www.election-scandals.com: How the web is undermining the party line

Slick, smooth and competent, the Labour PR machine is spinning its way effortlessly to another election victory through consummate control of the media. Well, maybe.

While the throwing of eggs and punches have served to expose the real world frailties of the Millbank machine, the control of online campaigning also leaves much to be desired. And it's not just Labour that has a problem.

It is nice to know that in these media-sensitive, stage-managed days political parties are still happy to let the web be true to at least some of its origins. For political parties straining to control media comment, they seem to be engaged in a quite remarkable piece of altruism - with a number of websites pointing to those of opposing political parties.

Tony Blair, for one, seems quite happy to allow anyone and everyone to get control of politically sensitive URLs. How refreshingly naïve.

The Tories, Liberals and Labour could have spent an afternoon and a couple of hundred pounds cleaning up their online branding, but instead chose to ignore the medium.

Imagine the meeting:

Labour party lackey: "Shall we register a couple of URLs to stop our carefully crafted image with the electorate being damaged by uncontrollable and potentially harmful third parties hijacking our name?"

Alastair Campbell/some other spin doctor: "Why bother? No-one uses the internet as a serious source of information anyway, do they?"

To find out how how serious the parties really are about the web, take a look at the sites below.

It seems the Tories have probably the most impressive array of odd sites. The cheeky www.toryparty.co.uk purports to tell us about some of William Hague's lesser-known policies, such as plans to cut the price of petrol to zero and to conduct his election campaign from an army surplus tank to protect him from the people.

What's more, the Tories have also signed up controversial heavy metal band Limp Bizkit to write their campaign song. Interestingly Nick Holden, who runs the site, says the Conservative Party has never contacted him asking for the domain.

A campaign office spokesperson for the Tory Party said he wasn't "losing sleep over it", and wasn't about to register hundreds of URLs to protect their message.

In fact, there are many sites set-up for the sole purpose of snubbing the Tories. www.tory-party.co.uk links straight through to the website for the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP wants the UK out of Europe - common ground there, then. However, euro scepticism aside, there's probably little that Hague could find to sit down to chat with them over a pint (or 12) in the local.

The same spokesman added that he was "not that bothered" about it.

Perhaps the only people with even less in common with the Conservatives than the SWP are the pro-euro Conservatives. www.conservative-party.com redirects users straight to www.proeuro.co.uk.

At first glance, www.the-labour-party.org.uk with its red colouring might fool users into thinking they are through to the official Labour Party site. But look closer. The "Sleaze Party Website", as it calls itself, urges users to join up and watch its "party pathetic broadcast". Unfortunately the technical prowess of the webmaster is on a par with the coherence of the political views expressed. Be prepared for some broken links.

The most democratic of the political URLs has to be www.newlabour.co.uk. This domain - which announces itself for sale - takes 10 seconds to re-direct users randomly to a party website of its choice. By its own count, the Lib Dems are winning this little democratic experiment, with mathematical probability giving them a far larger display of support than real world voters recently have done.

A representative of the Labour Party didn't return silicon.com calls asking if it they are concerned. Clearly there are more important things going on.

The Liberal Democrats haven't escaped the great plague of cyber-squatting, with an independent critique of the Liberal Democratic Party located at www.libdems.co.uk. Their internet campaign manager, Mark Pack, said he is convinced people interested in the Liberal Democrats would be able to find their way to the official site.

More scurrilous than any of the above is cybersquatting using our respected and esteemed politicians' monikers. The PM himself has at least two spoof sites - both ostensibly offering a serious window for comment on Labour Party policy. See www.tony-blair.co.uk or www.tonyblair.co.uk to get involved.

Ann Widdecombe must be disappointed. Some satirical wag has used the controversial Tory's name at www.annwiddecombe.com then linked to the UK Cannabis Internet Activists site.

And William Hague, as a quick visit to www.williamhague.com makes clear, is also by all accounts a naturist who believes if God had intended us to wear clothes he would have made them.

Most frightening is www.michealportillo.co.uk. This one, however, is genuine.

For genuine Party links, see;
http://www.conservatives.com
http://www.labour.org.uk
http://www.libdems.org.uk