So after months of planning and prep, the new conservatives.com has gone live – and miraculously for an IT project, it’s on time, delivered ready for Party Conference. Still a few kinks to iron out – postcode search and some login problems, but I hope these will be smoothed out shortly and that they don’t detract from the overall experience.
When we first thought about launching a Party-wide group blog, we recognised some of the potential pitfalls: Would it just become a series of dressed-down press releases? Would it lack an identity if there are too many disparate contributors? They’re all valid points, but we feel that it’s something genuinely worth doing.
The Blue Blog – which was named through an online competition with our newsletters subscribers (sign up here if you’re not on it) – will have several posts everyday from a mixture of Shadow Cabinet, MPs, Councillors and Members, as well as the occasional guest. Like any blog, success is earned by the quality, uniqueness and regularity of content and we are going to try hard to provide that. As for comments, we want there to be an open and lively debate and if you go to our Facebook page, you’ll see that we’re happy to have lots of different views on display.
Party conferences are an intense time and we’ve got some great contributors lined up over the coming days: Shazia Awan is a Conference rookie; Michael Rock is the Chairman of Conservative Future, the arm of the Party for people under-30 (so alas, I’m just out); our social action goddess Jo Hillier; and all-round blogging guru Iain Dale will be dispensing some words of wisdom. So keep checking back and let us know what you think.
( 8 comments ) Tags: blog, Blue Blog, Conference, website
Comment by gothandy on September 27, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Good work!
Comment by EdwardL on September 27, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Good stuff Rishi, love the clean look of the new website. Yeah a few kinks to be sorted, but well done on getting it out on time. Looking forward to lively debates on ths new blog.
Comment by gothandy on September 27, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Nice work!
Comment by Span Ows on September 27, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hi Rishi, looks good. As has been commented above all looks ‘clean’ and fresh’. The whole site is very easy to use (I’ve been on most pages already!) and the Policy page is quite simply superb! I can recommend everyone visit it soon…well I guess we’ll get a good review of it all – live – this week from Birmingham!
One thing, when you sign up you have to leave a UK post code or it doesn’t accept the details. I live in Spain so I’ve had to leave one of my ex postcodes!
Comment by realist on September 28, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Good point about UK postcodes.
On a related matter, why are expatriates not allowed to vote in UK (especially General Elections) elections? Couldnt possibly be anything to do with the fact they are extremely unlikely to be socialists could it?
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Comment by martin on June 9, 2010 at 8:44 pm
have strong opinions on welfare for work idea,good idea well done.i live in an area where we mixed workers and benefits people.if you would like to hear full run down on my, and 100,000′s of those like me,feelings feel free to ask.most of my type up here in lancs don’t vote due to us feeling it piontless.but i feel you have some good ideas.want to hear more?