Thursday 19 November 2009

When David met Mumsnet...

So today it was David Cameron's turn to run the Mumsnet gauntlet.

Gordon Brown did this a few weeks back and whilst he scored a few points from the mummerati (not my term but it does sort of fit), a lot of stuff he said got missed in the furore over what type of biscuits he prefers - or rather, in the furore over his refusal to 'fess up to what type of biscuits he preferred. (In the end Sarah put them out of their misery, if you didn't hear. Shortbread. Although I'm betting it's not the Duchy Original's version...)

Anyway, today it was David Cameron's shot at convincing the 'early adopters' at Mumsnet that he's their best hope for an improved Britain come next Spring.

How did he do? Well, if you don't want to check out the whole 100+ pages of comments, questions and answers on the thread, click here for an edited transcript. I mean, feel free to check out the whole thing if you like, but I imagine a shortened version might be more up your street.

Alpha Mummy at Times Online also ran a real-time live blog analysis of what was going on (I was part of the panel) and if you want to see how that went, click here.

My take on his performance? Firstly, I take my hat off to both him and Gordon for doing this; the audience at Mumsnet can be a tough crowd and I certainly wouldn't want to get on their wrong side. Overall though, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know (although I have to admit that since I was going to be involved with this I did do a bit of prep before-hand so perhaps if I hadn't, I might have), he's not the world's fastest typist (but then, is that an important skill in a potential Prime Minister? Discuss), and he's going to have to work a bit harder to count on a lot of the Mumsnetters' votes.

And mine too, now I come to think of it.

8 comments:

  1. I read through that - the summary - and was reasonably warm to his answers. Some political nonsense, as to be expected. But it is all a waste of time anyway, as it is what they do, not what they say, that counts.

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  2. I did follow your blogging threads today at Alpha - most entertaining! Couldn't really make head nor tail about what DC was talking about - but the peripheral chatter to fill the gaps in his slow typing made me giggle. How great to be involved. And thanks for linking to all the info. Most interesting. x

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  3. I have to say Lion's Den came to mind. I particularly loved the moment when some of the members realised that the Alpha Mummy column was watching them. I empathise with DC on the techy issues. I had my fare share of PC problems too at the beginning, but swapping over to my laptop sorted them out. With Mumsnet happening on one computer and Coveritlive on the other, it was beginning to feel like a media suite LOL. Oh the luxury eh. It was fun though wasn't it x

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  4. Definite hard work to be done by DC, but also by GB if either of them are to get us out to the polls on the day.

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  5. SPD, yes, that's the question. Can any of them walk the walk?

    Nicola, glad you enjoyed it! (And some of those netmums comments were classic, weren't they?)

    AMA, get you with your multi-screen multi-tasking! I'd forgotten to log in and so end up hitting refresh on the Netmums site about 500 times to keep updating my screen. Not professional - must try harder...

    Vic, yes, right now I'm struggling to work out who is talking any kind of sense...

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  6. OOh, intriguing, I shall check out the links ...

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  7. darling since when did you wear a hat? I think DC was expecting the warm glow of love from the mumosphere but he ended up with 10 questions thrown at him a minute (really) in the style of a circus peforming sword thrower - was pretty cool to be in the alphamummy dynamic commenting though - spotted you in your pic! x

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  8. DD, don't get too excited...

    NM, oh, the hat? That's just me practicing for Moscow. And my pic is clearly highly distorted and not at all representative of how drop-dead gorgeous I really am... (please note for those who haven't met me: my tongue is firmly in my cheek).

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