*Iain Dale lecture

Iain Dale, the renowned right-wing blogger and a presenter on 18 Doughty Street, was the second guest speaker in JOMEC’s online lecture programme.

Media-savvy v. New Media-savvy

What first struck me in Mr Dale’s talk was how few British politicians have actually engaged with new media technology. Interestingly, it is not the Tories who have the Luddite-mentality, but Labour, according to Dale. Where David Cameron has embraced blog-technology (albeit embarrassingly), ‘media-savvy’ New Labour are lagging way behind.

This suggests that Labour have for too long sat too comfortably with the traditional media and let the brave new world of the net pass them by. What illustrated this best was the breaking of John Prescott’s infidelity on blogs. People in the traditional media had known about it for a number of years but didn't publish.

Mr Dale spoke of blogging as being a “marvellous research tool” because you can get instant feedback from potential voters. He also said: “The problem with parties is that they speak at people, not to them. There is no place for feedback.” This is an argument often levelled against Tony Blair’s spin-happy New Labour.

It remains to be seen if Mr Cameron’s flirt with the net will prove successful.

For a brief discussion of some of the points raised in the talk read Mr Dale's recent article on Guardian Unlimited .