to do more traditional campaigning. Done right, the new tools that online campaigning give means that more and more people can become closely involved in campaigns."

The big question now is which of the parties uses modern media best to mobilise its support, promote its messages and damage its opponents. Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, believes the Tories have a natural advantage because, he says, new media is "in tune with what David has been talking about … empowering individuals, decentralising control of public services and the nature of government." But Labour, regarded as behind in the new media race for some time, is now making ground too. Tim Montgomerie, editor of the successful ConservativeHome website for Tory activists, says the centre-right has dominated the political discourse on the internet over the past year or so but as the election nears, he sees evidence that the left is catching up. New and effective left-of-centre websites and blogs are sprouting up, such as leftfootforward.org run by Will Straw and the recently launched torystories.com, established by Labour MP Jon Cruddas and parliamentary candidate Chuka Umunna. "I think the right still has the edge," says Montgomerie. "But there are real signs of life on the left. It is going to be very interesting."

Most viewed

Most viewed