Twinge at the Labour conference 2009
Updated on 28 September 2009
Read and watch highlights from Twinge event at the Labour conference in Brighton, hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy and featuring Ed Balls MP, Caroline Flint MP, Tom Watson MP and Labour Twitter czar Kerry McCarthy.
On Monday night Channel 4 News and Fishburn Hedges hosted a "Twinge" – or Twitter fringe - event at the Labour conference in Brighton.
Dubbed "Twinge: you Tweet if you want to", the meeting brought together several present and former members of the Labour government to discuss the effect of social networking applications – and in particular Twitter – on political life in this country.
Watch the whole Twinge here, raw as it happened
The debate was moderated by Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, and included –
- Ed Balls MP (schools secretary)
- Ben Bradshaw MP (culture secretary)
- David Miliband MP (foreign secretary)
- Caroline Flint MP
- Sadiq Khan MP (transport minister)
- Kerry McCarthy MP (Labour's "Twitter czar")
- Tom Watson MP (parliament's first blogger)
- Stella Creasy (PPC, Walthamstow)
- Alex Hilton (blogger)
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the Twinge meeting that the potential of social networking to influence the political debate was “massive”.
He said politics was not commanding much loyalty because people felt it was out of date - their expectations were now about “dialogue, not monologue”.
And commenting on the success of Barack Obama’s election campaign in the United States, he said that it combined modern methods of communication and “the oldest form of political engagement of all”.
Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw suggested that Labour was ahead of the Conservative Party in terms of its Twitter presence because “we’re a modern party… We’re young and hip – well, some of us are.”
Discussing former deputy prime minister John Prescott’s status as a social networking early adopted, he suggested that five years ago most people would have been surprised at his position as “Twitter king”.
And discussing Hazel Blears’s criticism of Gordon Brown (“YouTube if you want to…”), Bradshaw said that her point had quite a lot of truth in it – that new media in the end could not beat going around and knocking on people’s doors.
Tom Watson MP talked about the Twitter response to MEP Daniel Hannan’s criticism of the NHS on US television. Twitter, he said, allowed you to get into a debate about the issues very quickly.
“What I find fascinating over the summer,” he said, was that “a switch came on” in the wake of Hannan’s comments. It made people realise that “there’s actually an ideological struggle going on between us and the Tories”.
“We stand for the NHS – they’ve got a different view of the world… It was social media that got the political incident up the agenda.”
Ben Bradshaw alluded in his contribution to the debate to John Prescott.
In fact, John contributed a YouTube video for his "fellow tweeters" from Strasbourg. "The beauty of this," he said, referring to YouTube and other social networking applications, is that "you can be authentic, you can be honest, you put your own view".
And responding to calls for a national debate between leaders of the main political parties before the next election, he asserted that it should be on "on public service, like BBC or Channel 4 - what do you think about that, Krish?"
The Twinge debate
Below are the highlights from the "You Tweet if you want to" debate, complete with video extracts and Twitter comments.
- 3:11 PM: krishgm Has the Labour Party at last learned to love Peter Mandelson.....? Or is it just feeling lonely?
- 5:16 PM: channel4news twitpic.com - From 8.15 new #twinge Tweets will appear on this screen, to cabinet ministers et al www.channel4.com/twinge
- 5:16 PM: channel4news twitpic.com - From 8.15 new #twinge Tweets will appear on this screen, to cabinet ministers et al www.channel4.com/twinge
- 5:16 PM: channel4news
- 5:35 PM: krishgm We've only just realised its Jon Snow's 62nd birthday today....we sang to him in the ITN room at Labour conference
- 5:50 PM: channel4news Krishnan Guru-Murthy sets the scene for this evening's Twinge event (see Audio Boo below).
- 6:13 PM: channel4news Jon Snow thinks Peter Mandelson's speech today could go down as "one of the great conference speeches". bit.ly
- 7:34 PM: channel4news "hi, fellow Tweeters..." John Prescott makes a video for #twinge bit.ly
- 7:56 PM: krishgm Just setting up at the #twinge if you're here in brighton come to the grand. or follow us on twitter, or bit.ly starts 815
- 8:03 PM: channel4news minutes away from our Channel 4 News labour #twinge
- 8:03 PM: channel4news A word of warning to long-standing Twitter followers - we'll be Tweeting a lot to update you on #Twinge. Normal service resumes from 10pm.
- 8:11 PM: channel4news Tweets going up on the screen in prep for #Twinge... social media/politics-focused Tweets most likely to get an airing
- 8:20 PM: channel4news Introductions... Sadiq Khan MP, @kerrymp, Alex Hilton, Ed Balls MP
- 8:22 PM: channel4news ... and Caroline Flint MP - now being shown an intro video. Watch online, too bit.ly
- 8:23 PM: Anonymous Twitter is the new heckling
- 8:30 PM: channel4news Intro remarks from @tom_watson #twinge. "Let's just accept internet is a force for good"
- 8:30 PM: channel4news
- 8:30 PM: channel4news Standing room only at #twinge. Luckily Twitter has no such restrictions
- 8:32 PM: channel4news Caroline Flint MP: here partly to see whether she should Twitter or not. Hard to make a blog interesting when part of the establishment.
- 8:35 PM: channel4news Doesn't matter what @edballsmp says about soc media... question duly dodged #twinge
- 8:42 PM: channel4news A cheer for YouTube #twinge video from @johnprescott - who couldn't attend as in Strasbourg
- 8:50 PM: Anon If the MPs have time for Twitter, then they aren't doing their job properly.
- 8:51 PM: channel4news Alex Hilton: every technological advance has led to an advance in democracy #twinge
- 8:59 PM: channel4news
