Blogging for Labour

By Mary Honeyball MEP

The 2010 Conference will go down in the places where these things are recorded as the time new media came of age in the Labour Party.

Both the winner and the runner up for the Labour leadership made full use of Twitter, Facebook and what is now seems the more conventional blogging. Although as a party we were perhaps slow on the uptake in using new media in the 2010 general election, the Miliband brothers as well as the three other candidates more than made up for it as campaigned over the summer.

The ground was therefore fertile for the fringe meeting I organised on Monday evening in Manchester. With four excellent speakers in UNISON activist Councillor John Gray from Newham, Islington Councillor Jessica Asato who ran David Miliband’s social media campaign, LabourList’s acting editor Mark Ferguson and inveterate Tweeter Kerry McCarthy MP, the meeting took off with energy and enthusiasm.

However, the proof was really in the attendance. With a total of 100 people there, I felt the subject matter had really found the spot, even more so as the only refreshment was a glass of wine and a few peanuts.

John Gray kicked off speaking about his recent libel case brought by Johanna Kaschke, a Tory from Tower Hamlets against himself and Alex Hilton, a former PPC and author of Recess Monkey, a blog sadly no current. John put forward a very interesting idea of involving trade union levy payers and others getting them together in local blogging

Following John, Jessica Asato talked about how Twitter had brought more activists and importantly advocates to David Miliband’s Leadership effort. Taking the view that social media was key to David’s campaign, she also talked about his Facebook presence, though she made the important point that new media is only one tool and organising in the real world is what actually wins in the end. In conclusion, Jessica asked that we consider setting up a fund for bloggers who face libel actions and similar difficulties.

Mark Ferguson, currently the acting editor of Labour List, was less than enthusiastic about General Committee and other Labour Party meetings, taking the view that an increasing number of Labour supporters found more interesting debate on sites like Labour List and other political blogs.

Kerry McCarthy turns to Twitter first thing in the morning for her news. An interesting approach, though I still go for Radio 4. Kerry explained how she could debate with and at times advise members of the public on parliamentary proceedings through tweeting. Kerry’s message was that politicians are not ciphers and, used authentically by the politician her or himself and not a paid researcher, new media provides an opportunity for us to come over as real people.

I was very pleased by the number of serious bloggers in the audience Councillor Stephen Cowan, Jon Worth, Tracey Cheetham, Mark Nottingham, Colin Ellar and the increasingly well regarded Political Scrapbook.

For me, one of the most interesting matters discussed after the set-piece speeches was about women and new media. Having said I have faced vicious and very personal unpleasantness from the libertarian right on my blog, Jessica made the interesting point that in her experience Twitter was used far more by women than writing full blogs. In any event, although there were three women on the platform, we need to encourage more women into what is a very male medium. I hope my fringe meeting has done something towards achieving this.