White House 2.0

In an era when politician's promises tend to be rhetorical and empty with little sign of being actioned, it is good to see immediate action. President Obama stated in his recent Weekly Address, that government must "recognize that we cannot meet the challenges of today with old habits and stale thinking... we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative." His pledge was to "reach beyond the halls of government" and engage the public. The result has been to 'be where the people are'; Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Vimeo, Twitter, YouTube and iTunes. The White House blog post "Technology has profoundly impacted how – and where – we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration’s effort to use the Internet to reach the public quickly and effectively". But it is not simply a strategy of reaching out and getting the public to engage with information, as a Politico's review suggests questions posed via social networks are also answered via the White House blog so putting people directly in touch with their government. Is this the future of government? Could any other politician either institute such a strategy, or perhaps gain the level of engagement Obama enjoys; that is the big question? Also, whether it will last is a question though that depends on Obama and the way he encourages the use of these tools and the extent to which there remains an audience.

Attack ads - German style

It looks quite cool and engaging but basically it is just a negative advert produced by the German SPD (Social Democrats). Rough translation is, The Shark represents the Free Democratic Party who are labelled as financial sharks (unscrupulous free marketeers basically). The 'Coin-head' represents the Christian Democrats who are labelled as self-interested and money-minded. The hair dryer is the left who are, well you may guess this - all hot air. It ends on the slogan "Regulation of Markets, Fairness for People, Responsibility for Europe".

It is entertaining, fairly blunt and to the point, nothing that special but has been circulated around Twitter and Facebook as a 'cool ad'.

Making David Cameron

The Conservatives are quick out of the blocks in producing an election video and they have, largely, taken a positive tone presenting David Cameron as in-touch with the people, an honest, straight-talker who engages an audience. Using clips of him on trains travelling the country and from the Cameron Direct events answering questions from ordinary people, it presents an image of him and also tells a story. The ordinary people arrive as floating voters and leave pro-Conservative.

Not sure if all the comments, and there are only eight so far, are from real people or party activists (and it is a fair point to ask if there is a difference) but if this is a typical response of an ordinary voter it presses the right buttons. MultipleTom writes "I like the authenticity of this election broadcast, particularly the real people talking about their real views with no regard to party line. it contrasts well against Brown's broadcast which is just him talking into a camera about how wonderful he is". Of course it is construction of reality that fits the narrative desired by the producers of the video, each person is carefully selected, so is each question and answer session to fit the overall narrative - it is well crafted authenticity. To me it is well done, very much borrowing from Obama in offering a the personal (or is that interpersonal) touch rather than the party based, top-down attack.

Will Brown go?

After an interesting weekend with cabinet ministers firstly backing 'that article' by Hazel Blears then falling over themselves to endorse Brown as leader it seems we are set for a summer of speculation. Every criticism of Brown by a Labour loyalist will be read as evidence that there is a leadership challenge imminent, so it may be a fair question to ask on this basis alone if Brown's position will remain tenable for another year?

Even more problematic, given the number of potential revolts and banana skins that lay before the government, will be the local and European parliamentary elections. Analysis out today indicates that Labour could lose all their councils - even heartlands like Derby - due to a combination of apathy among Labour voters and the Conservatives mobilising their support. An article in the Times suggests that if the projected swing of 12% materialises, which would be required for Labour to lose Derby, then cabinet ministers could lose their seats if there was a similar result at the general election. Clearly those who like a flutter think there is going to be a landslide.

This makes Labour MPs nervous, few can look at their seat and think it is safe, hence they will be staring unemployment in the face in the same way many others are during this recession. While putting them firmly in touch with voters, this is perhaps not quite the connection they wanted. Hence they will look to the reason for their predicament and for potential solutions.

Labour have a problem. There is no immediate successor and it is questionable whether the public would want a third leader within the space of five years any more than they do not want Brown to continue (as public opinion seems to suggest). The other problem is when is a good time to change leader. Major managed to replace Thatcher and get a honeymoon vote to win in 1992, though not without help from a triumphalist Labour party who celebrated a week prior to voting commencing. So could the conference be the best time for a quick coronation?

