Tweetminster

Dear John Pugh MP

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:31:39 -0500

One of our followers, @gift_of_the_fab , recently pointed us to this piece by Lib Dem MP John Pugh in which he further explains his position against the use of smart phones in the HoC.

He also mentions Tweetminster in the piece, so we hope John Pugh will take the time to read why we feel his position is inaccurate:

The dichotomy between the virtual and real world is false - the virtual simply makes several aspects of the real world easier, better, more efficient and effective. It doesn’t though replace the “real”. We’re sure that similar debates occurred each time a new communications tool or standard emerged. Amongst its values, social media makes it easier to communicate with people, to organise, mobilise, coalesce around common interest, to share and spread information, news and opinions, openly and effectively. The falseness of the dichotomy is even greater amongst younger people, who coincidentally are the least involved in politics. Someone recently told me a story about asking a young person if he used the Internet a lot. “No”, he responded. “What do you with your time?” the interviewer asked. “I go on Facebook.”
Communication tools like Twitter, allow people to connect beyond their circles of acquaintances and the coincidental links of geography - it creates a level playing field that allows anyone communicate directly with people everywhere disintermediating traditional channels and complementing, not replacing, the way we communicate, debate, converse, spread messages and share information. Most MPs are currently perceived as part of a monolithic block by the public - social media helps give a human face to individual MPs.
You don’t need to share that you’re going to the gym if you don’t want to: you choose what to share - some share more personal trivialities, others post links, several debate, while others provide insight into their daily routine as politicians: there is no right way to use the communication tool. You can also choose who to follow and interact with.
Finally, and most importantly, the “random strangers” in question are those that politician’s should represent, the majority of which currently don’t feel very inspired - connecting and interacting with them genuinely (independently if through Twitter or other tools and means), so that they feel less random, might possibly be a step in the right direction, towards a place that is beyond an “us and them” where more people not only vote, but participate within the political process.

This week in tweets.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:00:19 -0500

As the number of MPs on Twitter grows, keeping track of interesting tweets becomes more complicated, so starting this week we thought it would be helpful to list the 10 posts that we feel are the most interesting in capturing the week’s mood.

In no particular order:

@DouglasCarswell: We need a referendum on Europe - not necessarily Lisbon, but on the EU: http://bit.ly/eQKPS

@JohnPrescott: Looks like Cameron’s cast iron guarantee has gone rusty! RT @DavidWooding Hague confirms Tories will NOT hold referendum on Lisbon Treaty.

@Andrew_GwynneMP: Crumbs it’s like the Karma Sutra approach to international politics! So many Tory positions on Europe today I’m struggling 2 follow! :)

@Nick_Clegg: Only Alice in Wonderland Westminster would delay or water down reform of this rotten parliament, we must adopt Kelly: http://bit.ly/36ihlB

@JoSwinson: @cleslie92 MPs have messed it up too much in the past to have credibility to make the rules, so must accept independent proposals as they are

@KerryMP: I welcome Kelly calls for more transparency on MPs second jobs, but don’t think MPs shd have them. It’s a full-time job being an MP.

@EricJoyce: Prof Nutt - Horse riding v Ecstasy? Horse riding ON Ecstasy sounds risky. Esp if it’s the horse who’s on the E.

@NadineDorriesMP: Ive blogged my take on the dangers of horse riding http://tinyurl.com/ydoo2hj

@SandraGidley: Ignoring scientific advice is being given a political slant but isn’t it just a symptom of mistrust of science - widespread in society?

@EricPickles: No cause is truly hopeless until it is endorsed by the Prime Minister - Cameron commenting on PM’s support of Blair for EU President

Are politicians running in marginal seats more likely to tweet?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:14:39 -0500

Last week week we looked at the regional breakdown of politicians on Twitter, with some interesting results.

Based on these, we thought it would be interesting to find out if there was a correlation between politicians on Twitter and marginal seats.

Here are the results of MPs & PPCs on Twitter and in marginal seats broken down by region:

London: 31% (of MPs and PPCs on Twitter from London are in marginal seats)
Northeast: 25%
East Midlands: 67%
Wales: 22%
Northern Ireland: 0%
East: 33%
Northwest: 30%
Southeast: 42%
Yorkshire and the Humber: 38%
West Midlands: 41%
Southwest: 53%
Scotland: 27%

Overall on Twitter, 37% of MPs and PPCs are in marginal seats.

While the results are mixed, it’s safe to say that there isn’t a correlation with marginal seats and use of Twitter, and this is probably a positive as it means that most politicians that are using Twitter (and other social media) are doing so because, like the rest of us, they genuinely want to engage and interact with people.

We defined as marginal any seat that had a 10% or less majority at the last general election.

Announcing @TmLiveEvents - Tweetminster's new live events feed

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:57:11 -0500

After our invite to the Dublin Web Summit (which was a great event) it occurred to us that not everyone following @tweetminster wants to receive blow-by blow updates of the views from event panels and keynotes at conferences - so we’ve created Tweetminster Live (@TmLiveEvents) to deliver the real time buzz from live events, leaving @Tweetminster to continue digesting the most relevant news from politicians, journalists and commentators tweeting UK politics.

Live events can be intense and only Twitter has the ability to capture the action in real time - it’s a great way to follow an event that you can’t attend - but we’re keen to improve our services at Tweetminster and that means making sure we don’t over-tweet our main feed. Tweetminster Live will also make it easier to follow events by filtering out our main Tweetminster content and keeping the feed on-topic.

Follow Tweetminster Live if you want to get the inside track on conferences, summits and events - and unfollow it if there’s an event coming-up that you don’t want a feed from… you can always check-in on the www.twitter.com/tmLiveEvents home page for a digest of tweets after an event. We’ll let you know via @tweetminster when a live event is coming-up to make sure you don’t miss anything.

Tweetminster Live will be running on Wednesday 4th November for our Parliament 2010 panel event with @catherine_mayer @kerrymp @joswinson @nadinedorriesmp and @albertonardelli, if you want to follow the event it kicks off at 6.00pm.

A regional breakdown of UK politics on Twitter

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:15:00 -0500

When we speak to people one of the points to often emerge is how can Twitter be used to connect with constituents and for more local politics. On Tweetminster you can already search for MPs by constituency, and we are currently working to expand the feature to PPCs and we will be releasing several more locally-relevant tools soon.

