New Labour's web strategy revealed

Following on from all the posts about David Miliband, the UK government minister, who blogs direct from his department, I read with amusement (and a pinch of salt) about Tony Blair's answer to New Labour's poor results in the local elections.

According to Westminster gossip-mongerer, Guido Fawkes, Tony's solution was to revamp New Labour's website. Now, I find this rumour is being repeated in the most accurate [sic] fortnightly publication around: Private Eye.

More specifically, The Eye reports that:

"In his letter to new party chairman Hazel Blears about party renewal ... the PM has asked her to "rethink our web presence" to improve its appeal to the under-35s."

Surely taken out of context, I immediately thought, "well, why not.... The days of simply having a good ol' Web 1.0 site are long gone."

My next thought was "What would work...? You've got Milband blogging so clearly some other sort of social media would be great."

And then I found it: www.myspace.com/newlabour

I presume it's a trial version before the next big policy announcement.... I'm also guessing Gordon Brown has helped build it.

Comments

[Chris Rushton, Head of Journalism & PR, University of Sunderland]

The item in Private Eye on Hazel Blear's new responsibilities and her helpful direction from Tony Blair was surprisingly reinforced by the attendance of one of her Cabinet Office civil servants at two seminars on blogging last week.

The first was at thinktank Demos on Thurs May 11 (where I see you were on the invitation list). The subject was "Building Everyday Democracy" and included a challenging contribution by Elizabeth Albrycht. She argued that blogs not only empowered people in an increasingly atomised society but also required a completely new approach to PR from corporate and government comms directors. It was time to drop the command and control approach and embrace comms as neverending conversations with different publics.

The next day Elizabeth spoke at a special one-day conference held in London by the University of Sunderland: Delivering the New PR. Again our friend from the Cabinet Office was an enthusiastic note taker.

What next? An open, democratic approach to communications . . .

[Simon Collister]

Chris, that's really, really interesting.

I don't know if you're aware but my first foray in the world of blogging was via your first 'Delivering the New PR' conference in Sunderland. I was instantly converted spiritually speaking, although it took me a few months to get this blog up and running.

I had planned and really hoped to be at both the Demos event and the London 'DTNPR' but sadly work intervened. I will try and get hold of the Demos presentations.