LabourList Review Part 3

LabourList: Conclusions

To round-off the LabList review it's worth returning to what Draper writes in his memo about LabourList aspiring to become “an independent site that aims, in time, to be our version of Conservative home”.

I think given time, this may happen. It won’t be easy with Labour being the party in Government. This adds a different dynamic in two areas. Firstly, in terms of what insiders can say on the site regardless of its independence. And secondly in terms of allowing the site to grow organically. This works best if both content and the ideas behind content can develop organically. We know that both ConservativeHome and LabourList (and Tory/Labour blogs in general) tend to eschew ideas generally in opposition to the mainstream party. When the mainstream party happens to be in government I think this will create tensions.

But remember. LabourList is still in beta and has a lot of bedding in to do. More importantly desipte my observations above I would clarify that if there was one avenue to resolve any intra-party tensions or overcome a desire to limit debate and move political communications and campaigning forward then sites like LabourList, ConservativeHome and LiberalVoice represent it. I'm told that at least one of the people behind LabList feel that MSM have focussed too much on the site’s launch rather than the symbolic change in Labour’s approach to the Internet. It’s early days yet, but I suspect he’s right about that.

Comments

[Rob Brown]

Part of the problem Labour has with all of these initiatives is that the standard bearer Derek Draper doesn't seem to be able to move on from the dark arts of the past...like promoting bogus Twitter feeds from the leader of the opposition: http://prandtheweb.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/the-tangled-web-of-political-pr/