In the mean time we thought it might be helpful to use Twitter’s new lists feature to create listings around regions (we would have loved to do this per constituency, but unfortunately there’s a limit to the number of lists a user can create).

The aim of these lists is to make it easier for people to find their local MPs and PPCs on Twitter and to showcase a regional breakdown of politicians using the service.

Here’s what we found:

North East
MPs & PPCs: 8
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 37.5% Lib Dems: 25% Labour: 37.5%

East Midlands
MPs & PPCs: 15
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 47% Labour: 47% Other: 6%

Wales
MPs & PPCs: 8
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 38% Labour: 38% Lib Dems: 12% Other: 12%

Northern Ireland
MPs & PPCs: 1
Party breakdown: Other: 100%

East of England
MPs & PPCs: 24
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 29% Labour: 38% Lib Dems: 21% Other: 12%

North West
MPs & PPCs: 18
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 33% Labour: 33% Lib Dems: 22% Other: 12%

South East
MPs & PPCs: 30
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 27% Labour: 40% Lib Dems: 20% Other: 13%

Yorkshire & The Humber
MPs & PPCs: 20
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 29% Labour: 55% Lib Dems: 15% Other: 1%

West Midlands
MPs & PPCs: 19
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 21% Labour: 69% Lib Dems: 5% Other: 5%

London
MPs & PPCs: 42
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 21% Labour: 33% Lib Dems: 29% Other: 17%

South West
MPs & PPCs: 32
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 18% Labour: 53% Lib Dems: 28% Other: 1%

Scotland
MPs & PPCs: 21
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 29% Labour: 23% Lib Dems: 29% Other: 19%

Totals
MPs & PPCs: 238
Party breakdown: Conservatives: 27% Labour: 42% Lib Dems: 21% Other: 10%

While the numbers reflect several trends that you would expect, such as a concentration of users in London, probably less expected, and more interesting, is the diverse regional spread (in the case of the Conservatives) or concentration (in the case of the Lib Dems) and the possible correlation between these trends and voting and campaign expectations within the various regions.

You can find all the regional lists linked from @tweetminster. We hope the findings are of interest.

How the Question Time experiment worked.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:21:13 -0400

Last night we ran a little experiment during BBC Question Time aimed at measuring the volume and sentiment of tweets during the programme.

You can view the various stats in our Twitter feed. We hope you found it useful and would love to know your thoughts and feedback.

Several people asked us how it all worked. The aim of the experiement was mainly to test various tools and technologies (that we will be releasing in the near future) around a confined timeframe/event and population (those viewing and commenting on the event).

The goal is to shake and open up the way analysis is done, to measure the pulse of stuff now, not tomorrow, and most importantly to eventually empower anyone to contribute to an analytical process.

Full details will be revealed then, so we can’t share too much while we work to prepare the tools for launch as we want to make sure you find it valuable, but in the mean time, here are a few notes about yesterday:

We measured the volume of tweets around Question Time - the challenge here is to go beyond the hashtag (which quite a few people actually don’t use) by dynamically looking for relevant references within tweets (for example the name of a panellist). At the close of the programme there were 53,500 tweets counted, coming in at a rate of 12.49 tweets per second.
Dynamically determining a population: during yesterday’s analysis we looked at three populations: 1) a pre-determined set (eg MPs, PPCs, journalists, bloggers and news sources) 2) the evolution of sentiment within a determined and relevant sample (eg how sentiment evolved amongst 100 people before, during and after the programme) 3) an evolving sample: those watching and commenting on the programme.
Sentiment and trends analysis: the starting point here is a network analysis - determining relevance, reach and influence within the various populations, determining sentiment and linguistic patterns within this network, automating the analysis, search and measurement of these patterns and emerging trends within the analysed content, and finally measuring and sharing the results with the world in a meaninful and timely way.
Oh yeah, trying to do lots of the above in real time.

All this requires still a lot of tweaking, experimenting and “training and learning” for the machines, but we’re excited by the potential, and most importantly we’ve only just began to scratch the surface of what will be possible.

Stay tuned

Conference Diary, Conservatives 2009, Days three & four

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:53:15 -0400

Day three of the Conservative Conference got off to a slower start than normal. As Nadine Dorris MP tweeted “Everyone looks exhausted today after last night’s parties. If you could bottle the atmosphere and sell it you’d easily fund the GE campaign”.

The day focussed on education and social policies with Michael Gove setting the ball rolling with plans for a shake up in school policy. Among other changes, a Conservative government would enable anyone fit and without a criminal record to set up a school, and access initial funding from the state. More unexpectedly, the plans also referred to redeploying returning British soldiers in schools to bring discipline. This prompted some raised eyebrows amongst media and delegates alike, suggesting that should such ideas appear in the Conservative manifesto, education might prove to be the sort of ideological battleground already seen in US in response to plans to reform healthcare.

Theresa May chaired a session on [children and families] and pointed to the scale of exclusion facing many children and families. 1.9 million children live in families where no one has ever worked, with one in six UK children living in families that are currently workless. The new Tory tone was clearly intended to signal the need for action without condeming those on benefits – no references to benefit scroungers abusing the system, only the need to lift children out of workless environments. In many ways this showed that Theresa May’s comments about the ‘nasty party’ six years ago had produced the desired effect. Although widely condemned at the time by fellow Conservatives, Theresa May’s comments anticipated the repositioning of the party achieved by Cameron. We caught up with her to hear direct why she thought the party had shed its ‘nasty’ image.

Similarly, much has been made of Ken Clarke’s return to the front bench as signalling a shift back towards the centre ground of politics. He told us about why he had decided to come back, and how “David and George are actually alright”. Moments before a random delegate passing by shouted at him “don’t sell us to Europe, Mr Clarke!” – the most vocal dissent we’ve heard all week.

In the evening we attended a fringe event on the relationship between Great Britain and China, with speakers including the Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Madame Fu Ying.
Between diplomatic compliments exchanged by the speakers, the key point emerged that Britian’s relationship with China will very much be dependent on its influence within the EU. The audience was tactful and polite – no-one asked how this reality would be squared with more hostile views on Europe heard elsewhere at conference, not least from the platform. And no-one mentioned anything that might offend Madame Ambassador. With a twinkle in her eye she teased the audience “none of you asked me about Tibet!”

