Remember the ‘big conversation’ wheeze that Labour launched under the auspices of Tony Blair a few years ago? The idea was ostensibly to attract attention to issues from the ground up by means of a conversational space on the internet: aka, A Big Fucking Messageboard. And what a pointless exercise that turned out to be. Now the party is launching ‘labourspace‘ – a social networking site for Labour supporters. I suppose at this point I should be applauding the fact that political parties are waking up to the power of the internet, but the whole think reeks of failure before it’s even started. [ht:Dave Law]
The trouble with politics as it is currently practised is that it is all about being “on message.” Every sentence that a politician speaks is subject to immediate scrutiny by a media contingent desperate for hints of division or failure that they can sell to their readers. For recent examples, we need look no further back in time than, ooo, this morning when a government functionary was hauled over the media coals for proclaiming “light at the end of the tunnel” in the economy.
It is this, rather than an some quality inherent in politicians that has led to weird language which characterises political speech (in this country at least). We bitch and moan about the way these guys speak, but any flash of honesty, humour or humanity by those in power is rendered impossible by a baying press mob. Even Boris Johnson, the very archetype of the informal politician has been transformed before our eyes into a carefully neutral, beige kinda guy. Away from his semi-regular Telegraph column, anyway, where his old humour is still just about detectable.
This neuters political discourse and opens a massive rhetorical gap between political power and the people. And the real heart of the problem is that politicians will not allow for real voices to be heard. “We’ll be highlighting” intones Labourspace, “some of the most interesting and popular examples of your campaigns in this section”. Those first 3 words give the game away. “We’ll be highlighting” – not “the most popular things will appear here.” It’s a model based on top-down control, rather than bottoms-up idea generation and free conversation. It’s like Cluetrain never happened.
Elsewhere, Some Guy says: “I hope it becomes the place where those of us who share Labour’s values come to discuss how we want to make Britain a better place to live.” Doesn’t set the pulses racing does it? Meanwhile, Facebook has a group of 113000 people who think “I Was Born In The Uk. So Why The Fuck Do I Have Less Rights Then Immigrants?“ compared to the 4100 members of the official Labour Party group. This is an unhealthy divide.
How can politicians bridge this gap? They need to allow people on the fringes of the tightly controlled official party space a free voice to bring people into the sphere of debate. Surprisingly, the Tories are well ahead in this regard. John Redwood, a laughing stock for the best part of two decades has emerged as a witty and erudite blogger. Iain Dale’s Conservative Home, whilst toeing some degree of the party line allows open and frequent dissent and at least feels like a real organic discussion space. Maybe it’s the burden of being the party in power, but Labour’s attempts to get online have been pretty dreadful, and I fancy that Labourspace will soon be consigned to the scrapheap of forgotten political ideas alongside the Cones Hotline.