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LW: Labour candidate launches campaign site

By on Sunday 9th August 2009 09:43 / 1 comment

 

Schools campaigner-turned political hopeful Sam Whittington has launched a campaign site for the Luton and Wayfield by-election.

Mrs Whittington’s vote4sam.org.uk domain name was registered on Friday, 31 July, by Medway Labour activist and blogger Tristan Osborne.

On his blog, Mr Osborne proceeded to attack the other parties, in particular the Conservatives, for not taking time out of campaigning to create a website for their candidate.

‘[Sam] is currently the only candidate standing in Luton & Wayfield that has bothered to set up a website,’ he wrote. ‘A question mark surely remains about why the Tory campaign has failed to organise a website for its own candidate.’

Conservatives would argue, however, that Mrs Whittington’s website is hardly impressive, once again focusing mostly on the issue of school closures, but with snippets of other campaigns.

Meanwhile, a ?Statement as to Persons Nominated is due to be published on Monday, listing all the candidates in the by-election.

2009 By-Election
September 3, 2009

Candidates Party Votes
Gary Allanach Liberal Democrat -
Tashi Bhutia Conservative -
Sam Whittington Labour -
To be announced British National Party -
To be announced UK Independence Party -
 

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1 Comment

  1. John Ward says:
    Sunday 9th August 2009 at 12:29

    Well, to be fair, it’s only a week or so in thus far, and I am sure that the site will be fleshed out in due course.

    More significantly, it is a one-way “mouthpiece” site only, with no provision for reader comments to be published. If one looks at Conservative “personal” (to use Trsitan Osborne’s term) websites, they tend to include that provision from Day One, such as my own, Mark Reckless’s, and ? perhaps most directly comparable ? Trevor Clarke’s that was created for his by-election last year.

    Now that is how to “communicate directly with voters”, again as Tristan puts it ? incorrectly in the Sam Whittington case.

    Tashi’s web presence is on Facebook, and that seems to be going down well, based on (admittedly limited so far) feedback I have been able to glean from those in the know. That too has two-way communication, as has several contributions already, so easily trumps Sam’s “electronic political leaflet” ? which is all her website is.

    I note that Sam also has a Facebook profile, to be fair again, and that has some contributions as well. At least those two Facebook facilities do have some merit, whereas the other appears to be done just for the sake of being able to claim to have a website ? as Tristan crows about on his ‘blog, rather giving that game away in the process.

    Anyway, the latest news from the campaign front line (i.e. the doorstep) yesterday, where the “big three” parties were all out campaigning, is that the Conservatives delivered a leaflet to the whole ward and canvassed in Wayfield as well (as reported by Tracey Crouch), and we saw the LibDems cnvassing in Luton ? three people all going to each house ? and Labour were also spotted once or twice.

    The mood in the ward have definitely swung away from Labour quite a lot, I can report, so this by-election in a Labour heartland ward looks to be very interesting indeed!

 
 

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