As day four arrived, the fringe wound to a close so all attention would be focussed on the key speeches. William Hague grasped the nettle of Europe. Britain needed to secure more influence, he said, in order to reform the EU and make it less bureaucratic, more accountable, and focussed on the needs of its citizens not its leaders. For this reason, he opposed the Lisbon treaty for advancing new positions such as an EU President – unelected, he said, and unaccountable. And above all, the EU should be seen as just one part of the UK’s foreign presence, along with the transatlantic alliance and the Commonwealth, as well as a powerful independent voice from “the nation that 200 years ago cleared the seas of slavery” and which “shouldn’t be ashamed to pursue its enlightened national interest”.

Cameron’s speech began after a succession of indie classics – Keane, the Killers, Coldplay. And Bono, just like Labour – except this time quoting a Tory line that “cuts must not cost lives”. Cameron started with Afghanistan – which 75% of our Tweetminster feed of politicians, media and influencers reacted to positively. Tax incentives and references to big government received a mixed reaction, however, with 80% of tweets from Conservative affiliates responding positively, compared to a 70% negative sentiment among journalists, influencers and commentators. The greatest concentration of negative tweets (65%) across all analysed content were concerned with the line “I want every child to have the same opportunities I had”, while the three key passages (i.e. the most referenced within tweets) were: ”My DNA: Family, community, country”, ’Labour don’t you DARE lecture us on poverty!’, and “Character and judgment count for more than policies and manifesto”. Several tweets showed that a number of people felt that Europe and the environment/climate change should have had a more important role in the speech

Overall, response on Twitter among MPs, PPCs, journalists, bloggers, influencers and news sources was generally positive. Whilst our overall analysis of the 768 tweets made during the speech shows that 40% were neutral, 30% negative and 30% positive in sentiment, the latter figure doubles to 60% after removing tweets clearly aligned with a party, a shift partly explained by the dominance of Labour affiliates on Twitter.

Twitter sentiment around David Cameron's speech

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:44:10 -0400

Of the 768 tweets from MPs, PPCs, journalists, bloggers, influencers and news sources during David Cameron’s speech the split of positive, negative and neutral reactions was as follows:

40% Neutral
30% Positive
30% Negative

The breakdown is possibly impacted by the greater presence of Labour affiliates on Twitter, in fact removing party affiliation from the calculations (i.e. focussing on tweets of those that aren’t clearly aligned with a party) the percentage of positive sentiment grows to 60%.

The most used terms within the analysed tweets were: catalyst, adults, shadow cabinet, NHS and poverty.

In terms of specific parts of the speech, starting with Afghanistan was greeted very highly, with 75% of tweets positive, while parts around tax incentives and big government received mixed reactions, with 80% of positive sentiment amongst those affiliated with the Conservative party, but 70% of tweets from journalists, influencers and commentators were sceptical.

There was a concentration of negative tweets (65%) across all analysed content around the line “I want every child to have the same opportunities I had”, while the three key passages (i.e. the most referenced within tweets) were: ”My DNA: Family, community, country”, ’Labour don’t you DARE lecture us on poverty!’, and “Character and judgment count for more than policies and manifesto”.
Finally, several tweets showed that a number of people felt that Europe and the environment/climate change should have had a more important role in the speech

Party Conference Diary, Conservative 2009, Day two.

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:18:00 -0400

Day two of the Conservative conference dawned with Monday’s sunshine replaced by lashing rain. Tweetminster’s co-founder @albertonardelli still sported his controversial duffel coat with strategy director @abeddard opting for a below-the-radar Barbour to redress the balance - and keep the rain out.

The day rotated around shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s speech and Conservative plans to get Britain working again. Repeating a mantra of “We’re in this together”, Osborne listed the party’s plans to move Britain from a spending to a savings society. These included a call to accept the 50p tax rate (met with gasps in the hall), promises to reduce the cost of Whitehall by a third (saving £3bn), cutting the pay of ministers by 5%, rises in pension age and unspecified measures to target Quangos, red tape and excess.

While many observers praised the political astuteness of the speech, there was confusion among media and delegates alike as to some of the specific measures such as a pay freeze on all public sector salaries above £18,000. Were frontline workers exempted, as some thought? If so how would they be defined? Would it make sense to distinguish between, for example, a nurse and a support technician who keeps the heart monitors working?

The speech of course included jabs directed at the Government and the Labour party “whose policies heralded an age of irresponsibility”, as Osborne laid out the choice at the next general election as one not between cuts and investment, but one between reality and fantasy. The Shadow Chancellor also reminded the hall that he and David Cameron had put aside party politics to support the bail out of the banks in the interest of the country - a decision not universally popular within the Party as shown by John Redwood’s comments at a Taxpayers Alliance fringe event where he described the Government’s intervention in the banks as “wanton, reckless, and wholly unnecessary”.

Such dissent was the exception, though, not the rule - and much of the media bemoaned the lack of open debate on issues known to split the Party, such as Europe and the environment. That said, at one fringe event the panel seemed to reach a broad consensus that while climate change was probably happening, the high financial costs of dealing with it meant that it wasn’t worth the bother. Peter Lilley MP pointed to the initial impact assessment of the Climate Change Act, noting a maximum economic benefit of £110bn with costs of £205bn, and joked that the day the Act passed “it was snowing outside”. We caught up with Peter Lilley for an audioboo so he could explain where he stood

Word of the discussion caused worried winces from younger Conservatives around the conference at pains to emphasise such views were not the mainstream party position. And overall, the sense among Conservatives was one of calm optimism and a feeling that after twelve years in opposition the party was now a place for progressive thinking and new ideas. Joanne Cash, PPC for Westminster North gave us a great audioboo that captured the mood.

Party Conference Diary, Conservative 2009, Day one.

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:53:00 -0400

Tweetminster arrived in Manchester with our co-founder @albertonardelli complaining about the cold and our strategist (and today’s blogger) @abeddard enthusing about being back in his home city after an interval of a quarter of a century. The recently rejuvenated city centre provided a stunning setting for a slick and impressively staged conference. Security was robust, with the familiar concrete blocks and fencing supplemented by armed police in black SWAT-style combat gear - who had clearly been instructed to smile at delegates to lessen any sinister overtones.

The exhibition area benefited from lying between the entrance and the conference hall so felt less of a side show than at Bournemouth or Brighton, with the nearby bar and lobby of the Midland hotel providing a further focal point for the crowds of delegates. The atmosphere was buzzing yet business-like, with Kathy Newman of Channel 4 News tweeting that it felt “more like Hampstead than Manchester”. Just a few years ago Conservative conferences were being likened to retirement home outings. The return of a more youthful and invigorated atmosphere was clearly central to the sense of impending change - a theme picked up on in the speeches, notably by William Hague who listed his views on Labour’s failings to steady applause.

