Puffbox

With the long Bank Holiday weekend behind us, Sunday's Observer piece by Hazel Blears already seems like a distant memory. 'YouTube if you want to,' she wrote - somewhat provocatively, on the weekend we recall Margaret Thatcher's ascension to Downing Street. Quite a soundbite, especially considering her reflection in that same piece that: 'No government [...] read on »

Today's big event on LabourList is Ed Miliband's piece on the launch of LabourSpace.com. He writes: Today I am launching Labourspace.com - the Labour Party's campaign social networking site. I hope it will provide a unique home for organisations and people to host and promote their campaigns - and to bring their ideas to the [...] read on »

Much excitement over the weekend at the launch of LabourList, describing itself as 'the must read online forum for Labour minded people'. Edited by Derek Draper, taking three days a week (he tells the Mail On Sunday) out of his job as a psychotherapist, the site is keen to stress its independence; but nobody's doubting [...] read on »

Conference season is as good a time as any to refresh a political party website. The LibDems did it last week; this week it's Labour's turn; and we're already hearing details of a new Tory site for next week. So is this finally the recognition of Labour's previous online under-performance? Er, no it's not. It's [...] read on »

There's a slightly odd atmosphere in Manchester, and I don't just mean the sunny weather. I'm paying a flying visit, to sit in on a fringe meeting at the Labour conference, to talk about 'web 2.0', blogs and all that. Just round the corner from the Town Hall is the main conference venue, surrounded by [...] read on »

Labour MP David Lammy's speech to the Fabian Society on Monday wasn't the first to say 'we need to learn lessons from the Obama campaign', and it won't be the last. But it's a well-constructued speech, and well worth a read. He notes the eventual success of two 'outsider' candidates, prepared to take risks - [...] read on »

From the 'you can't win' department... Guido today picks up on a piece by Shane Greer last week, claiming that 'Brown uses Downing Street (web)site to promote Labour'. And what incendiary partisan material are we talking about, precisely? An external hyperlink. The No10 site has a page of Gordon Brown's speeches. Or strictly, as it [...] read on »

Did anyone log on to the live Labour Party webcast last night? Or indeed, did anyone know about it? The party claims 3000 questions were sent in by text (or via the web, I believe?), to be put to the PM by comedienne Arabella Weir during the 30-minute Q&A session. The Labourhome website appears only [...] read on »

It really is Twitter week in Westminster. Barely ten days after the first MP began tweeting, and only a week after Number 10, the @Conservatives have launched an official channel - although so far, it's precisely the one-way Twitterfeed-powered channel we all expected @DowningStreet to be (but wasn't). Likely to be more interesting is @conhome, [...] read on »

Relaunched* (presumably?) at the weekend's Spring Conference, LabourSpace.com is the Labour Party's campaign-based social network. Ed Miliband's welcome message calls it '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.' There's much to like about it, but they get some [...] read on »