Now that we are less than six months from another lot of local elections it might be a good time to think about the power of political websites, specifically blogs and how they will affect the outcomes.

Having thought about it, my opinion is that they will have little or no effect, for several reasons:

1. Most voters do not seem to go looking for information about what their various candidates will offer them – it has to be practically forced on them via leaflets, election addresses and canvassing. Most who do turn to the Internet to read about their choices will have made up their minds already. In fact they are probably involved in local politics in one way or another.That is not to say that a political blog will not attract the odd genuine, undecided or persuadable floating voter: just that you would reach more of them in a morning’s door-knocking than in a month’s typing.
2. One argument made for political blogs is that they can help shape the news agenda (locally or nationally) by writing something the papers have not printed. This may be true, but again it only reaches that small minority who seek out political blogs: the rest will just read about it when the papers do pick up the story.But I think that if something is newsworthy you can get it in the newspapers just by giving them a call and telling them about it. Publishing it yourself and hoping someone with a larger readership will run with it is not the surest way to get something in wide circulation.
3. Another argument is that blogs can help to shape a party’s direction by generating waves of support for, or opposition to, particular policies. The idea being that those in charge will see that dozens of people are writing with a specific point of view and getting lots of comments to support that, so they will change policies to appease them.

I’m a bit sceptical about this, at least as far as my party goes. The way I look at it is that if they won’t act on a significant majority of the party conference actually voting for something how likely are they to act on what a smaller number are just saying?

A cynic would say that any party is going to be worried about the opinions of its own members least of all, as they should be able to count on their votes – hence the pitched battle for the votes of middle England.

None of this is meant to say that we should all give up, and I can think of a few reasons why anyone should be encouraged to not give up.

1. There may be a day when everything changes, when that happens the early adopters will not only be more experienced but will have a network of links and contacts and as a result the more established blogs will be more visible and therefore more effective.
2. That network of contacts is valuable already. Those people from all over the South and beyond who I have now chatted with and met are return enough for the time spent. The range of different perspectives and experiences can be thought-provoking at times.
3. Reading about experiences elsewhere can help motivate you if things are just not happening locally, and if they are happening locally you can write about them and motivate colleagues elsewhere.
4. Its fun. Or at least it can be, and its more constructive than watching ‘I’m strictly a celebrity, get me on X-Factor’

OK, so you could also make those contacts by going to national and regional conferences, but not everyone has the time for that.

I think the important thing is to keep some sense of perspective. At the moment blogs are not swaying parties’ decision-making, setting the news agenda or reaching hundreds of constituents although one day they might. And they are not something you can make a living out of – someone should tell Iain Dale.

There are positive benefits, but winning elections is not yet one of them. The only posts which will do that are the ones saying how you have spent 4 hours in the rain at doorsteps! (Something I have not been doing enough of for a long time)