We grabbed Alan Duncan for a quick audioboo in which he heralded a new dawn for progressive politics within the Conservatives and told us how much he was looking forward to Conference Pride in Manchester’s gay village - also plugged by Eric Pickles in a recent online ‘war room’ briefing on the Conservative website. Clearly no-one had told Alan Duncan that he might bump into Eric, and there was a fleeting but slightly stunned silence before Alan warmly confirmed that all would be welcome. Sadly, this moment was lost to posterity due to signal problems that prevented us uploading the interview. Indeed, by lunchtime the poor signal coverage and resulting lack of Tweets had given rise to a rumour that Conservative MPs and PPCs had been told to steer clear of Twitter during the conference. This story was quashed by Tory HQ who pointed to the problems afflicting almost everyone using iPhones or O2. But as with the so-called ‘Seatgate’ controversy at the Labour conference (which bloggers insisted was poorly attended despite eye witness accounts to the contrary) online rumours around what we might call ‘Signalgate’ proved hard to stop once set in motion.

Technical glitches could not stop good old-fashioned human networking, and there was a real sense of energy as MPs, candidates, media and lobbyists mixed and mingled. I caught up with @damiancollins, PPC for Folkestone and Hythe, who explained what candidates look to gain from conferences, and talked about the buzz created by announcements of tax breaks and National Insurance waivers for new businesses calculated to create 60,000 new jobs. Boris Johnson also found time to give us a quick boo before a spot of lunch, in which he plugged his use of “Twitter or whatever it’s called”. As one of many ReTweeters put it: “classic Boris”.

Our pick of the early evening fringe included the continuation of the BBC World Service’s series on social media and its impact on democracy, with discussion focusing on whether it causes as much harm as good by giving a voice to extremists and conspiracy theorists. Although there were some strong opponents, the balance of view tended towards a recognition that all media innovations from the printing press onwards have been agents of both knowledge and confusion and that what matters is the context and structures around how they are used.

The serious debate was followed by a brief drink at the Spectator party - where one partygoer (only half-jokingly) invited us to “feel the power”. Before we could discover whether this was a chat up line, a comment on the venue’s Wi-Fi, or an observation on the Spectator’s guest list we realised that an equal level of ambiguity was being created by Alberto’s choice of attire - which tonight included a duffel coat and green suede shoes. Heading home amid much discussion on sartorial semiotics, Alberto insisted the duffel coat was less a homage to Michael Foot and more because he was just “genuinely cold”. It is Manchester after all.

Party Conference Diary, Labour 2009, Final Day.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:02:00 -0400

It was another sunny morning in Brighton to see out Labour’s 2009 conference, drawing a comment from David Miliband that “The sun has shone on this conference every day… not the one printed in Wapping”. In many respects Miliband’s appearance was the most anticipated event of the day. The Foreign Secretary’s message to the audience was dominated by references to the Conservative’s position in the EU and their alleged alignment with far-right groups in the EU parliament. This tack proved popular with the party faithful, especially his angry indictment of Eric Pickles over his comments earlier this week that the Waffen SS were largely conscripts and “only obeying orders”. The Foreign Secretary stopped short of calling the Tory chairman an actual Nazi himself, but it was close enough to leave the audience in no doubt how strongly Miliband dislikes Pickles and detests the Tory’s record on recent EU politics. ”In Europe, the Tories sit with a collection of outcasts” summing-up his view of the Conservatives, echoed later by Harriet Harman’s accusations that in the EU, the Tories are aligned with “racists and homophobes”.

Such sentiments may be a crowd pleaser, but the real substance in his speech was echoing Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth’s comments on Afghanistan - more training for the Afghan army (4000 per month) and more support for the armed forces. Miliband stressed that early withdrawal would “risk the next 9/11” before going on to the rest of the world, pledging Foreign Office support for democratic movements in Zimbabwe and Burma. He also gave a warning to Iran “don’t mistake respect for weakness”. He ended with a rallying call dismissing internal criticism that Labour could “do with a spell in opposition… if we don’t defend the record no-one will” followed by “don’t believe we’ve run out of steam… it’s a fight we must win”.

His support was strong and the crowd applauded, but his speech may have made less of an impact than many were expecting, from the volume of the applause it was less than International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander’s speech as he spoke of Labour’s commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid. Citing the reduction of global poverty from one third to one quarter of the world population as proof that Labour’s record on international development has been a success over the last twelve years, he pledged support for the people of Indonesia (after the recent earthquake) and laid out Labour’s stall for fighting climate change and further reducing world poverty. On these issues he took a softer approach than Miliband towards the Conservatives saying “there is no real cross party consensus on international development in this country”.

With the subjects of international development and foreign policy over with - the stage filled with PPCs, activists and union members for Harriet Harman’s closing remarks. After joking that on page 3 of The Sun, another woman called Harriet had expressed her concerns over unemployment “she was so concerned she’d forgotten to put he clothes on”, she waded into a summary of Labour’s position. She dismissed the Lib Dems as a “shambles” saying that “Nick Clegg says he wants change… the British people won’t trust him even with their loose change” before somewhat ironically attacking the Tories for taking winning the next election for granted. She warned that the Conservatives would “take a wrecking ball to the economy” which she contrasted with Gordon Brown’s award for “Statesman of the Year” after his handling of the economic crisis and leadership within the G20 during the London Summit earlier this year. She ended holding-up Labour’s manifesto saying “We leave this conference with a clear sense of direction… together we’ll fight to win”.

And as more people poured onto the stage to sing along to “keep the red flag flying” and Jerusalem, accompanied rather oddly by a solo violin, the conference ended to their new signature tune “Moving on up” by M People. A choice of song that quickly drew a response on Twitter as people continued the lyric “…moving on out” and commented that by choosing M People Labour seemed stuck in the 1990s. Regardless of the choice of song, the final analysis of the media was, as a new YouGov poll placed Labour fourteen points behind the Conservatives and only six ahead of the Lib Dems, that Labour will not be the next party of government. But there has been a shift in many predictions away from a Tory landslide and towards a hard fought battle that might see Labour prevent the Conservatives from having a big enough majority to form a strong government without co-operating closely with Labour. One analyst told us that this may well be a temporary high - conferences tend to boost popularity but it seldom lasts that long. Nevertheless it’s worth noting that this conference has seen ministers and the party leader promise a raft of new legislation in the next Queen’s speech, which will no doubt be rushed through over the next Parliament affecting social policy, electoral reform and the economy for years to come. Given the forthcoming election is only seven months away, much of it might not pass. However should David Cameron be the next Prime Minister, he might find himself limited in how far he can act over taxation and cutting public spending.

