In fact, the real activity – and the point of greater interest to intelligent marketers was away from the obvious social media networks like Twitter. And therein, lies the more interesting story.

The promise of social media was that it would bring people closer together, creating a more democratic world. Its role in the London riots is a reminder of how utopian that promise turned out.

Social media – or more accurately those who use it – have recreated the divides that already existed in society. The well-educated US graduates who flocked to Facebook were rejecting Myspace – not just its design and features but also its community. The shift was described by a leading researcher as ‘white flight’, echoing the exodus of middle class people from cities to suburbs.

There are echoes of the social divide in the growth of Twitter. Casual observer could be lead to believe that Twitter is of a similar size to Facebook. It certainly eats up column inches in the mainstream media. According to Journalisted there were more mentions of Twitter in the national press than Facebook in the last week. For the avoidance of doubt, there are 24m UK Facebook users and less than half the number of Twitter users. Hits to Twitter account for just 1 in every 184 UK internet visits. To put it another way, Trufflenet’s clients see hits to their website from Facebook on their analytics. Twitter is too small to notice.

So why has Twitter got such a large profile? Because it’s used by older, more affluent user, mostly living in London. Research from the Oxford Internet Institute has shown that adoption of Twitter loosely tracks adoption of the iPhone. Trufflenet has even found in its work in the political sphere that it is disproportionately left wing, findings underscored by Hitwise.

It is plausible that young rioters chose to use BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) because they prefer the privacy of the closed network. Indeed, Trufflenet has previously found young people much less likely to boast about poor behaviour on Facebook than Twitter. But anyone who had actually considered the privacy angle would have been likely to find the controversy about RIM handing over data to dodgy regimes in the Middle East. It is much more likely, however, that the greater penetration of BlackBerry’s amongst poorer teenagers meant that more of their friends used it.

Twitter played a vital broadcast role in amplifying news of the riots, spreading rumours and localising the news; and now in promoting the cleanup. BBM played an organising role. Many are using Facebook as a support mechanism for close friends and families.

Understanding what’s being said on social media is no small task. But anyone seeking to utilise that to plan activity needs to go beyond that to understand who is using which channel, how and why people it is being used.

Related posts:

1. Does Twitter encourage intimacy?
2. Why Rafa Benitez will never be a media darling

Fresh ideas don’t appear to be emerging from government. Worryingly, Enterprise UK which had a stellar cast of backers has closed after the government withdrew funding.The coalition is at its weakest when it is attacked for lacking a growth strategy. Successive British governments have been reluctant to intervene in ‘industrial policy’ in case it hints at a 1970s-style central planning.

The business lobby certainly has a loud voice and anyone who can lay claim to being a senior economist appears to be able to generate newspaper headlines. However, debates between government and business often appear to hbe captured by large employers. They focus on issues like National Insurance and parental leave which are cumulatively more important for large employers rather than bank lending and the complexity of HMRC filing, which are more salient for small, growing enterprises (in my experience).

There are lots of good educational initiatives in various different ways up and down the country. From the young enterprise schemes to Oli Barrett’s Make Your Mark with a Tenner, there is no shortage of programmes to encourage enterprise amongst young people. There are lots of bodies which represent the interests of entrepreneurs from the Entreprenuers Organisation to organisations like Adam Street. But these do not appear to have a significant impact on public policy.

Politics already has thinktanks focussed on public services like Policy Exchange, or specialist initiatives like the New Local Government Network. A new thinktank alone is not required. But there is space for an organisation that can combine the practical experience of fostering startups, the cultural challenge of promoting entrepreneurship and use this to identify the public policy implications.

I’ve developed some broad principles:

1. This organisation would need to have enterprise at the heart of what it does. Ideally it should have a limited shelf-life to ensure it doesn’t start to exist to perpetuate itself.
2. Its success should be judged by the number of enterprises it helps stimulate.
3. Its political influence should emerge from its practical expertise at stimulating enterprise. And this will ensure that it has a ripple effect beyond the enterprises and communities it works with directly
4. It should rigorously chart its successes (and inevitably more numerous) failures to provide a wealth of material for its successors.
5. And it should aim to reach those parts which are hardest to reach. Digital entrepreneurs on Old Street are fairly well supported (do let me know if you disagree). Unemployed university graduates probably less so. London is probably an easier environment for startups than Sheffield.

So, where next?

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1. Obama losing will mean administrative gridlock

This old chestnut is based on many false premises. Firstly, that the President is so closely associated with the party and each candidate, that the election is a referendum on his presidency. It isn’t – at least universally – in every state. Secondly, that it is unusual – it isn’t. Thirdly, that political parties are homogenous entities in the USA – they aren’t. If you take that premise and read backwards then it was easy for Obama to introduce his healthcare bill because ‘he controlled’ Congress. Only he didn’t. Some of the hardest fought battles on the bill were with his own side.

2. A Democrat defeat will put the Republicans on course for the Whitehouse

This is complete falacy for a number of reasons. On a practical point, the party infrastructure is so different, so unconnected, so unrelated that the same infrastructure that delivers for a Senator cannot necessarily be prodded back into action for a Presidential candidate. Moreover, the Republican party means lots of different things. And actually, in the primaries for these midterms, many wise commentators considered the biggest losers to be the Republican party, whose stalwarts lost to Tea party activists left, right and centre.

