2 Oct 2009 11:01:31

MyConservatives.com has gone live

A few minutes ago, the Conservative Party's new campaigning website, MyConservatives.com, went live.

A hugely exciting development in online electioneering and campaigning, Tim blogged about it at the beginning of the week and the Daily Telegraph carried this preview piece, noting that the party reckons that it will be "the most advanced political campaigning network anywhere in the world outside of America".

Samuel Coates, late of this parish, who is now working on new media for the party, has blogged about it all here on the Blue Blog.

We look forward to watching it develop and grow in the weeks and months to come and wish the venture every success.

Jonathan Isaby

28 Sep 2009 15:32:20

Tories set to launch groundbreaking campaigning website

Up until now the web operations of Britain’s big political parties have all been top down, command and control. That’s been true of the Conservatives as much as Labour.  WebCameron and Eric Pickles’ War Room Briefings are great but they amount to the party communicating to us. ‘Ask David’ – one of the few CCHQ initiatives that put power in the hands of punters – was cancelled.
Things may be about to change.

Over the summer I revealed that Samuel Coates - well-known to readers of this site as ConHome’s original Deputy Editor and more recently as speechwriter for DC - had taken up a new media role in the run-up to the election.  Sam is not a programmer but he gets the internet as a revolutionary mechanism for spreading power from elites to masses.  Understanding the internet's cultural power is the key to understanding 99% of the internet's potential.

I can’t say too much now but launching in time for the Manchester Party Conference will be the beginnings of the most sophisticated electioneering kit that any UK political party has ever launched.  It's far superior to Labour's MembersNet.  I’d go so far to say that it’s probably better than anything launched outside the USA.  One of Europe’s leading internet companies is helping it to happen.

Continue reading "Tories set to launch groundbreaking campaigning website" »

10 Sep 2009 16:50:10

Would you like to see adverts like this on TV?

Most centre right thought-leaders polled by PoliticsHome.com think they should. The above ad was something I produced when I was at 18DoughtyStreet.com. Ads like this are certain to flourish on the internet in the months ahead but they cannot be put on TV (yet). I think it is time that that changed.  My favourite issue ad of recent times (although from the Left) is below:

Tim Montgomerie

4 Sep 2009 08:53:20

Murdoch's decision to charge for content will be the making of the blogosphere

Rupert Murdoch has saved Fleet Street before and he’s now on a mission to save it again. In the 1980s he rescued newspapers from the suffocating influence of the old print union barons. His plan to introduce micro-charging for online content is his high-risk attempt to ensure that newspapers prosper in the internet age.

I honestly hope he succeeds. The Murdoch empire has been an important bulwark against the BBC. Within Britain it has been good for Euroscepticism, good for sport and good for the war on terror. If he persuades other big newspapers to join him in micro-charging for content (and he is in discussion with the Washington Post and New York Times in America to that end) but also insofar as he creates a micro-payments system which can be used by others, Murdoch may succeed.

But if I wish Rupert Murdoch well I also believe that his initiative presents new media like this website with enormous opportunities.

ConservativeHome does not need to charge for content (one reason is here) and there are many other bloggers out there who, for a huge combination of reasons, are able to offer free content and, because of their expertise, are as good-to-read as most mainstream journalists. [I wrote a seven point defence of political blogging a couple of weeks ago]. The trouble for the busy punter is that there is much more rubbish out there than intelligent writing. There is a big gap in the market for someone to create something that looks like a British newspaper but the content is provided by bloggers rather than conventionally-paid journalists.  It would bring together the best online journalism – whether political, economic, religious, environmental.  I recently purchased TheFreeHerald.com when I was thinking about Murdoch’s plans.

Whatever I do or don’t do with TheFreeHerald.com I’m keen to ensure ConHome continues to grow in this environment.  Traffic in August was 37% higher than in August 2008 and when content starts to disappear behind payment walls our frontpage aggregation service should become more useful – particularly if it becomes more of a summary and less of a links service.

It would be very helpful if you would take two minutes to complete this brief survey. It will help Jonathan Isaby, Stephan Shakespeare and I plan next steps for ConservativeHome.

Tim Montgomerie

31 Aug 2009 12:43:46

Margaret Thatcher's "the lady's not for turning" could be your ringtone

Great minds think alike! On the day Frank Field MP writes for ConservativeHome about the need to reform the teaching of history in British schools CCHQ has begun its own week of online features dedicated to the party's history. Click here to explore the various features and stay tuned to the Blue Blog for entries throughout the week from the likes of Andrew Roberts, Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind and yours truly.

You can download quotes from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher as ringtones for your mobile phone.

That video recording Tory history has also been reworked. It's well worth watching again:

Tim Montgomerie

22 Aug 2009 08:58:18

How well did Conservatives use our years of Opposition?

"This is almost certainly the Conservative Party’s final summer in opposition: for Tories, the last of the summer whines. After that, one more party conference; and then they look forward to government. For them it’s about the future now: no time to linger over might-have-beens, no point in post mortems on opposition.  But the rest of us are entitled to sneak a backwards glance. What kind of opposition have they proved? How did they handle those 12 years?"

So asks Matthew Parris in his column for Saturday's Times.

Here are my random observations (inspired by Peter Franklin's 'Ten unwasted years' piece written in May 2007):

We saved the pound. If William Hague hadn't have campaigned so vigorously against Blair on keeping the pound (and against Ken Clarke and the other Europhiles) Britain may have been in the eurozone now. By making it a party political issue (something that would have been impossible if Clarke had become leader in 1997 or 2001) Blair did not dare hold a referendum.

