Of course it is not written by the Liberal Democrat leader himself but by members of his campaign team, travelling with him on the battle bus. Nothing wrong with that and it makes a change from the usual website written by someone in party HQ who would probably rather be part of the main ‘communications team’.
Some months ago I was informally asked by someone in Labour what my suggestions would be for any blog initiatives for the election and one of the things I came up with was exactly that idea – someone travelling with Blair (and maybe Brown and Prescott) and reporting from the frontline on the day’s campaigning with occassional posts from the politicians themselves.
Naturally my idea was completely ignored so it will be interesting to see how this blog works and whether it really adds anything to the Lib Dem’s online efforts or if it is just a bit of fun for the staff during the boring bits of the day.
Are battlebuses that interesting though? I found it a bit odd standing on top of an open deck shouting slogans at shoppers down below and I suspect they found it even odder to listen to me.
My first time on the top of the bus was back in 1987 campaigning alongside Scouse actor John McArdle who was in those days Billy Corkhill from Brookside. He is one of the celebrity endorsers who has stuck with Labour and was the first narrator on the Proud of Britain PPB. A top man he was too, we even got the bus to stop outside my house for ten minutes and I brought him in to have a brew with my Mum.
Oh and while I am feeling in generous mood towards the Lib Dems, who are after all one of only two parties standing in England not to make my stomach turn, Nick Barlow’s new blog creation General Election ’05 has started its daily round-up of election blog reviews.