Anderson, an outspoken critic of the current Liberal Democrat leader Warren Bradley, is believed to be taking a lead from his political counterparts across the pond - turning to blogs and the power of the internet to create a groundswell of interest in the upcoming polls.

A source close to the councillor informed How-Do that he is apparently concerned that an overriding cynicism towards today’s current crop of politicians may lead to a low turnout in the elections.

This, he believes, could have the knock on effect of damaging his party’s chances of overturning the Lib Dem majority.

To counteract this scenario Anderson has seemingly started a campaign to woo the local blogging fraternity, as he seeks to initiate an ‘on-going conversation’ that will allow him to fully communicate his party’s policies and rouse the politically apathetic.

Anderson and Hanson

The councillor’s campaign apparently moved up a level this week, as he invited a coterie of bloggers to his city centre offices for a Q and A session.

The full list of attendees is unclear, but How-Do has heard that Chris Paul (Labour of Love), Angie Sammons (Liverpool Confidential) and Stephen Newton (Stephen Newton) all appeared to strike up relationships and gain unique access to Anderson’s ears, policies and plans.

It is thought that Staniforth’s Mark Hanson has been advising the Labour leader on how to mine this new communication seam on an independent basis.

An impression given further credence by the fact that the above picture has now appeared in the blogosphere.

However, this could not be confirmed at the time of writing and Hanson himself was unavailable to give comment.

Did you enjoy this article? Please share it!

Comments (7)

7  By Rob Artisan , on 26-04-2008 22:56 "new communication seam" - not really new, it must have been around 10 years and there are plenty of bloggers that have been going for more than 5 years.    It all sounds a bit gimmicky, a bit like the campaign by Lucy Powell the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Withington seat occupied by John Leech. She used the fact that she has more friends on Facebook as a way to show she was "connecting with the kids" better than he was in the media. Quite pathectic.    The problem is that Liverpool has one of the lowest turnouts in the country, possibly the lowest. Will a blog solve this?    It needs as many conversations as possible to try and convince people of the worth of their vote. Blogging is just a small channel here and advertising, PR, talks, door-to-door, direct marketing etc needs to be undertaken and that costs time and money.    If they get a big turnout perhaps all the apathetic Liberal voters will come out and Warren Brady will still get back in. Report