Did the conference succeed? On the surface, no. Labour are behind in the polls, Brown is lagging behind Cameron in the popularity contest and Labour’s achievements of the last twelve years have been almost completely obscured by the media focus on the economic crisis, war and the Tory’s rejuvenated public image. Even Brown’s speech, promising the biggest constitutional change since the Magna Carta and far reaching healthcare, pensions and education reforms, lost the PR battle to The Sun announcing “Labour’s Lost It!”. But before they are written off, remember The Alamo. Yes the besieged forces lost, but in the face of overwhelming odds they put up one hell of a fight. Like Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, Labour are digging-in for a fight to the death. However, they might just wind-up making an uneasy peace and forcing compromise on their opposition.

Fortunately for the Tweetminster team James Clarke (@ginjam), Alberto Nardelli (@albertonardelli) and me, it’s been a great conference and it will be exciting to see just how the Conservatives respond next week in Manchester. We’re looking forward to it. Our coverage will begin on Monday.

Conference blogs for Labour by our Co-Founder & Creative Director, Andrew Walker (@killdozer)

Twitter doesn't seem to care about The Sun.

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:41:00 -0400

One of the biggest bangs to emerge from this week’s Labour Party Conference was The Sun’s endorsement of the Conservatives.

We ran a little experiment on the sentiment on Twitter around the story.

There were 248 tweets from MPs, journalists, commentators, PPCs and News Sources on Twitter relevant to the story.

While journalists and mainstream news sources clearly feel the endorsement was relevant and will have an impact in the run up to the next general election, the sentiment across Twitter is very much polarised: 54% of sentiment is strongly against the Sun’s position, 34% is aligned with the endorsement and 12% of tweets are neutral. These numbers could of course be due to the fact that Labour has a larger presence on Twitter.

But most importantly: people on Twitter don’t actually seem to care about the story (or the Sun has very few readers on Twitter) - this is evident in the only 60 odd tweets (equally split between pro- and anti-Sun) in the 24 hours since the Sun’s I’m Feeling Blue Campaign was launched - the campaign invited people to tweet in support of their endorsement using a #feelingblue hashtag.

Twinterviewing Ed Miliband

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:31:00 -0400

After receiving lots of questions from @tweetminster followers, we got exclusive access to Environment Secretary Ed Miliband for a thirty minute twinterview. We were also joined by Labour’s New Media Spokesperson Kerry McCarthy <@kerrymp>. Miliband was fighting a nasty cold, but it didn’t slow him down as he grabbed the laptop and started typing away - “I’m enjoying this” he said followed by “it’s harder than it looks to give a meaningful answer in 140 characters”. As Jimmy Leach in the Independent put it “if brevity is the soul of wit then Twitter would seem to be the appropriate medium to interview Labour’s rising star Ed Miliband”.

Ed’s version of Labour’s manifesto in 140 characters kicked the session off with “A fairer,greener, more prosperous, democratic Britain, where we look after each other and don’t leave people on their own.” He also suggested that environmental issues will come to the fore in the next election: “green is the new battleground… its about our economy, our energy security, whether we are fair not just about the environment.”.

In this “new battleground” context he justified Labour’s support for extending Heathrow because it fits with the UK’s carbon targets - although didn’t clarify if this was post-Kyoto or post-Copenhagen. Given Brown’s pledge to get the 1.7 degree commitment from the G20, presumably the latter. He also stopped short of agreeing to pass legislation to limit domestic air travel but suggested that as flights become more expensive, Labour would be looking into more carbon-friendly alternatives, also confirming his support for a global carbon trading market.

He also told tweeters to expect new Nuclear power stations to secure UK energy security “new plants will be ready to generate electricity from the end of 2017/2018 with building starting a few years earlier”. This is a difficult call for any envrionmental politican to make, but as one public affairs consultant working in the area told us over dinner last night, if the UK can’t secure reliable energy supplies within the next decade - a challenge given strained relations with Russia (Gas) and the Middle East (oil) - the UK could be in serious trouble, “going nuclear is a hell of a lot easier” than greener sources “because no-one wants to build wind farms”.

Of course the conversation turned to Labour’s election chances and relations with the press, maybe something of a sore point after a very difficult interview the previous night. Asked whether the election will be a win for Labour or a landslide for the Conservatives he said “not predicting a labour landslide like 1997. Hard to compare elections but key thing is to remember elections are a choice!” - the stock party line througout the conference. On the subject of speculation earlier today on Twitter that the Murdochs have done a deal with the Tories, he said “no idea, but people not newspapers decide elections, old fashioned view I know!” adding on Labour’s election chances “We have shown we are up for fight, we have exciting ideas for the future eg elderly care and choice of who you stand up for…”.

We ended with an audioBoo question provided by our own sentiment analysis of Brown’s speech, which showed the proposed legislation to provide care homes for teenage mothers was the most unpopular announcement by the leader. Here is his answer.

It was a relaxed interview and it showed very effectively that connecting people directly with politicians creates a more effective dialogue, or as Ed’s brother David put it “Twitter is the biggest dialogue in the world”. We left the room to be replaced by a slew of Labour bloggers who were meeting to discuss strategies for social media and the coming election campaign with Miliband and Kerry McCarthy. Back in the main press room, an MP relayed a comment from a senior television politics correspondent who said “Is that still a press room? I don’t recognise anyone in there”. I suppose that is to be expected, but as our interview demonstrated, the public don’t really need a TV crew and a famous face to get answers out of politicians any more.

Conference Diary, Labour 2009, Day four

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:28:53 -0400

As we tweeted last night after our strangely zen audioboo with Jon Snow of C4 news.The Sun are backing the Conservatives. If you are to believe the press, this is a crippling blow for Labour’s election campaign, so this morning we gauged reactions.

According to Creative Industries Minister Sion Simon, they have been backing the Conservatives for the last two years, so the “cynical” announcement after Brown’s speech did not come as a surprise and according to Simon, will not make much difference to Labour in the forthcoming election. One party insider insisted it was more about boosting the paper’s circulation than politics, echoed by an activist from Kent who told us that because the Sun’s circulation is largest in the North, where Labour is strongest, it might sell more papers but won’t impact the vote. “Storm in a teacup” sums it up from some of Labour’s press team who seem unruffled by yesterday’s events.

