Over the last 18 months or so, the Conservatives have substantially increase the quality of their online activities, with many of their initiatives straight out of the Obama campaign playbook. But one important new media technique which the Conservatives have so far failed to integrate into their overall communications/campaign strategy, is the inclusion of independent bloggers into their daily briefings. Yes ConservativeHome get a seat at pretty much every political speech or event, but they need to go much further.

In recognition of the growing importance new media is playing in shaping politics, Labour have started inviting a number of bloggers along to their daily lobby and press briefings.

Writing on Labour List, Mark Hanson gives his impressions of attending one such briefing with Jack Straw:

“There have been ripples of curiosity in the blogosphere about the decision by Labour’s press team to include bloggers in the daily briefings being given to journalists in advance of the Euro elections.

Jack Straw did one on crime and constitutional affairs on Wednesday with Ed Balls on Children, Schools and Families the following day.

I went along to the Straw session, held at 39 Victoria Street and this is how it went:

It was billed at 10:45 for 11am start but Straw was late, keeping everyone waiting in the holding room for about twenty minutes!

He then did a 5 minute summary of the choice facing the electorate on law and order. We’d all been handed an A4 document beforehand with Labour’s achievements on crime down one side and the Tories shortcomings on the other and his talk was a summary of that.

Unlike on the West Wing or at the PM’s monthly press conference, it isn’t a free-for-all in terms of asking questions. Basically Labour’s press team have a list of attendees and each one is called out and offered the chance to ask one question plus one follow up. I couldn’t work out what order people journalists were asked.

There were about 20 press from the lobby/home affairs beat, so that meant 40 questions about law and order…..er no, about 6 questions about crime and the rest about MPs expenses.

Don’t say it; they’re one and the same.”

While we all agree that lobby briefing is not perfect; it’s clear that, in respect of allowing bloggers to attend, the Labour party have out manoeuvred their Conservative counterparts. It’s great that ConHome are able to attend events, but one big blog is not enough. There is a vide range of blogs in the political blogosphere, and the speed at which they can get their stories out should be embraced by the parties media machine.

It will be interesting to see how the Tories respond to Labour’s embrace of the blogosphere. While some bloggers, most notably Guido, have spoken out about bloggers joining the Lobby, it’s clear that as more and more people get their news from independent websites the need for all parties to engage with bloggers will only increase. As Tory Bear puts it in his post: In other words, any chance of a lobby pass?

Hat tip: Tory bear

In the wake of yesterday’s devastating Times/Populus poll, it’s clear that within a few day’s the Labour party could be embroiled in a leadership crisis the likes we have not seen for a very long time. As James Forsyth puts it: “Gordon Brown’s will be fighting a last-ditch battle to save his premiership nine days from now.”

So what is Gordon Brown’s response? Well according to the Telegraph’s Andrew Porter, Brown is planning a game changer that many, including his own backbenchers, will see as the last role of the dice for a leader that knows he has very few moves left.

Andrew believes the Brown game changer will come in the form of bringing the Liberal Democrats into the government. As we all remember, this is something Brown tried once before with his “Cabinet of all the talents,” and look how that turned out.

While leaders of oppression parties normally like to get a seat around the table when coalitions are formed, and this is a coalition no matter how Brown tries to spin it, Nick Clegg would find it hard to find a seat as Brown has decided not to have a Deputy Prime Minister. This leaves Vince Cable is the most likely Lib Dem to join the Cabinet as a replacement for Alistair Darling.

But while the prospect of jointing the government may please some lib Dem supporters, I suspect that it will take more than just the promise of a seat at the Cabinet table for Clegg to climb abroad a sinking ship.

At the core of most political manoeuvring is the trade off between short term sacrifice for long term gains. And while jointing a failing government, that is likely to lose power come the next general election, may seem like a somewhat suicidal move, the negotiations will allow Nick Clegg to push key Liberal Democrat policies. Most notably referenda on both promotional representation and membership of the European Union.

