Anyone pondering the UK’s political parties’ commitment to the exploding information industry would do well to wander around the World Wide Web. While the Labour Party offers discounted electronic mail accounts and the Liberal Democrats – self-styled as ‘Britain’s most wired political party’ – have their own on-line magazine, The Reformer, the Conservative party has no area other than its singular official government role at http://www.open.gov.uk. When asked why the Conservatives have no site – or even Web page – of their own, the party’s Central Office headquarters said cryptically, The people we deal with aren’t on it (the Internet) so we didn’t think it was worth it.
