"It took a bunch of angry, focused women just one hour to do what the Government still hasn't managed - expose the Tories as policyfree lightweights."

[morningpaper]

sayeth the Mirror

Suddenly I love the Mirror

[nest of vipers]
[boozy shouty fishwives]
[caffeine-fuelled harridans]
[clumsy, accident-prone, drunken loons with Le Creuset saucepans and pissed Scottish husbands]
[hardworking mums {and} the backbone of the country]

brilliant!!!

hmmm..this is the Mirror, remember. We do know which side of the political coin they fall. 'Biscuit-gate' got everyone thoroughly worked up, but it turned out Gordon never even saw (or was dictated) the question in the first place. It's an indicator of how facile political reporting and our priorities have become that the biscuit-question became the most notable aspect of that webchat. Nobody in their right minds would expect that to be uppermost on a PM's list of questions, but blanket coverage seems to have puffed up MN-ers' of self importance. Cameron did a couple of uneventful webchats on Mumsnet already but it's the one with the tech-issues that causing a stir. This comes from someone who thinks Cameron has as much depth as she did Blair did in '97 9( i.e. zilch), but please, don't be flattered by these no-marks in the press.

Personally I don't think the reporting of all these political webchats is doing any of the party leaders OR Mumsnet any favours - it's all being trivialised so much.

There ARE bright, intelligent, educated women on here, but that's not the impression a non-user would get .

I think the only thing that has been proved is that it's not a particularly effective way to have a discussion with the electorate, and anyone coming into these things needs to be better prepared and have a whole team of supporting typists on hand....

is there a link to the webchat anywhere? from the responses the article quoted i think it doesn't paint MN in the best light. it sounds like petty sniping about his typing skills, while the article itself is possibly more patronising than david cameron could ever be.

major - if you go to the MN home page there's a link there...

I don't think it was so much that his typing skills were poor, rather that
a) there were tech issues, and some replies didn't appear
b) there were always going to be many, many more Qs than he was going to be able to answer, so there was a problem with meeting 'expectations'

Of course, as an alternative, people (or their advisors) could prepare answers to the Qs posted in advance and then cut and paste these pre-prepared answers, but then it's hardly 'live' is it??

FWIW I rather liked David Cameron's style and responses. Perhaps not everyone heard what they wanted to hear, but then I didn't hear anything in GB's chat which was remotely helpful or inspiring.
At the end of the day, I think DC is a decent bloke, and I share his basic principles, so I'd be willing to give him my support in May.....

Ah, Riven, but you're Mumsnet 'Royalty' aren't you...

(and definitely very focussed)

Angry?

That was not an angry thread

Just a focused one

tsk - focused....

I heard a rumour that 'biscuitgate' was really about the fact that GB's favourites are KitKats: apparently he has 4 or 5 every day. But, they are made by nestle, so he didn't want to be associated with them, so thought he'd better stall.
A bit crap when PC has got to this level, IMO.

The thing si cornflake-

I w2rote to him a few months back about an anomally in a proposed disability change that would leave us homneless and potless.

The asnwer I received, a good number of weeks later, was 'we haven't decided yet, but you should blame this government not us' (in fact,I wasn't blaming anyone, I was enquiring of all charities whether a rumoured change was their policy).

The Labour Party simply e-mailed me and told me to address it to a different dept- surely they have internal e-mail?

Green respondedrapidly with pointers towards their ciotizens wage policy which was indeedrelevant, and the Lib Dem response came last but crucially was long, well thought out and highly relevant to the questions asked.

Now, wehaven't had Nick Clegg (yet) but those responses really do reflect the webchats I have seen on here.

*charities

duh, relevant to last thread I was on!

Parties.

suey I am not sure that relates to the mn version ofwhat happened tbh

Tis all bollocks and spin. Radio 4 seemed to be saying the opposite this morning when talking about childcare and referencing mumsnet.

in my opinion the webchats don't really work. Far too short, none of the pertinent questions seem to get answered properly as convenient tech issues etc get in the way.
Also, for those trying to answer the questions, it must be a nightmare trying to get through all the many many posts being thrown at you.
Must be a bit like being flamed on the AIBU threads, you can never reply fast enough....

Great as a gimmick to get more members though.

The Mirror is preaching to the converted.

I honestly don't think DC came over any worse than GB did (IMO)- look back over GB's webchat, and you'll see lots of moans about how long he (GB) was taking to answer the questions, moans about him not answering everything, moans about him turning it into a PPB.

I don't think the webchats really work. Shame, because it would be nice to be able to talk to people like GB and Dc properly and find out what they are really like, and what they really think about issues facing us.