We are in effect approaching the very purpose that this site was set up, during the campaign it is envisaged that LabourLost will include comment and news covering #GE10 and to that ends over the next 24 hours we hope to have all major speeches from the Conservative Spring Forum for your delectation.

We wish to thank you wholeheartedly thus far for your continued support of the #labourlost hashtag on Twitter, look after us and we promise to look after you. If you wish to have an article hosted on LabourLost simply get in touch either via this site or via @Labourlost on Twitter.

Let’s win it for Britain.

During the run up to the GE we shall continue to use the #labourlost hashtag on Twitter and we shall also be using the #GE10 hashtag; there are several other suggestions doing the rounds but we believe #GE10 to be fully representative and utilising only 5 characters we believe it is also the best possible use of space for the purpose of Twitter.

So, come the election how will you vote?

Are you a core supporter of a particular Party? Have you always voted the same way?

What forged your opinions and political ethos?

Will you vote on the day with local requirements in mind, for instance against your normal beliefs because you like what a candidate has promised for your constituency?

Will you decide on the day or have you already made your mind up and nothing on this earth however said or done can change that?

Are you doing anything special to help your local candidate? Do you want to get involved but don’t know how to assist? (Whichever Party: use the comment form and we can try to let you know).

It is very clear at the moment that even the Pollsters don’t know what is happening or what is going to happen on the day and we can see this clearly almost on a daily basis with the Conservatives reported to be 17% clear whilst another poll claims Labour have cut the lead to just 9%.

Slowly we have threads of the new shaping of things to come with claim and counter from all sides, the slow unraveling of the pre-budget report and now the potential of a March election which would let Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown off the hook with regards to announcing the real budget and real state of the nation’s finances.

If we do have a March election it would be nigh on impossible to stage a TV Debate although it was blogged to this effect back in October by Parlez_me_nTory.

Just a few things to set the mind working in the run up to Christmas and that long period of plotting, electioneering and gathering of strategy. I love this period as the nation steadies its troops and all parties are placed on a war footing.

This is not set to be a make or break conference for the party or for the leadership of the party but it is expected to return some tough decisions. Amongst those tough decisions will be issues affecting those out of work in our country, issues affecting savers, issues affecting homeowners and issues affecting business owners among many others.

This will also be the first conference of the New Media age which includes the tools such as Twitter and other social media platforms. Aligned with the conference the Conservative Party is using the Twitter #hashtags of #Con09 and #cpc09 both are valid, both have separate streams of followers so to gain the most exposure to the discussions of the conference and to interact it is wise to use both thereby limiting your 140 characters even further.

During the Labour Party conference the #hashtag that was in use was #lab09 and it is fair to say that even non-Labour voters used the #hashtag to discuss matters relating to the conference. Such civilized use has not been seen thus far this week.

It would appear in another showing of how #labourlost the idea of fair play the Conservative Party #hashtags are being added to and abused. Already we have seen #bigcon09 #cono9 in what one can only assume is an attempt to play the joker with the former and perhaps sway unsure users with the latter.

I blogged a few days ago about how Labour need to learn their lesson and how they really need to move away from the negativity that has beset them for so long, sadly it appears that even as we move into a New Media age they cannot seem to understand that need.

With that in mind and if unchanged down the line I fear for their existence following the General Election.

Monday’s Agenda in brief

Ready for change:
Policy review chairman Oliver Letwin
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude
Mayor of London Boris Johnson

Reforming Politics – Accountability and Transparency:
Shadow Commons leader Sir George Young
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague

Reforming Politics – Decentralisation and Social Action:
Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman
Shadow minister for community cohesion Sayeeda Warsi

The NHS:
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley

The Twitterati are using the #labourlost hashtag in some interesting ways which can be seen within the daily updates on the site.

This morning I noticed a blog post about #labourlost on a blog that I had previously not read so off I went to discover

Saturday, October 03, 2009
Take a look at the #LabourLost campaign

There’s a campaign to help bring together all those putting evidence for Labour’s failures forward on twitter so its easier for people (& esp voters) to follow.

Its all explained here.

I can see a few problems with the idea, espeically screening referals to cull troll tweets, as if trolls could fly . Still intresting to see how it works out.

The LabourLost web site is here and its twitter feed ( the most intresting part ) here.

However, I’m all for attacking the other side with listing their failures etc, the only thing I don’t like is trying to look like one of their sites ( which the web site does ). Other parties do this and it fools no one, but actually damages the integrity of the message.

Posted by Man in a Shed at 11:54 AM 1 comments Links to this post

Labels: #LabourLost, LabourLost

I have removed the links as that is not the point of this exercise. What is, however, is ensuring the right message is given and then confirm that that message has been received and understood.

I was delighted to note that Man in a shed had written about the campaign but was eager to set the record straight on a couple of points, hence my comment to his blog which is longer than the blog post itself

LabourLost.org said…

Good morning, thank you for your post with regards to the #labourlost campaign

I have 2 points to address with regards to your post if I may:

1) You say ‘especially screening referrals to cull troll tweets’ – it is true, this will be an issue but ‘we’ cannot control how the general public use the #hashtag once we provide them with the avenue of exposure we can only hope that it is used constructively and do our level best to stay on top of the screening process with regards to those that are ReTweeted.

In addition I can confirm that no guest blog post will be accepted unless it has been reviewed by at least 1 of the 2 staff involved in the campaign.

Anything smear related will be removed or the post will not be accepted. As we say on the site:

#labourlost is not officially supported by or affiliated to any Political Party

#labourlost is not a smear campaign against the Labour Party or the Prime Minister

#labourlost is not slanderous in anyway

#labourlost is not partisan, it is not conjecture

It is clear we cannot control use of the #hashtag but we can control what appears within the site.

2) You say ‘the only thing I don’t like is trying to look like one of their sites ( which the web site does )’ – again, this is true but not for the reason you may think.

We had set a launch date of 1st October and had therefore built our site and the template a number of weeks prior to this date.

1 week before launch the LabourList.org site revamped their design and relaunched, it was too close to our launch date to change our plans so we launched as originally planned.

One could deduce from this that LabourList.org got wind of our ideas and proceeded to copy the style though of course this could not be proved ;o).

I hope that helps readers understand a little better and we look forward to serving the general public.

Thank you
Best regards
LabourLost.org

That said, I retired for coffee.