After the frenzy of activity around the Prime Minister’s speech and the dramatic announcement of The Sun backing Cameron’s Conservatives - the “Feeling Blue” campaign looked a bit shabby as it trolled up and down the seafront on a billboard truck, reflecting the slight irony in promoting a Twitter hashtag through a billboard on wheels. But nevertheless the conference seemed quiet this morning as fringe meetings got underway and Harriet Harman took the main stage to announce the details of Labour’s equality bill.

Harman received a warm reception as she announced “it’s about the right of a disabled person to work on equal terms, it’s about the right of a woman who works part-time not to be excluded from the pension scheme, it’s about the right of not being written off as too old…”. There were the expected social policy announcements; extending maternity pay from 6 to 9 months; forcing employers to publish a pay index to name and shame companies who pay (for example in the finance sector) on average 44% less to women than man in comparable positions; and addressing the armed service wives issue, promising training and support for the wives of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

More unexpectedly, Harman has asked Governor Schwarzenegger to shut down the prostitute directory PunterNet in the UK (run from California); it will become a criminal offence to have sex with a prostitute who is being controlled by a pimp - referencing the sexual slavery of illegal immigrants and trying to break the links between prostitution and organised crime. How this will work in practice seems vague. Are women under the thumb of a criminal gang really going to provide testimony against punters and organised crime? That could backfire on the policymakers and it will be interesting to see how women’s groups react. It’s often noted that laws criminalising prostitution often put more women behind bars than the criminals that exploit them. After the strong negative sentiment expressed around Brown’s announcements on care homes for teenage mothers yesterday, this is delicate ground for Labour.

Harman also announced a change in the law that will force the BNP to drop the “indigenous caucasian” clause from their membership criteria, a move that potentially could damage their anti-immigrant stance, but seems to fall short of Labour’s aspirations, as Harman put it “the poison of the BNP has no place in our communities, not now, not ever”. There is a sense among the grass roots that more drastic measures were needed to curb the growth of the party, although one PPC told us that the BNP’s finances are in such a dire state, they’ll run out of money long before any legislation will affect their support.

The conference today might seem quiet but not for the Tweetminster team who interviewed party rising star Ed Miliband on twitter and audioBoo in an exclusive interview - check our special blog post - and it got rowdy in the press room too as Tony Woodley (Unite the Unions) thundered away at The Sun “we don’t need an Australian American telling us which policies this country should have” before ripping up a copy of The Sun with the headline “Labour’s Lost It!”. Unexpectedly, the whole press room - even Murdoch’s finest - cheered with delight. I couldn’t see The Sun’s politics editor though…

Transcript of our twinterview with Ed Miliband

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:41:48 -0400

Thanks for all the questions submitted by @tweetminster followers, here’s the full transcript of Ed’s replies and a link to the final Audioboo question:

Q: Can you summarise Labour’s manifesto in 140 characters?

@edmilibandmp : A fairer,greener, more prosperous, democratic Britain, where we look after each other and don’t leave people on their own.

Q: The election debate will be dominated by the economy and leaders, what place will there be for the enivronment?

@edmilibandmp green is the new battleground. its about our economy, our energy security, whether we are fair not just about the environment.

Q: Why do you stand by the expansion of Heathrow?

@edmilibandmp It is consistent with meeting our carbon targets: we can cut by 80% overall by 2050, as long as we do more in other areas.

Q: Do you think we should put an end to domestic flights in the UK?

@edmilibandmp Not by law! I think they will have to become more expensive and over time, and I want fewer as we improve alternatives.

Q: How have environmental protests influenced your decisions, if at all?

@edmilibandmp lawful campaigning has made a difference inc over coal. A convincing case has been made to clean up coal which we are doing.

Q: What are your thoughts on a global carbon trading market?

@edmilibandmp I’m in favour of it.

Q: Climate Change: with the Cons out of the EU mainstream how would this impact GB’s role in tackling climate change if they get in?

@edmilibandmp v important point! they are siding with climate change deniers in europe. How can they possibly represent Britain properly?!

Q: When do we start building nuclear powerplants?

@edmilibandmp new plants will be ready to generate electricity from the end of 2017/2018 with building starting a few years earlier.

Q: Will 2010 be a re-run of 1992 or more like 1997?

@edmilibandmp not predicting a labour landslide like 1997. Hard to compare elections but key thing is to remember elections are a choice!

Q: Newsnight is asking on Twitter “Have the Murdochs done a tacit deal with the Conservatives?” What do you think?

@edmilibandmp no idea, but people not newspapers decide elections, old fashioned view i know!

Q: It’s been a good conference for you, how has it been for labour?

@edmilibandmp Have shown we r up for fight, we have exciting ideas for the future eg elderly care and choice of who you stand up for…

Audioboo question: Our sentiment analysis of tweets during the leader’s speech show the most positive reactions were around scrapping ID cards and electoral reform, the most unpopular comments were around the network of supervised homes for 16 & 17 year old mums, would you give us more detail on this policy?

A: AudioBoo: http://boo.fm/b66946

Party Conference Diary special, Gordon Brown's speech.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:16:25 -0400

For a man supposedly on the way out, the reaction and support of the crowd was huge for Gordon Brown - perhaps to be expected by the party faithful, but even past critics like Caroline Flint were won over. Whether it was Sarah Brown’s warm introduction or her husband’s down to earth presentation or Obama-esque dialogue (talking about his family, upbringing and personal values), the response from the audience was overwhelmingly positive. There were many announcements of policy, no doubt anticipated vote-winners echoing much of the thunder of the Lib Dems pledges on electoral reform; recall for MPs caught fiddling expenses and a higher tax burden for the UK’s highest earners. Also like the Lib Dems, Brown claimed that every pledge was fully costed unlike, he alleged, the Conservatives who predictably were painted as cost-cutting Thatcherites.

