Friday April 15, 2005
The Guardian
Checking emails this week, I saw on one message a name which was familiar but had never appeared in this context: Alastair Campbell. Assuming it to be abuse about an off-message column, I trembled at this evidence that he knew where I lived electronically.
But the message proved not to be personal but political: "Well there it is - the Tories have published their manifesto ... thin or what?"
This was one of the "personal" emails which all the major parties are sending to supporters and inquirers.
The process of being accepted for messages is different for all the parties. The Liberal Democrat website is the bossiest: my application was bounced back with complaints about failure to tick boxes.
In the six days before finally being admitted to Charlie's cyberspace, I have received a single message in which Mr Kennedy suggested his party had been "the real opposition to Tony Blair's Labour government" and asked me to send him either £15 ("which will pay for 500 letters to undecided voters"), £25 ("2,000 leaflets explaining our policies") or £50 ("100 election posters"). He hasn't yet messaged about becoming a father.
The Conservative service is the most paranoid: after registering, I received three messages asking me to confirm my desire to receive emails. While this terror of sending out spam is admirable, there have been no emails from Michael Howard, despite reassuring them of my willingness to have him in my intray.
Unsurprisingly, it's New Labour which proves most web-literate; indeed, almost web-incontinent. Emails cascaded in almost from the moment of registering. Initially, they purported to come from Tony Blair, although, given his other commitments, they are almost certainly being knocked together by a work-experience teenager at Millbank.
Perhaps realising that faking emails in the leader's name wasn't the smartest move, Labour is now sending out messages from other big names who plausibly have time to type. There's no doubt that Mr Campbell's missive is all his own work: the economic policies of the "ludicrous Letwin" are contrasted with those of "Gordon and Tony" and Mr Howard's chief spin doctor is described as an "immigrant" Australian.
Labour's busiest emailer, though, has been the writer and Guardian columnist John O'Farrell. These are essentially begging letters with better jokes ("£1 would pay for a carefully targeted mail shot to a Mr Michael Howard of Westminster") but the party says they are remarkably successful. A subsequent email from Matt Carter, general secretary of the Labour party, claimed that O'Farrell's appeal had raised "£50,000 in a matter of hours".
In the spam campaign, New Labour has so far been by far the hammiest.
