A new site, MyConservatives.com, was launched on Friday to help keen Conservative supporters become busy Conservative activists. The site allows people to find issues or local candidates they care about and get stuck into activities such as leafleting or contacting voters by phone.
Being able to provide a way for campaigners to connect and organise has proven to be a powerful force in American politics, with Barack Obama’s initiatives providing a blueprint for this new kind of campaigning which embraces the rapid technological change we’ve seen in western societies. Despite initial problems – the site went down within hours of launching – the site is now working as it should be, and it could prove to be a useful tool for Conservatives who wish to get involved in election or single issue campaigning but couldn’t see where to start. I’m not sure whether it’s a good sign or bad when the political party in this country that is best embracing technological change in innovative ways is the conservative one, but the Conservative party certainly seems to put the other parties to shame with respect to grasping the potential for web-based organisation and activism.
Nonetheless, though this is clearly an impressive step forwards for breaking down barriers for involvement campaigns, it would be going too far to claim, as David Cameron does, that ‘[a]t a time when the British people have lost so much faith in their political system, this is the kind of politics we need’. It is an intriguing development in unlocking latent support among the internet-savvy, but one should be wary of seeing it as a commitment towards greater democracy in decision-making in a wider sense; the real test lies in demonstrating political innovation of this kind when it doesn’t so clearly suit the interests of the Conservative political leadership.