Labour’s strategic thinking on this is simple, sell the vote on PR as an empowering constitutional reform and use a referendum of EU membership to re-ignite divisions within the Conservatives.

But the policy could also backfire. Many Labour MPs, most notably David Blunkett, oppose PR and the policy could look to political for many backbenchers to swallow. but where you’re so far behind in the polls there are few moves left.

But there is something that could stand in the may of any game changer, and that is the fallout from the June 4th local and European elections.

If as is predicted, Labour is relegated the third place in the Euro elections, and their is a leadership challenge Brown’s plans for a Labourr/LibDem coalition will be pointless. Its clear that any leadership challenge would have to be presided by resignations from the Cabinet. This would allow then to campaign against any coalition while sitting on the backbenchers, and their is nothing more dangerous to a beleaguered Prime Minister that disgruntled former Cabinet members sitting on the backbenchers.

Is anyone really taking Libertas seriously? The only party that gets laughed at more is the Jury Team. While many of the smaller parties standing in the Euro elections, have seen their projected share of the vote increase, Libertas has been incapable of capitalising on the public’s anger at the expenses scandal.

So what do you do if you’re a Libertas candidate finding it hard to be heard? Do you hit the street and knock on doors, do you get on the local media, do you get stalls up and running in the high street or do you dick around on YouTube.

If you’re Edward and Tony Devoy, Yorkshire and The Humber candidate, you go for the latter.

In a bid to increase their changes of not been totally humiliated on June 4th, the two candidates have release what can only be described as the worst political video ever.

If you thought Sion Simon’s WebCameron spoof was cringworthy, this will have you diving for cover.

A preview of Gordon Brown’s breathtakingly frank interview with David Frost. For the first and only time, the discarded Prime Minister answers questions about his involvement in the MPs expenses scandal.

Today’s Times is carrying a remarkable leader, the likes of which never gets published. The paper is now openly calling for sitting Cabinet ministers to rise up in revolt, following the expected drubbing in local and European elections.

The Times editorial declares:

“..The vital choice lies with his Cabinet colleagues. This, if they choose to seize it, is their moment… The fact is that Cabinet members have the power and, within a few days, the opportunity to change Labour’s course and they now has to decide..They could choose action. This would involve a Cabinet minister (or ministers) resigning, voicing in public the frustration with Mr Brown’s leadership that is common currency among them. Senior resignations would trigger a leadership contest that, with the slightly mysterious emergence of Alan Johnson as the likely winner, would lead in short order to a general election….

..The question is now whether any of them is prepared to act. For a long while they have steadfastly maintained, at least in public, that the cost of removing the Prime Minister from office was greater than the benefit. Perhaps the verdict of the electorate will steel one or more of them to speak the truth about power. But doing nothing is itself a choice. Either way, Labour’s future is not just Mr Brown’s but the Cabinet’s collective responsibility.”

Cabinet members on manoeuvres is nothing new of course. It’s not that long ago that David Miliband aborted his attempt to oust Brown, but this is different. For one thing the Prime Minister no longer has Damien McBride at his side to fend off attacks for hostile media. Also when Miliband made his move last time, Brown was comparatively popular.

Guido has an interesting ‘what if‘ post, looking at what may happen following a disastrous June 4th for Labour, which goes like this:

“Thursday June 4 is Labour’s worst nightmare, Labour’s local council low-point goes even lower. Either the LibDems or UKIP beat Labour on the percentage share of the vote in the Euro vote. The Sunday press is of course totally hostile to Brown with Labour MPs clamoring openly for him to stand down. If Sarah Brown can’t or won’t save him from humiliating himself that weekend, he will on the Monday night ( June 8 ) have to face the PLP disarmed of McBride and unable any longer to put the press frighteners on critics as much as in the past. Watch out for a recent former cabinet member making the Geoffrey Howe speech. Not Clarke or Byers, it will have to be someone without previous, who has served in Brown’s cabinet, someone like Peter Hain or Ruth Kelly. For the good of the party and the good of the nation he will be implored to go.”

