Absolutely wonderful ‘Take my Linens’ card from THE STANDARD HOTEL.
A cheeky message made me take note and actually use the card,
hopefully doing that little bit to be a little bit ‘greener’.

The race for No.10 is a black hole of mystery with the possibility of a hung Parliament and multiple party leaders potentially claiming victory.

We’ll be waiting a while for the result, so one thing we could decide right here and now is who has a website worthy of the Prime Minister’s office. Inspired by MOO’s latest Webby Award win, I thought I’d award a local election site ‘Webby’ of my own. Links to each below:

The East Surrey Lib Dem site is relatively contemporary in appearance and easy to navigate, providing easy access to popular and (party) relevant content. The Lib Dem site includes photos, YouTube videos and a selection of social media channels (Twitter and Facebook) in order to allow browsers (and not to forget, potential voters) to get engaged online. The site is “designed by web partner NKodIT.”

The East Surrey Conservative Association site is… well, very 1992. It’s a few lines of basic text, with a couple of links, oh… and the Conservative party logo. I learn nothing from this site, nor have any way to properly engage with it (and therefore the local candidates). A link to the main Conservative website is all well and good, but it doesn’t help me find out anything more about local issues, and what my local Conservative candidate stands for in the 2010 Election. Admittedly there are links to candidates Sam Gyimah and Nirj Deva, but I personally feel I should be pleasantly led to these via an engaging design, not thrown back in time 18 years to the dawn of the web! There is no acknowledgment of who is responsible for the design. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t own up to this either.

The Labour South East site is marginally better than the Conservative site, but is shadowed by the somewhat more contemporary design behind the Lib Dem site. Whilst the Labour site is providing me with some news, and the ability to forward a link to this site to a friend, it doesn’t give me an easy way to access this information, for example homepage maps and a news stream are below the ‘fold’ on the page. I’m also a little upset that the person responsible for uploading a graphic on the homepage didn’t manage to spot that it’s too big for it’s placeholder. Ah. The Labour site is “powered by taobase from Tangent Labs.”

So, who wins? To me it’s clear, and my East Surrey local election ‘Webby’ goes to the Lib Dems.

As for the “real” result, we’ll have to see what the evening brings!

I have never been a fan of local politics, and I don’t believe I ever will. For me, “local politics” consists of constructing and demolishing traffic calming measures over a 4 year cycle – nothing more.

Party A thinks the road requires a traffic island, Party B doesn’t – essentially, one party comes to power and builds it, another party comes to power and removes it, then the first party comes back to power and re-builds the island, and so on, and so forth…

I hope this demonstrates why I’ve never been too excited by a local election. A general election however, is a whole different matter…

I’ve just completed my vote registration form (having moved residence), and will be printing the form and posting to the local electoral office. I will admit however that I’m willing the day that everything can be done online.

So, with the 2010 General Election looming on May 6th 2010, I figured I should learn a little more about what is going on (beyond the BBC News Election site) as it is likely to have an impact upon the next few years of my life in some way, shape or form.

Do you even know who your MP is? I didn’t.
If you want to learn a little more about your local MP, I’d recommend taking a look at TheyWorkForYou.com.