What's with the Labour party adverts on MN?

[NorkyButNice]

I don't know why but it makes me very uncomfortable - it feels a bit like MN ought to be impartial like the BBC when it comes to party politics (even if the people who frequent it are in the majority Labour voters).

I presume they are paying for their ads? Will the Tories and Liberals get the same opportunities?

I only get Boden and Mark Warner ads.

No Labour ads here.

I think there's a filter and they are only going out those in marginal seats

Thanks for the response Justine.

My main concern was with political advertising on MN as a whole, rather than any unfair allegiance to Labour. I certainly didn't mean to belittle you, and I would have written the same OP whichever party it had been.

I agree that for something as important as party advertising at election time, it should be made clear
that it is a paid advert, and not an official endorsement of MNHQ or MN users.

I'd also ask how you decide which parties are allowed to advertise? By which percentage of people on MN would vote for them?

I too felt v.uncomfortable with the Labour party ad. We are bombarded everywhere with politics at the moment, let MN be a safe haven from all the politicking please.

I have not seen any ads, but I think I get different ones from you guys because I am abroad.

God no, RAKE IT IN, if they want to pay then bwahahaha.

When I used to work for Outdoor Advertising (that be poster sites) we used to LOVE LOVE LOVE the run-up to the elections because people had massive budgets to spend - kept the fricking industry running.

I thought the ad was good actually - the tories haven't admitted that they will cut tax credits for all families under 31k but I guess that if that is not their intention then they will dispute the ad. Clever.

I am happy to get into bed with Alastair Campbell and anyone else who wants to pay (n.b. approx half a pint is the going rate)

Just to be clear, MP means she's happy to get into bed with Alastair Campbell. Anyone else who wants in wld have to buy her half-pint Fullers Mild.

Agree that it's an infinitely better ad than the winking-jesus style Cameron poster ad.

Eeew. I'd not noticed the Labour party ads. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

It is a rather childish and annoying advert. Then again that sums up Labour. I don't like being spoon fed political adverts though, especially ones like that.

There is a bias on the site I think and it is unfortunate as it made me uncomfortable too.

I would prefer the site to be a political advert free zone... however I see the £££ signs and I can always avoid that page... PLEASE don't spread it across the whole site.

'There is a bias on the site' - I'm interested in this point. I think you can make a case that the posters on the board swing further to the left than the general population. But does anyone think that MNHQ has done anything that reveals a political bias?

The way I read the census results, you have quite a large proportion going for vaguely left parties (Lab + Lib + Green = 44%) against an unusually small proportion going for rightish parties (Cons + UKIP = about 18% I think). That's not a split that comes anywhere close to the national polls. Of course there are a lot of undecideds there and who knows how they'll break.

I have no idea why MN is like this, except that as Len says, the bfing/attachment parenting bias of MN might contribute to it (tho' of course don't want to suggest that you have to be on the left to bf).

Also I suppose it's self-reinforcing - people like me rock up here, see that it's a more congenial place for lefties than most spaces on the web, and so stay, whereas those with a strong right bias have to like MN enough to stay despite the lefty atmosphere.

But I still think there's a big and important difference between what the posters do and what MNHQ does. As far as I can see, MNHQ has been impeccably impartial in the way it treats the parties.

The thing that saddens me most is those of you who call for MN to be a politics-free zone.

We should be debating the issues. Politics should be important to us all. After all, it is our lives and the lives of our children/families that will be affected.

It shouldn't be a politics free zone.

But political parties should not be allowed to put their propaganda on here. Debates and interviews are much different to what that ad is portraying.

To add, the advert is making a personal attack, the kind of politics that makes most people squirm uneasily.

Had it been just the usual "this is what we are going to do" kind then fair enough.

Instead it is a negative style that does no one any favours.

Luckily the current ad has been positioned on a page that I don't think many people actually look at (surely most people have a boomark directly to Active Conv and their threads I'm on etc, or is that just me?) so they aren't actually getting much exposure for their money.

If it starts appearing on other pages, next to actual threads then you could be opening a can of worms (eg will the Tories want their ad appearing on a "Friday night" thread?) or can you control that kind of thing?

Justine - can you let us know how long this ad will run for? If the Tories ask to advertise next week will they have to wait for the Labour ad to go, or will they run alongside each other?

MN absolutely should not be a politics free zone, but I think if propaganda from one party is to be allowed, then all the main parties should have been approached with an invitation to pay for a space. In it's current state, MN as a site just doesn't look impartial to the average outsider/newbie.

I don't think other parties should be approached, should they? It's down to them to monitor their self-interest in relation to advertising. There's no reason that MN should be doing their work for them: if a labour ad creates a need for the tories to react defensively with another ad, that's their call, just as Asda might want to react against the Tesco ad with one of their own.

It's just a commercial transaction, no obligations beyond that.

The fact that it is only on the Topics page suggests that it will be of much more significance to the unregistered reader of the site, or the very casual site user: they would be more likely to use this page perhaps. Do we often forget that the regular-using community, the posters that give the site its feel, are just a small portion of the target audience?

They will all be well aware, as there is trade coverage e.g. here

It is just advertising, though. And not even particularly good advertising at that.

The politicians who come on MN for a webchat have been surprised that a large percentage of the questions asked have had nothing to do with parenting. We are not just interested in topics that affect us as parents.

I like the fact that political debates are a part of MN. That is what makes MN so interesting, it is not all just chat about how many poos DD has done today and where to get the best deal on nappies.

I hadn't seen the ad before, because I come straight to Active Convos - but I think as a piece of online advertising it's quite good actually. Short, to the point and a strong message.

It's advertising not propaganda - and are we not all adult enough/intelligent enough to realise that? It's no different than the ads for CBeebies or Mark Warner that appear on here. (In fact it's a lot less irritating than that CBeebies one!)

I had to go looking for it as I never go to the front page.

As ads go it is not bad, I just feel that there are so many other issues on MN other than tax credits that are more hotly discussed. Seems like a missed opportunity to actually start a debate.