There clearly cannot be a leadership campaign or election of any great length, though it might generate interest from the public in the party. There does not want to be the emergence of factions around leaders, this would offer a perspective of a divided and weak party trying to cling to victory. But also it seems unavoidable that Labour will lose in June this year and in May of next with Brown as leader. The bigger question is whether an alternative would do better?

Brown's inefficiency seems to be related to his lack of a full time, or in any way decent, team of communication advisers. It is incredible just how often they get it wrong and it can only be compared to the communication disaster that was Michael Foot, but that was 1983 and despite taking over an efficient operation Brown seems to have abandoned all notions of public relations. What the above picture shows is that neither he, not his team, are thinking about image. It does not say he is a bad leader, but it does suggest he lacks full competence. Thus a new leader needs firstly to win over the party, get elected as leader, but then would need to overhaul this team in order to start to build bridges with the voters that would vote Labour but have been won over by Cameron's Conservatives. Simultaneously there is still a country to run and an election to prepare for; and all this in a year. So perhaps the biggest question of all is whether anyone in their right mind would take this on at this point but instead hope for survival at the general election and position to be leader as soon as the dust settles.

So perhaps it is unlikely Brown will go, probably because it is too late and a good successor will not want to be seen as carrying on with the disaster but starting afresh with a post-election blank canvas. Also, it is perhaps not in Brown's psychology to give up. He perhaps sees the problem as his own, but one he can fix, so will not simply shrug and retire. So to avoid a battle with Brown, dividing the already fractured party, and breaking your own career, it seems it is unlikely there will be a serious challenge to Brown this side of 5/5/10.

What ever you do don't panic

When there are any public crises the public look to their leaders for advice and to have their fears allayed. Hence the PR team backing Joe Biden, US Vice President, who have their work cut out at the best of times, have been trying to back track from a comment that basically says he would recommend people go no where near enclosed spaces. After a television appearance yesterday his spokesperson, Elizabeth Alexander, sent an e-mail to journalists trying to clarify the vice president’s remarks. According to USA Today, Alexander suggested that the specific question dealt with what Biden would tell a family member making an air trip to Mexico: “The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico,” she said. “If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways.” But this is not actually the way the conversation went.

Biden was indeed asked: "if a member of your family came to you and said, ‘Look, I want to go on a commercial airliner to Mexico and back within the next week,’ would you think it’s a good idea?" But he went a little beyond his brief when answering "I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico; it’s that you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be at this point—if they had another way of transportation—suggesting they ride the subway. So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes that’s one thing; if you’re in a closed aircraft, a closed container, a closed car, a closed classroom, it’s a different thing" So basically he is saying don't leave your home unless to spend your time in open spaces, fields whatever but no closed, err, containers! Now to be honest it probably is the sort of advice any man or woman would like to give to their family and for them to be able to take; but the economic and social implications of doing so are huge. Basically if those who can afford to avoid human contact do so, little is bought and sold, more bankruptcies and so on. Hence the backtracking by Ms Alexander. But here is another problem, backtracking suggests deception and reinforces the notion that he made a mistake and so dents Biden's credibility. Whoops!

Are bloggers hindering democracy?

It would be a hard argument to justify, but that is the argument made within the bi-monthly meeting of the New Castle County Council in Delaware, US. It is reported that Democrat member David Tackett proposed to make audio recordings of all council meetings available on the council's Web page in the spirit of being "open, accessible and accountable" to constituents. But this was voted down on the basis that, as fellow Democrat George Smiley argued "bloggers and other observers who don't routinely attend meetings would anonymously use the audio clips to criticize council members". He continued to say "The Internet is the greatest thing in the world to find information, but every day someone's reputation is destroyed using it." So it is an interesting question isn't it. Are those who claim to be exercising their democratic right to express their opinions actually hindering information being made public because they might use it to attack council members? Given the activities of Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes perhaps an argument can be made either way on how pernicious the effects are and to what extent the material used is always in context and used to reinforce a point it actually offers evidence of. It is an interesting question though!

Keep Smiling

You know how the media were saying Brown looked too dour, serious, out-of-touch, one of his media advisers must have told him to smile more. I have seen facial analysis done, and often the person being analysed can be very surprised to find how they look and what perceptions an audience may have based on their facial and body movement - I always dread a student telling me what they think of my 'performance' during lectures. Brown, I think, must have been told to move his face and body more and to smile. So here he is smiling.