In a long speech, prefaced by a video of the great and the good including Kofi Annan and Bono talking about Brown’s social conscience, Brown tackled many ground-breaking new policy departures that many on the left of British politics have yearned for since the days of Charter 88 - reforming the House of Lords; Additional Member voting for the UK; greater contributions of GDP (0.7%) to foreign aid; index-linked state retirement pensions; free child care and closer relationships with the EU. There was also a firm pledge to bring back a serious climate change deal from Copenhagen, unemployment reducing measures with training for young people and, of course, more free education and a better NHS service for Cancer sufferers. For many, this sounded close to the longed-for election-winning package, as Transport Minister Sadiq Khan MP and Emily Thornberry MP told us echoing Ed Ball’s reactions after the speech.

But it may be that regardless of the coverage, these policies, may not be enough in 2010. Our sentiment analysis of the thousands of tweets that were posted during the speech indicates that the most popular policy announcement was a reversal of plans over the national ID card scheme. Dropping an expensive and controversial policy is an easy win, and does more to retain Labour’s current votes more than it will win new voters away from the Conservatives or Lib Dems who have long opposed the scheme. By the same token, our analysis shows that the creation of “tough love” programmes for teenage mums (Family Intervention) received the highest negative comments. For a government accused of criminalising young people over the last twelve years by the opposition parties, this is one policy platform that Labour could have done without. See our sentiment analysis here.

The speech ended to standing ovations and a huge scrum of journalists and TV crews in the conference centre bar, and a huge and deliberate outward show support for the Prime Minister amongst the faithful. Yet arguably one of the most significant developments promised in the speech is that if Labour does win the election, leaders of sole governing parties might become a rare sight in the UK. The promised referendum on Additional Member voting (a form of proportional representation) and an elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords could end the dominance of traditional left / right power blocks that have characterised the British Parliamentary system and - if enacted - could prove to be a landmark legacy for Gordon Brown that is remembered when much else has been forgotten.

Party Conference Diary, Labour 2009, Day Three

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:04:25 -0400

After a late night partying, the sun rose to a slightly nervous conference as the delegates and MPs waited for the Prime Minister to take the stage just after 2.00pm. One person who wasn’t seeming even slightly nervous this morning was former World Boxing Champion Chris Eubank, who took a moment from darting between meetings to give us a few words about his campaign to use boxing programs in inner cities to reduce youth offending. “Once you start boxing in the ring, you don’t box outside the ring”. One word of warning, Chris is a very friendly and approachable man, but his handshake is like Beowulf’s and I had a real sense that if he shook too hard he might actually rip my arm off.

Last night’s events were dominated by Channel 4 News’ Twinge event. The room was packed to the gills with the twitter politics community, chaired by Krishnan Guru Murthy (@krishgm) featuring a panel of tweeters and Facebookers including Labour’s digitally savvy Tom Watson, Kerry McCarthy, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Sadiq Khan, Stella Creasy PPC, Alex Hilton (blogger), Ben Bradshaw and the sceptical Caroline Flint. As tweeters at home posted #twinge tweets to the ParaTweet wall, the audience debated the points and asked questions on Twitter whilst the panellists answered live and tweeted to the audience in a strange mix of live and online participation. One of our followers remarked that it seemed a convoluted way of putting your hand up and asking a question, but without doubt there was more debate and more interaction between panellists and audience at the #twinge than other fringe events. It will be interesting to see how the #twinge goes down at the Conservative Party conference next week, where a number of Labour bloggers are planning to create a #twatter hashtag to shadow that event - keep watching the trending topics to see if that one picks-up as much interest as #twinge did last night.

As the #twinge hashtag trended 9th on Twitter “because Americans see it and wonder what it is” as the C4 news team put it, the room reached a consensus that Twitter campaigning is the digital equivalent of door knocking and the traditional baby-kissing campaigning of yesteryear. Paul Smith, PPC for Bristol put it very succinctly “when you go street campaigning half the people are out and you only speak to the person who opens the door” whilst grass roots activists insisted that getting out in public was still the only way to reach the constituents. Sadiq Khan placed the debate in a big picture perspective “we have to remember these people are citizens, not consumers” pointing out that every channel, live and digital, had to be used to get the message out there.

This position was echoed by Labour campaign co-ordinator Douglas Alexander MP, who told us in the Metropole bar that “whatever role new media plays in this election, it will be much more important than in the last election”. He made the point that “old media is atrophying” - especially regarding business models for monetising online content.

But it’s easy to focus too much on our digital lives, Nigel Griffiths MP told us that “I don’t campaign on issues… if you like me and trust me, vote for me”, whereas party grandees Margaret Beckett and David Blunkett told us that although Labour had a tough fight ahead, the election was winnable. Griffiths echoed these points, arguing that “Cameron’s got 40% in the polls… that’s not enough” referring to Neil Kinnocks 44% poll lead in 1992 failing to convert into the win everyone was predicting. He also valiantly defended Gordon Brown “when you go to the cash point, you wouldn’t get your money out if it wasn’t for Gordon Brown”. And so to today’s main event: Gordon Brown’s speech.

Sentiment on Twitter for Brown's speech

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:07:44 -0400

Of the 4894 tweets from all MPs, PPCs, Journalists, bloggers and news sources the split of positive, negative and neutral terms were as follows:

Very Positive: 53.4%
Neutral to positive: 25.1%
Neutral to negative: 21.5%

The most positive reactions were for the scrapping of ID cards; pledges for electoral reform and the restructuring the House of Lords; comparisons to Conservative policy; Sarah Brown’s presence on stage; social policies; foreign policy pledges and support for the armed services; and amongst Labour supporters, their history, track record and mentions of the NHS drew great support.

Confusion and negative comments were almost entirely focused on the announcement of Family Intervention projects, specifically references to care homes for teenage mothers.

Neutral to positive reactions were largely verbatim reporting of the main points of Brown’s speech.

Party Conference Diary, Labour 2009, Day Two

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:26:00 -0400

When you’re covering live events with a near instant communications medium like Twitter, you never quite know where the day will take you. Unlike the mainstream media who work through press officers and appointments, the Tweetminster team has the advantage of grabbing opportunities as they pass by eating a chicken’n’chips supper, as we did with Peter Mandelson last night - who told us, between chomps, exactly why he thinks voters should put their cross against Labour at the next election.

Being agile on the street also enabled us to catch a relaxed moment with Transport Minister Sadiq Khan who took a break from Tweeting and interviews to show us his new “I’m a fighter not a quitter” Blackberry pouch, this year’s must-have conference accessory. Both Audioboo interviews came on what is generally reckoned to be conference party night, as the great, the good and the grass roots let their hair down to take a brief pause from the serious business of making policy and spin.

