Jacqui Smith and the adult films scandal: who cares?

Today the news broke that Jacqui Smith had claimed expenses for a number of pay per view films including ‘adult films’ (known to most of us as porn). She immediately apologised, claiming she accidently claimed the money thinking it was an internet bill.

The amount of the expense was £67, which seems so high for an internet bill that it would warrant checking before the claim was made. However thoughts like this have been brushed aside in the ‘Smith claims for husband’s porn’ scandal.

But this might be a good thing. It is clear that the level of scrutiny on MP expenses needs reviewing and this review is more likely to come from public pressure driven through the media.

It was refreshing to see Eric Pickles on Questiontime last week get hammered by the audience for his second home arrangements when he lives 37 miles outside of London.

But the problem with the current debate is that it’s too complicated. Many people aren’t aware of the expense rules for MPs or the time pressures on politicians like Eric. It is difficult to say what is fair and what is not. This means people can be engaged in the debate based on flimsy information or not engaged at all.

However when it comes to claiming tax payer money for adult movies then this is something easy to understand and has broad appeal amongst the electorate. It was interesting to see the BBC in its coverage cite the Sunday Express. I bet it’s not often the BBC use stories the Express break for their political news.

If I was working on the follow up story now, I would investigate smaller expenses further. How many extra costs accidently get slipped into ‘internet bills’ and the like across parliament? It’s like sticking an extra 15 minutes on the time sheet. If everyone does it, it can get accepted as part of the employment culture and that is a slippery slope.

Whatever though, let’s keep these stories focused on the human interest angle. How keen do you think people were to watch Jacqui Smith’s husband apologise today.

Online Campaigning - We've got a long way to go

I went to a seminar a few days ago where we looked at the Conservative Party and the Labour Party websites. It is not something I had done before, so I was shocked to see the gulf in quality between the two.

As much as it pains me to say it the Conservative homepage looks modern, up to date and professionally integrates social networking sites like facebook and twitter and multimedia technology such as embedded videos and blogs.

More impressive though is that much of the content is based on the users. There is a feature called the Conservastive wall which is a range of videos of Conservative supporters explaining what being a Tory means today. It shows the party realise that a modern website is more than just a page of information, but a platform for interaction between the party and the public.



The Labour site in comparison is wordy, poorly structured and the webpage is far too long. Whereas the Conservative homepage is a doorway for a lot of content, the Labour site is trying too hard to provide all of the content in one place.

Furthermore the way it has integrated videos is poor. If your finger doesn’t get too tired scrolling down the page and you do click on a video, you will be taken away from the website to YouTube. This is ridiculous, even I can embed a video. Look I will show you...





What did you think of the changing camera angles? Not what you would call slick is it? It's almost comical.

Also this homepage videos are months old. In comparison, on the Conservatives homepage there is a one minute video of David Cameron on a train to Birmingham. In it he talks about a speech he is going to make to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in which he apologised for the party not recognising the causes of the credit crunch earlier. This was headline news a couple of days ago, and the video explains the party’s position in a succinct short sound bite.

An (old)Knight in Shining Armour

The motivations of Labour’s online approach became clearer when reading Toby Helm’s article, ‘Prescott reinvented as online campaigner’ in the Observer on Sunday.

The intro reads, “John Prescott has been chosen as the unlikely leader of Labour’s general election campaign on the internet, as the party prepares to launch a low-budget battle for a fourth term in government.”

So in the context of the vast majority of young(ish) people using interactive social websites to engage with the world every day, the Labour party see the benefit of online campaigning as cost cutting? Didn’t they watch the Obama campaign and the election of the first e-President?

This view is reinforced further in the story. Helm says:

“Labour which is struggling to pay off a deficit of about £20 million sees low cost internet campaigning as a cheap but effective way of to reach mass audiences.

“The party wants supporters to use its website to print off posters and leaflets, which they would then distribute to voters ahead of both June’s European elections and the general election, expected next spring.”

Is this the sound bite that signals Labour are mastering the online campaign? Printing off posters and leaflets?

At least Prescott has a better idea, which is evident from his blog. He says the party can build relationships with new voters through online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. But still, is he the best man to lead the online revolution? I think even Conservatives would agree that his content is entertaining, but that is not the basis for being a master strategist in online campaigning.





Thankfully, I’m not sure that a better website corresponds to thousands more votes. But what worries me most about this difference in approach is that is that it shows the Labour Party to be completely out of touch with the modern world and how people are communicating. I am not a Conservative, but if Labour are going to get my trust and attention they need to raise their game in this area significantly.

P.S I realise this blog is too long for an online post – I’m still learning too.

Politics: Leadership vs. Management

I started this blog by saying that I believe the paradigm of politics is changing. The essence of what politicians try to communicate, i.e. their political position, is becoming secondary to the way they communicate it and how this makes people feel.

I had a flippant conversation a couple of weeks ago, in which I suggested elections should be fought on the grounds of competence rather than ideological beliefs. It is difficult to predict the crisis’ a government will face in a term, so surely it is better to be led by people who are calm and collected under pressure and good at solving a problem?

With this in mind, I proposed general elections look more like a graduate recruitment assessment day than a forum for ideological debate. The public should watch live David Dimbleby give the proposed cabinet a task and then assess them on how they work together to complete it.

This should be followed by competency based interviews with questions such as ‘Describe a time you have persuaded a person to take a certain course of action’ and ‘Describe the biggest problem you have faced. What did you do to overcome the problem?’

The argument against
Matthew Paris, a conservative political columnist for the Times, prompted me to think of this in his article ‘Put away your mops and buckets’

Paris argues that politicians are becoming ‘glorified shop managers’ devoid of political position. They assume the big ideological questions are settled, the business of government is agreed and democratic politics is about who runs the business best.

To Paris this is negative. He says: “We want politics to be about more than wiping up spillages...We are looking for leadership dominated by a human mind, a unifying set of ideas, and the beat of a human heart.”

Despite my flippant comments about competency assessment, I do agree with Paris in principle. However in practice all too often the messages communicated do not correlate with the action being taken. Gordon Brown saying “British jobs for British workers” is a prime example. It’s a great sound bite underpinned by political principle, but in practice it’s an impossibility.

Paris describes politicians as ‘feeble managers’. But this is not acceptable. Someone with a vision and a set of unifying ideas needs the managerial skills to implement their vision effectively.
Otherwise the unifying ideas they preach are pointless and misleading.