Guido’s source also says that campaign teams are also being assembled in preparation for a June 12/13 challenge. Miliband’s SpAd Sarah Schaefer has sounded out a team ready to go within weeks, and Alan Johnson’s it reassembling the team that ran is unsuccessful deputy leadership campaign.

Nobody who follows politics thinks that Labour can do anything to save themselves in the local and Euro elections, so we’re set for a very interesting couple of weeks. Hacks will be pouring over every statement form Cabinet members, immediately after the poll results are known and the scale of Labour’s defeat is clear. Every work will be scrutinised for any signs of a break with the Dear Leader, and the opening shots in a war of word that will bring down a Prime Minister and signal a early General Election.

Georgia Gould, who was alleged to have run a dirty tricks operation when trying to secure the Erith and Thamesmead seat has finally got what she wanted. She has been selected as Labour’s candidate to fight the Kentish Town ward on Camden council. Something tells me that she will not be totaly happy with this though.

The Evening Standard has the story:

The 23-year-old daughter of Tony Blair’s favourite pollster Philip Gould has been chosen to fight the marginal ward of Kentish Town in next year’s local elections.

This month, Ms Gould came third in the race for the safe Labour seat of Erith and Thamesmead. She told the Standard last week that she felt she was a victim of smears in the campaign for the parliamentary constituency.

A former pupil at Camden School for Girls, allies point out that her selection for the Kentish Town ward means she is finally the “local candidate”.

Ms Gould, who was accused of being too privileged and too inexperienced to become an MP, will become one of Labour’s youngest councillors if she wins.

If her performance when trying to secure the Erith and Thamesmead seat is anything to go by, the election could rapidly turn into a bloodbath.

Terry Waite is rightly respected by the majority of the country, his success in negotiating the release of hostages in Lebanon and Libya have been celebrated around the world. While his ability to forgive those how held him hostage for four years shows fortitude many people could only dream of.

But his belief that an influx of independent MPs will somehow result in any meaningful change of the way politics is conducted is simply wrong.

Here are some of the choice bits from Terry Waite Times article:

As spectator sports go I have to confess to mixed feelings. I take little delight in seeing anyone publicly injured and humiliated. But along with the vast majority of the population, I am amused and angry. Amused at the ducks, the moat, horse manure, dry rot and phantom mortgages. Angry that, as Jonathan Aitken (who ought to know about these matters) said on the Today programme, compliance has replaced conscience.

The truth is that the gunpowder has been accumulating for a very long time. Increasingly a professional class of politician has grown and the more professional they have become, the more remote they are. Admittedly we live in a complex world where many of the issues that Parliament has to deal with are simply not resolvable by Parliament alone. Yet our MPs stumble along passing legislation that lays impossible layers of bureaucracy on education, the health service, small businesses, you name it. Politicians have fallen into the trap of believing that law and process alone suffice.

Despite the rhetoric about Martin Bell’s white suits and Esther Rantzen’s dancing, Roy Hattersley made the sensible point in last week’s Times that parliamentary parties lack a coherent ideology. He then implied that independent MPs were a waste of space.

I disagree profoundly. He knows as well as I do that there is virtually no difference between the two main parties in Westminster and the vast majority of Labour and Tory politicians are gagged, bound and beaten by the whip. No self-respecting individual in touch with the the people of this country and wishing to represent them could possibly submit to that. It reduces the individual to mere voting fodder and that is what the majority have become. Small wonder that they turn their attention to dealing with dry rot at their second home rather than speaking boldly in Parliament.

Unlike Lord Hattersley, I believe a good sprinkling of independent MPs in the House at the next election will liven things up considerably. If they are sensible they will be modest as to what they can achieve.

