The new Conservatives.com

Today sees the launch of the new conservatives.com and, on first impressions, it looks really good.

Highlights other than the design makeover:

• The party's new blog, The Blue Blog;
• A video wall.
• A very clear summary of policy, Where We Stand.
• A guide to campaigns.
• Regionalised sections; eg South West England.

We are told it's a work in progress.  More features will be rolled out over coming weeks.

It's not the radical platform we would like to see but it's a big leap forward and keeps the party well ahead of our political opponents.  Most encouraging is the fact that a team of six people are now dedicated to new media within CCHQ.  That should make the whole exercise sustainable.  Warmest congratulations to the folks behind this relaunch.

> David Cameron's video message for the new website and preview of next week's Party Conference

Comments

[Peter_M]

I like the new look of the party website, but I'd like to know whether domain name tory.org.uk will be scrapped or unified with conservatives.com. I'm used to visit tory.org.uk (that's the bookmark to the Conservatives I have saved) and after I logged in, I was confused, because I saw the old version.

[GB£.com]

From the new 'foreign affairs and Europe Policy page':

"But if the Treaty is in force we will be in a different situation. In our view, then, political integration would have gone too far and the Treaty would lack democratic legitimacy in this country and we would not let matters rest there."

'We would not let matters rest there'? A policy?

To call this a 'policy' is an insult to the British people.

[Roberts]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN BECAUSE OF MULTIPLE POSTING OF SAME COMMENT ON DIFFERENT THREADS.

[Twist1]

It would be nice if the new site complied with Level A accessibilty and validated against any form of HTML standards though. A step backwards in that respect!

[Sally Roberts]

Nice work CCHQ - looks very good!

[Henry Mayhew - ukipper]

I agree with them that it's 'time for change'.

How can they get away with that on Dave and George's official website?

A very encouraging start.

[Henry Mayhew - ukipper]

I agree with them that it's 'time for change'.

How can they get away with that on Dave and George's official website?

A very encouraging start.

[GB£.com]

I bet the most visited page on the new site today will be the 'HTTP Error 404.0 Page not Found' error as it seems that none of the hundreds of old links have been redirected.

That is not just incompetent, but it will actually lead to people who are interested in the Conservatives not getting the info they seek.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Still waiting for them to email my validation so I can log into the Blue Blog.Not a great start.

[Ian Bruce]

Yes good to look at but with links not working it does a dis-service to the party.

For instance the link to find your local association doesn't work and neither does the link to tell the webmaster of the problem! The policy pages are still ery light and do not appear to allow drilling down to get more detail about the specifics.

[Rachel Joyce]

Find your local Conservatives function doesn't appear to be working yet, but it looks good.

[Dan Hassett]

There are some nice new features, but it's a pity that the site has been rushed out before it was ready.

Apart from the dead links within the site, they have also removed the pages which contained the images used for the standard weblink buttons which were available to put on personal blogs and websites. Both the Conservatives.com, Webcameron and email sign-up buttons no longer load, because the pages the are looking for to get the images display the 404 page not found screen.

One further problem is that they have forgotten about overseas residence. We can vote. We can join the party. Unfortunately we can't register online without a valid UK postcode! Conservativesabroad.com is completely dead, and displays the 404 page not found screen.

[Dan Hassett]

... In fact, you can't even contact the party online without including a UK postcode, let alone renew membership or sign up to use the blog or wall.

[Peter]

Some very unforgiving remarks I think! I am looking forward to the Activists area being made available.

[Eleanor McHugh]

An interesting makeover, but my inner geek wishes it didn't still run on ASP - it's just icky...

[Matthew]

I like the new website. But the hyperlinks arn't amazing. The entrance to webcameron button is tiny and they've taken out some nice pictures but apart from that it's ok.