It’s Election Time…But Not As We Know It

Yeah, I know!  The General Election is probably more than four months away but already Call Me Dave has fired the pistol for the most technologically advance election campaign in British Political History.  And as we saw with the election of Obama in America and the ongoing movement for change in Iran – the internet is going to have a massive bearing on how the election is fought and won.

The setting could hardly have been more traditional as David Cameron launched the Conservative party's election campaign on Saturday in a quiet corner of rural Oxfordshire. 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 one of Cameron’s many aides.

So full of blue-rinsed cunts…

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 barely months. Blogs were in their infancy (mine, was first set up in February of that year) and political bloggers such as Guido Fawkes and Liberal Conspiracy, now hugely influential in the flow of news, had yet to evolve. All parties used email, but beyond that the internet remained as undeveloped as a Conservative Manifesto.

Election 2010 will show how much the world has changed – and how susceptible election outcomes now are to the unpredictability of events online.  However I don’t think that will be the key aspect to the election campaign – albeit not this time around.

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.

And that could spell trouble for both Brown and Cameron…

My prediction: I think the Tories will win, but it is NOT going to be the raging landslide that all of those suckers think it will be.  And there will be some very uncomfortable viewing for all of us on the Left.

Mind how you go.