Terry is right to point out that any independent candidate should be realistic about what they can achieve. Last week I wrote about how ineffective Martin Bell was as a parliamentarian and my worries about Esther Rantzen standing in Luton South. For any anti-politician, anti-status quo independent candidate to thing that they, as independents, can make any meaningful changes to the whey politics is done in in Westminster is deluding themselves.

The sweeping constitutional changes outlined by David Cameron yesterday, are clearly in response to the belief, felt my many people, that the way we do politics in Britain is broken. But no independent MP, no matter how well regarded, could make required changes; indeed only a fool who thought they could.

His article also shows a naivety when it comes to the way modern politics is conducted. He is right to highlight the problem with the way the Whips control voting in the Commons, but he neglects to mention the a party leader who cannot rely on his MPs when voting is a critically wounded leader. Party dispassion is key to a parties success, you don’t have to look far back in political history to see evidence of this.

Cameron is right to reopen the Conservatives candidate list. This will give those who are rightly anger at the abuse of the expenses system a way to channel their anger, and be party of a party that now has the will to make the sweeping changes needed.

In a barnstorming article for Tuesday’s Guardian, David Cameron outlines his plans for parliamentary reform. Cameron’s reforms may be in response to the expenses scandal, but goes much further than just solving the problem of MPs expenses. If his plan gets fully implemented, it will constitute the biggest shake-up in the way Britain is governed, and be the biggest constitutional change of the modern era.

We should start by pushing political power down as far as possible. Politicians will have to change their attitude – big time. Politicians, and the senior civil servants and advisers who work for them, instinctively hoard power because they think that’s the way to get things done. Well we’re going to have to kill that instinct: and believe me, I know how hard that’s going to be. It will require a serious culture change among ministers, among Whitehall officials – and beyond. With every decision government makes, it should ask a series of simple questions: does this give power to people, or take it away? Could we let individuals, neighbourhoods and communities take control? How far can we push power down?.

Cameron’s reform plan will call for:

• Limit the power of the prime minister by giving serious consideration to introducing fixed-term parliaments, ending the right of Downing Street to control the timing of general elections.

• End the “pliant” role of parliament by giving MPs free votes during the consideration of bills at committee stage. MPs would also be handed the crucial power of deciding the timetable of bills.

• Boost the power of backbench MPs – and limit the powers of the executive – by allowing MPs to choose the chairs and members of Commons select committees.

• Open up the legislative process to outsiders by sending out text alerts on the progress of parliamentary bills and by posting proceedings on YouTube.

• Curb the power of the executive by limiting the use of the royal prerogative which allows the prime minister, in the name of the monarch, to make major ­decisions. Gordon Brown is making sweeping changes in this area in the constitutional renewal bill, but Cameron says he would go further.

• Publish the expenses claims of all public servants earning more than £150,000.

• Strengthen local government by giving councils the power of “competence”. This would allow councils to reverse Whitehall decisions to close popular services, such as a local post office or a railway station, by giving them the power to raise money to keep them open.

I’ve said time and time again that Cameron has lead the way in responding to the fallout from the expenses scandal, he has consistently read the mood of the general public right and continually out flanked Gordon Brown.

He has acted rapidly to suspend MPs who have breached the rules, forced others to resign at the next election and implemented new expenses rules for Conservative MPs. Now Cameron has taken the debate to a new level. While many MPs and commentators have highlighted the need for widespread changes to the way parliament works, the party leaders have stayed clear of outlining concrete plans for reform, until now.

When Andrew MacKay appeared in front of the TV cameras following a constituency meeting, he tried to claim that three-quarters of those who attended supported him. This was instantly refuted by those who attended, who said his claim misrepresented what was said at the meeting.

Now an extraordinary video from inside last Friday’s public meeting has emerged, which vividly demonstrates the anger people feel over MP expenses. It’s clear that this anger is not going to go away anytime soon, and scenes such as this could be repeated up and down the country.

Hat tip: ConservativeHome