The conservative right in the UK is taking a page from America’s political playbook. Conservativehome.com, a website that aims to serve as a forum for the revival of Conservative thinking and policies in the UK, started today.
The creators of conservativehome.com hope to use the internet to influence political events, as bloggers in the US have. The American website Drudge Report has been given credit for ousting Dan Rather from CBS news programmes after exposing documents he presented on President Bush’s military service to be false.
Although conservativehome.com will initially be used as a promotion tool for the Conservative party’s election bid, the group behind the site wants it to eventually become a real alternative to broadcast media.
The website, which is independent of the Tory party, was started by Tim Montgomerie, the political secretary to Iain Duncan Smith when he was Tory leader and head of the Conservative Renewing One Nation unit under William Hague.
The site hopes to persuade “social conservatives” to back the Tories at the election. It will favour tax relief, oppose British membership of the euro, support the strengthening of marriage and back pre-emptive action in the “war on terror".