The media battle

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 08:55

I am working far too much at the moment. With the election still 13 weeks away I keep thinking that I must pace myself so I don’t burn out before the election campaign proper begins. Sounds good in theory but it rarely turns out like this. Yesterday was a case in point. I had intended to stop at six, make some food and watch the football. In the end I didn’t start cooking until gone eight and finished my work for the evening at well after ten.

It was a productive day though, so I shouldn't really complain. We did an excellent video interview with NUS President Wes Streeting and together laid out plans for some joint working. I also managed to catch up with the Blue State Digital team and together we went through our campaign plan so they could begin to map out the online element of our strategy. Last night I spent about an hour on the phone with Ian Austin, the Labour MP for Dudley North. Ian is a long-time friend of Searchlight, and by that I mean since he was in his mid-teens, but today he is more helpful advising us on a media strategy than hanging round National Front demonstrations gathering intelligence. The media is set to become a key battleground in the European Election and could well determine if the BNP win seats or not. Any repeat of the 2006 media frenzy, which resulted in the massive BNP gains in Barking and Dagenham, will not bode well. However, a more responsible media approach, that focuses on the true nature of the BNP, will undoubtedly help us reduce their vote.

The BNP leadership is currently on a fundraising tour of the country. Searchlight’s intelligence identified a location in Bristol and Tim Lezard and the South West Searchlight team then took over and got the venue to cancel the booking. We have now found a couple of venues so work is now underway to get the owners to rethink. More shall be revealed about this later today.