Without Tory support the Iraq war may never have happened.  That's certainly my view and the view of the Bush White House.  I suspect a good half of Tory members regret the position that Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Ancram, Michael Howard, Oliver Letwin and the rest of the shadow cabinet took at that time.  I do not.  I regret the way the war was prosecuted.

We have accepted key parts of the '1997 settlement'.  We have not struggled against all that Labour has done.  We have accepted that devolution is here to stay.  We now support Bank of England independence - if not the tripartite regulatory regime that accompanied independence.  We support the minimum wage and 0.7% of national income being spent on overseas aid.  We support the rights introduced for gay Britons although are more careful than Labour about protecting the freedoms of churches and others to disagree with homosexuality.

Continue reading "How well did Conservatives use our years of Opposition?" »

12 Aug 2009 08:48:32

Guardian and Independent ignore Kaminski's rebuttal of smears against him

Over recent weeks The Guardian and Independent have featured a number of horrible attacks on the reputation of Michal Kaminski. Yesterday Mr Kaminski responded forcefully to the charges against him - as did William Hague. I passed the rebuttals to both newspapers. Have either of those two newspapers featured the rebuttals today? Of course not. Thankfully the old media monopoly is broken and blogs are only going to grow and grow as a result of this kind of behaviour.

Tim Montgomerie

PS Good piece by Timothy Kirkhope MEP in today's Yorkshire Post defending Mr Kaminski:

"Michal Kaminski has refuted all of the allegations made against him: that, for instance, he is anti-Semitic, homophobic and that he was a member of a far-right party as a teenager. Of course, none of these smears are justified as has been shown by recent remarks by a former British Ambassador to Poland and by the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. Michal was a member of National Revival as a teenager when it was one of the underground movements against the authoritarian Communist regime and its only real ideology at the time was to defeat the Communists. After Poland was liberated, all parties took on new platforms, but Michal had long since moved on. Michal is not a homophobe. He fully supports civil partnerships for homosexuals. As for the allegation that he is anti-Semitic, this is particularly offensive to a man who has spent his life defending Israel and supporting Jewish communities."

Read the full piece here.

1 Aug 2009 12:30:40

Samuel Coates joins CCHQ's new media team

Until a year ago Sam Coates was Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome.  He is now leaving his job as speechwriter to David Cameron to take on a new media role at CCHQ.  Working with Rishi Saha, Sam (when he is not chopping word for elderly widows) will be helping to develop the party's use of the internet.  It's a perfect fit for Sam's networking skills and love of technology.

He has today written about his role on the party's Blue Blog:

"This understanding of what we call the post-bureaucratic age informs the Conservative approach to policy-making. But if this understanding informs the way we believe we should organise ourselves as a country, it is only natural that it also informs the way we organise ourselves as a party.  The power of web 2.0 has not been in the top-down broadcasting of information, but in collaboration and the building of communities. Just think of the bottom-up, user-generated sites like YouTube and Wikipedia."

Read Sam's full post here.

Continue reading "Samuel Coates joins CCHQ's new media team" »

29 Jul 2009 07:58:52

ConservativeIntelligence.com

One of the biggest issues facing anyone in journalism at the moment is how to make it pay.  Newspapers, TV stations, blogs are all facing the same challenge.  ConservativeHome.com is a free-to-view service and we do not take advertising (not yet anyway) and yet it costs a lot of money to run this website and its 363 days a year service (we take Christmas Day and Boxing Day off!).

I recently took the decision to try and make money by establishing ConservativeIntelligence.com.  The conference we held on 30th June (photo gallery) was the launch event for CI and more than 150 companies, each paying £100 to £250 came along.  CI will be having more events over the next year.  CI does not offer lobbying or access - only intelligence for the many businesses and charities wanting more information about what is likely to be the next government of this country.  One of CI's products to our £1,000pa subscribers is a weekly 'Intelligence Letter' that aims to provide an overview of the big issues facing the Conservative Party and the decisions that it is taking.  I mention it today because the second of these letters has been leaked to The Times' Sam Coates.

ConHome readers get two main benefits from CI: (1) It pays for this site's costs (and any profits will be reinvested in ConHome) and (2) Some of the CI products do find their way on to this site (although for obvious reasons only some and only then with a delay).  Jonathan Isaby's lists of candidates (eg here and here) being one example.

I hope readers understand why I have set CI up.  Despite the annoyance of the letter leaking, the venture is going very well.

Tim Montgomerie

27 Jul 2009 18:40:42

On internal debate

At the height of 2007's grammar schools row David Cameron was asked about military intervention against a rogue regime.  He joked that he would support it if the military sorted out ConservativeHome while they were at it!

I am well aware that our role in the grammar schools row was not appreciated by the Conservative leadership but, on the whole and despite the criticisms that ConHome makes of some aspects of Conservative strategy, I can only report a very good relationship.  There is a good flow of information both ways.  No grudges.  No hostility.

I write this because of the debate in the blogosphere today about David Davis' piece in The Times.  It's the latest in a series of edgy interventions by David Cameron's 2005 leadership rival.  I spoke to David Davis this afternoon and he told me that the party needs two things at the next General Election: a majority and a mandate.  He's quite right.  It will be politically murderous for the party to win without giving voters a very clear idea of what needs to be done to get this country back on track.

Iain Dale thinks it is perfectly appropriate for DD to make interventions of the kind that he has.  Iain writes persuasively on the subject:

"What we want is for senior politicians to feel able to try to lead a debate on particular issues. If when Davis writes an article it is now only viewed through the prism of whether he is trying to cause trouble, it says something about the level of political debate in this country."

Continue reading "On internal debate" »