How web savvy are the candidates?

By Joe Caluori / @croslandite

In 2007 when we started to lay the groundwork for Harriet’s deputy leadership campaign, online communications were at the forefront of our planning.

We knew that after ten years of New Labour in government, there was a thirst for something different, but also something more authentic and interactive. In short, our online communications had to embody the central thrust of the campaign – that it was time to listen and engage – but also not to be afraid of engaging in serious policy debate.

We had two great advantages. Firstly, the quality of most existing politicians’ websites was so breathtakingly poor that it would be hard to build anything that looked unacceptably bad in comparison. Secondly, we had the mercurial online political auteur @jonworth living in Harriet’s CLP and passionately supporting her campaign. Jon’s heroic one man crusade to haul political communications out of the 1990s gave us the fillip we needed to build something interesting and engaging.

With Jon’s encouragement and technical know-how we built a website using open source software, which looked unlike any Labour MPs website. It was lilac in colour, deliberately strayed from the Labour Party’s Arial/Tahoma/Franklin Gothic style, and had an aura of authenticity. Harriet wrote all her own blog posts, and responded to comments personally – our comments moderation was light-touch.

Now in the 2010 leadership election the bar has been raised. It’s assumed candidates will Twitter literally on their own account, write blogposts, post videos and use Facebook, Audioboo and Flickr – but how do the respective candidates use of online campaigning differentiate them from each other?

Diane Abbott’s website (in the regulation red) looks natty and accessible on the surface, but has almost no content whatsoever – and doesn’t offer any method of interaction other than emailing a generic sounding campaign address. The site seems to be very much a work in progress and her deathbed conversion to Twitter doesn’t convince either. Perhaps this shows an old school candidate ticking the new school boxes but ultimately relying on old style speechifying and broadcast media.

Andy Burnham is another latter day Twitterer – his posts feel authentic, but forced. His website is a nice twist on the Labour standards, red and simple but with a great distinct design. His campaign more obviously has a personal style than any of the others, but again, there is little content there at all. It will grow in time, but the site is a mere skeleton and his nascent blog doesn’t allow readers to post comments. Andy has less excuse than Diane – he is supposed to be in this election to win it, but there is little there to sway the lurking waverer, given his slogan is ‘Reconnecting Labour’.

Ed Balls’ site is a perfect mirror of the swash-buckling hectoring campaign he is fighting. He is a relative veteran on Twitter, and actually seems to use it to interact on a political level. His website has a genuinely authentic homespun feel to it – it is nothing like the Labour web-in-a-box site I had expected. It’s made clear what he writes and what his team have written for him, and his blog allows comments, even if no one has actually posted any yet. The ‘Ask Ed’ feature too offers opportunities for regular interaction.

David Miliband in known to be a relentless Twitterer and is clearly head and shoulders ahead of the pack in the online campaign. His website is slick and professional, but retains an element of open-source everyman blogger look, which makes it a little visually jarring – but it does the job. The bells and whistles don’t detract from a site that is genuinely rich in content and truly accessible. If David Miliband’s online approach is designed to counter his reputation for being aloof and unapproachable by being demonstrably accessible and interactive, then he has succeeded with gusto.

What of his brother Ed? At first glance his website is a regulation red-Labour standard site, but closer examination reveals a more political and discursive resource. A glance today shows political messages on the Lib Dems and HE funding – and a nice showcase for activists and supporters. As with his brother and his fellow Ed, Miliband Jr is an effective and honest Twitterer, engaging with all comers, curious civilians as well as seasoned activists and hacks. His online approach mirrors his pitch as a grassrootsy choice of ordinary members.

To date there seems to be a clear pecking order, with three candidates running an online operation that looks like the kind of campaign a future Labour leader would run – and two that have an awful lot of ground to make up. Lots has changed in terms of the available tools since 2007, but in many ways things are the same – the challenge is to create an online offer which is honest, engaging and provides your voters with a real idea of how you’ll do the job if they lend you their support.