Now, does he look authentic? Err No! Is he smiling at the right times, well he is smiling when he makes positive statements such as "screening those in contact with those diagnosed as having swine flu"; but is this really something to smile about? Err No! The major point is also this is not Brown's key problem. It is the range of problems that have beset him and his government starting with the election that never was, his backtracking, his tendency to procrastinate and talk about logic rather than emotion, it is basically his personality that is the issue. These things may actually make him a good leader, he weighs things up, he does not work with gut reactions but it can also be painted as him being uncertain and inconsistent. So message to the advisor - tell Gordon to STOP SMILING unless he actually feels he has something to smile about and it is a natural smile. Fake smiles are just too obvious and look just plain wrong - or is it just me?

Is this a young David Cameron? Should we care?

The Conservative Party have denied it officially (though that used to be a clear sign it was true) but the web is buzzing with the question whether this is the first film appearance of the Conservative leader and possibly the next prime minister 'performing' in public.

The question is really does it matter? Twenty years ago Cameron was not asking for the public vote, he was a very different, probably fairly immature, young man. Why should we expect him to have never enjoyed himself and done all the things that a young person does? A bigger question! Given that now there are pictures of so many of us, and in particular young people, on Facebook, in various states if my students are anything to go by, will this be a big problem in 20 years time? Will be expect our prime ministers and ministers to be found in a ton of pictures drunk etc, in fairly revealing clothing, with probably what may be seen as dodgy fashions in the future, but it will be normal. Perhaps also more politicians will say yes to questions about whether they have drunk, smoked dope etc and it will not be used as a way of undermining them. Who knows what the future will hold.

Planning - what planning

Louis Caldera is not exactly a household name, he is Director of the White House Military Office and the man responsible for organising a photo-opportunity for Air Force One, or at least a replica. The result became headline news as it all went wrong and half of the residents who witnessed the low flyover thought it was a repeat of 9/11.

Now, how could this debacle have been avoided? Well first you inform the Mayor of New York perhaps? Perhaps you inform the people via the press a day or two earlier? Perhaps you have an advance team deployed to let people know what is happening? After all if all you need is a shot of the plane airborne, it doesn't really matter what is happening on the ground and so you turn it into an event in which people can get involved rather than scaring people. Or perhaps you save the several hundred dollars and just photoshop it next to the Statue of Liberty or any other building you wish to for free, after all who would complain. Or you could do what Mr Caldera did and not think it through.

Europatweets

With Tweetminster and the general explosion in the use of Twitter it is perhaps not much of a surprise to find that the European Parliament on Twitter. Europatweets offers a news feed and links to a significant number of MEP twittering in order, as the site states, to make "Members of the European Parliament closer to their citizens". Visitors to the site are asked to "Follow what they say, react and retweet interesting thoughts". No great surprises so far, however what is interesting is the level of usage compared to the UK parliament, parties and elected members. There are only 42 tweeting MEPs, but between them they have produced 2,365 individual tweets. The UK has four tweeting MEPs with more than 100 followers, Lib Dem Graham Watson, Northern Ireland's Jim Nicholson and Labour MEPs Arlene McCarthy and Mary Honeyball; showing she is keen Labour candidate Anne Fairweather is also a member already and has 207 followers. Only Graham Watson, with 677 followers, looks to be making an impact though; the other 11 have 95 or less. Compare this to Portuguese MEP Rui Tavares, not only does he appear to tweet every couple of minutes at some points, he has 1,233 followers as well as a well read blog; the Socialist PES tweet most closely followed by the Greens. So What?

Well clearly someone is interested in what MEPs get up to, they are creating their own buzz and the citizens of the nations they represent are interested in them. Watson is perhaps a pioneer here, consistent with the Liberal Democrats' approach to new media, but the interest of UK MEPs perhaps reflects the lack of interest in the European Parliament generally. But perhaps it is an indication that such a tool can increase engagement and actually can, in Tavares case, put an MEP in touch with a fair proportion of people and if Word of Mouth is powerful perhaps if all of these tell another nine he may find it pays dividends for him. Will this be the tool for the near future (until the next gimmick comes along) and what role will it and can it play for MEPs and MPs?