Of course, it’s easy to forget that this conference is a national affair and not everyone is focused on social media as a channel to reach the public. At breakfast in our B&B this morning, we caught-up with PPC for Wolverhamption, Emma Reynolds (@emma4wolvo) who explained that for her constituents, many of whom are pensioners and from poorer communities that “don’t even have email addresses”, Twitter isn’t a relevant campaigning tool - she also promised to give us an Audioboo explaining more about the campaigning process outside major cities and digitally-enabled communities, but not this morning over her scrambled eggs… unlike Mandy, not everyone here wants to do an interview mid-mouthful and share it on Twitter.

Digging a little deeper on the role Twitter will play in the next election, it was great to grab a few minutes with Labour’s Twitter Tsar Kerry McCarthy MP today, emerging from a strategy meeting for Labour bloggers, who told us why she thinks the Conservatives seem less concerned with Twitter than the Lib Dems or Labour “They have a very tight messaging matrix” - listen for yourself here. This kicked off a heated debate between Kerry and Tory tweeter Nadine Dorries MP, with Dorries demanding examples to prove McCarthy’s point. Follow Tweetminster and see how that pans out. Later on in the Metropole bar, Labour’s big picture view was expressed by Douglas Alexander MP, Labour’s campaign co-ordinator, who told us “Old media is atrophying… new media will play a much bigger role in this election than the last one”.

One interesting argument kicked-off today (we’re calling it ChairGate) as a number of Tory bloggers, most notably Iain Dale waded-in against Peter Mandelson’s performance by saying the auditorium was half empty, with mainstream journalists insisting the hall was packed. Tweetminster’s director, James Clarke (@ginjam) was there and noted for the record that the hall was packed, but even with eyewitness reports the Conservative bloggers pointed out empty seats and old women knitting as proof. Compared with other speakers, the Chancellor and Mandelson did speak to a packed hall, a few empty seats here and there, but on the media balcony it was standing room only - a view, in all fairness, that Iain Dale and company couldn’t get from TV pictures. What is certain, as ChairGate raged, that there was too much focus on the bums on seats and not enough on the policy announcements coming from the stage.

Elsewhere the team tackled UK Music head Feargal Sharkey talking with Culture Minister Ben Bradshaw about music piracy. The ex-Undertone’s front man did a brilliant job of outlining UK Music’s desire for a middle path between “criminalising six million young people” and “having artists living in poverty”. Meanwhile we got some very insightful comments from Jason Crowley and Spencer Neal of the New Statesman on their approach to the conference and how they think there is more to the next election than simply which party wins outright. “Labour need to lose well…” they argued. From their perspective, a large Conservative majority would exclude a generation of Labour talent for a decade.

Party Conference Diary, Labour 2009, Day One

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:44:48 -0400

Perhaps it was the hot sun and cool sea breeze that made the atmosphere in Brighton seem so positive for the start of the 2009 Labour Party conference. Perhaps it was the orange smoke grenades wafting across the road in front of the conference centre, or the energetic chants of the protesting students and unions. Even the police seemed upbeat and chatty as they lined the roads, rooftops and dozens of security checkpoints insulating the party faithful inside from the buzzy, pop-festival vibe outside. Alas, the positivity seemed to stay outside with them as inside a very sober affair was taking place. Despite the Prime Minister taking the stage, the auditorium seemed half full and applause was measured.

It was not surprising the delegates inside the conference hall seemed subdued. It took the Tweetminster team a good forty minutes to negotiate the security checks and x-ray scanners. Although I had a full body search I fortunately got to keep my clothes on, however there was no easy egress like we experienced at the Lib Dems. This may be a sad reflection of the current security issues facing public figures, but nevertheless it blunted the energy and buzz of the event, making it much harder to move around the conference venue and fringe events.

Beneath a banner that stated “Securing Britain’s economic recovery” the speakers kicked off with Brighton & Hove PPC Nancy Platts asking delegates to use the Fair Tips guide (Unite) “So you know where to eat safe in the knowledge that they pay staff at least minimum wage with tips on top.” Nancy Platts was followed by party Chair Cathy Speight calling everyone “Comrades” and thanking her union, Unite, for giving the time to get party finances in order and onto a campaign footing. She cited the “corrosive and distrustful attitude to politics” as the main reason for Labour’s poor results in the Local and EU elections earlier this year, insisting that the Tories were “anti politics” which she described as the Conservatives trying to stifle debate by distancing people from politicians, which in her opinion is “the only way we can build a better society”.

Speaker after speaker followed, harking back to the days of Thatcher, unemployment and public spending cuts, one speaker saying “Cameron hates public services, hates families” - harsh words, and the media taking much criticism “you’re not fooled by the spin and the nonsense” said Mike Amesbury of the National Executive Committee. Without question, the atmosphere in the conference centre was defensive in the face of a Tory party leading in the polls and predicted by the media to be the next party of government.

So what can we expect from the next four days? The economy is taking centre stage here in Brighton, with Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain hitting out at the Tories with “what I find really offensive is how David Cameron and George Osborne so transparently relish the chance to make cuts.” This economic prediction of gloom was closely followed by repeated calls for the grass roots to keep fighting. As Hain put it, “I think the election will be like 1992, when everyone expected the government to lose but in the end voters considered the opposition too much of a risk”. This statement is not without a certain sense of irony as Labour were the opposition he spoke of, back in 1992.

This conference has started with Labour setting out its stall on Labour values - “caring, community, solidarity, social justice, equality, fairness, liberty, democracy”. But beneath these noble aspirations, the substance of most speakers’ contributions seems to revolve around predictions of Tory cuts damaging public services and dismantling the progress of Labour’s last twelve years - prophesying a return to high unemployment, larger class sizes, long hospital waiting lists and the high austerity of Thatcherism. The stakes are high, the odds are against Labour and the situation is grim, which perhaps explains the thinking behind the name for the 2010 Labour election campaign… “Operation Fightback”.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Channel 4 news political correspondent Cathy Newman (@cathynewman) was in the bar and said to Twitter savvy MP Tom Watson (@tom_watson) “everyone seems a bit crestfallen” to which Tom said, in the middle of a thronging Hotel Metropole bar filled with partying delegates “no they’re not, everyone is having a great time” and in all honesty… they were.

And we couldn’t end without the picture of our illustrious co-founder Alberto Nardelli talking Twitter with PM Gordon Brown who is a big fan, especially with his wife Sarah being such a popular tweeter. So far, Brighton rocks…