Waiting By My Inbox

Despite submitting my draft designs for a revamped Go 4th website to the campaign's web manager and John Prescott, as well as having receipt of the drafts acknowledged by Prezza himself, there is still no further word about how many, if any, of my ideas will be acted upon. This is understandable of course - who am I to be preaching to seasoned campaigners and political professionals - but what really irks me is that there is still no progress in site development. If the team had some radical new vision, or even a modest progression on the current bland dross, I would be more understanding. As it is, I have heard nothing (and don't expect to) and the website remains a poor quality portal for what is an essential campaign.

The purpose of a beta website, as gofourth.co.uk is now officially known (the logo in the top left corner proclaims it), is to promote comment and criticism from users and then to improve and develop in light of such information. So far, not much has changed since my original critique over 2 weeks ago. However, I do not want to sound too harsh. The site is chronically under resourced, so it is understandable that all of the campaign's attention has been focused on Prezza's recent return to the limelight with his 'No Ifs, No Buts - Give Up The Bonus' campaign. Whilst a very worthy cause, and successful (its petition has attracted over 30 000 signatures in a few days) it doesn't really seem consistent with Go 4th objectives. The campaign is centred on highlighting all the positives of the past three Labour terms in office and re-energising grassroots for another election campaign. However, Prezza's little vendetta serves to highlight the Treasury's failure to include strict limits on banking bonuses when the bail-out was drafted. It also keeps media attention (as if it needed more prompting) on the negative aspects of the banking crisis - an emphatic bust the Prime Minister claimed to have banished to 1920's history lessons.

Having said this, Prezza may well have been rather craftier than many will give him credit for. As a prominent Labour figure, spearheading a banking witch hunt, he has successfully shifted attention away from any failures of the government's economic policies and onto incompetent, greedy bankers. As an added bonus (although he will maintain it is his principal motivator) he is also working to ensure that the unsustainable culture of greed in the banking sector is given a clear thumbs down in public opinion and thus improve professional practice and regulation going into the future - hopefully going quite some way to prevent another such melt-down.

So I shall wait by my email inbox for a message from the Go 4th campaign once Prezza has herded the sheepish bankers into a pen of tighter regulation... when the focus will perhaps return to ensuring a Labour 4th term with a stronger web presence.