3. That Obama is doomed after winning so comprehensively just 2 years ago

Obama may be doomed, but worse people have come back from heavier – and more unified – defeats than he to win a second term. And mostly, second terms post WWII are the norm. Secondly, he didn’t win all that comprehensively. Given the legacy against which he was fighting, you could suggest that he should have done an awful lot better.

4. The Tea Party is a revelation

The Tea Party looks odd in the UK. But its people are not new. Its fundraising does not come from unusual sources. And it is unlikely to win a national election. Protest movements rarely do. It hasn’t conquered the Republican party. It isn’t a united movement. Not all Republicans are tea party members. This has a real impact on the political management of Congress.

Does any of this matter? Probably not. We will still watch soft American political dreams like the West Wing or brash films with a powerful President like Independence Day. And we can even kid ourselves that the US President is the most powerful man in the world – or even that the US is the most powerful country in the world. Meanwhile, China will continue to quietly pull the strings.

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“I hope this is the start of the new politics I have always believed in – diverse, plural, where politicians of different persuasions come together, overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country.”

There’s a strain of this sentiment, particularly within the Liberal Democrats who know that they can’t achieve very much alone, but also within civic society.

But if politicians agree, what’s their purpose? We might as well leave it up to the civil servants.

As a start, here are five clear reasons why it’s bad if politicians agree with each other:

1. Less scrutiny. As we will see a PMQs, there will be less scrutiny of the government because fewer voices will be represented during the session.
2. “They’re all the same”. The public already think politicians are too similar. Now if you can’t tell the difference between the Tories and the Lib Dems, what’s the point? And if you can tell the difference at the next by-election, there will be real pressure on the coalition.
3. Less ideology. The politics Nick Clegg espouses surely means that politicians should be driven less by belief (where disagreements are going to be greater) and more by pragmatism. Again, if politicians are just there to manage the country, wouldn’t civil servants to it just as well?
4. More people disenfranchised. With fewer divergent voices, more people will be disenfranchised by the current political parties. Where do you go if you are a Simon-Hughes-Lib-Dem? Labour is too trade unionised, the Lib Dems too economically right-wing.
5. Less political debate. Political debate usually produces bettter policies and a deeper understanding in the country. The more politicians try to seek common ground, the more they will be victims of group-think.

So, no, Nick. The “new politics” you speak of is not inherently better than fierce, passionate political disagreement. A woolly consensus is not what this country needs, given the scale of its problems.

Related posts:

1. Why can’t politicians communicate?

1. Murdoch, Cameron and public influence
Without a majority it will be harder for Cameron to govern so it follows that resistance to changes which makes business easier for Mr Murdoch will be harder.

At the same time Cameron owes Murdoch even more than he would have done with a working majority: imagine the state he’d be in without the visceral support of the Sun. And if Murdoch goes cold on Cameron it will be even harder for Dave.

But it’s also a story of the declining influence of the Sun – and newspapers more broadly. The Sun did not win it for the Tories – nor did any of the mass market papers. They did not even set the agenda for the day. Twitter’s biggest impact on the campaign was breaking the cycle: newspaper frontpage – Today programme – morning press conference – lunchtime news.

So will someone – or something – else fill the Murdoch void or will politics stay trapped in a vortex of decreasingly fulfilling Murdoch-love?

2. Leaders and their parties
In normal circumstances any one of the party leaders had just cause to resign the day after the night before. Cameron because he didn’t meet his part of the deal he struck with his party (change to win). Clegg because his result was the worst in his party’s history. And Gordon not only because he lost but because the local election results suggest that he was an impediment to greater success. Labour did well locally when distanced from Brown.

Clegg now has to take a party whose membership considers itself to be to the left of Labour into coalition with a Conservative party for whom a litmus test of it’s time in power would be a different relationship with the EU.

3. Parties and their resources
There’s no way Labour or the Lib Dems can afford another election campaign any time soon. And big money failed for the Tories – even if Ashcroft was minded to throw more ‘good’ money after bad.

But no party is likely to have the courage to argue for state funding incentives and donation caps – the only viable solution to the status quo.

Can any of the parties fudamentally rethink the big ticket costs of campaigning? Or will they turn to dubious donors or hardcore suppprt with strings-attached?

4. Devolution
The election result was also a story about the fragmentation of the nation. Labour’s failure in England and the Tories north of Watford – excluding posh bits. The answer to this (and inconclusive national politics) is surely devolution to local authorities but with Labour gaining control across London that’s less attractive to the Tories and with local government facing a spending cut anyway, a tough balance for any government.

5. Party Ideology
David Cameron’s inconclusive result may be insufficient for him to break out from Thatcher’s shackles. And for Labour, Miliband and Balls would both be defined by association with Blair and Brown. The election result appears to suggest that Clegg failed to convince people that the Lib Dem’s version of liberalism was not defined by the traditional left/right axis.

But with party allegiances further weakened – and the prospect of electoral reform – the traditional alliances of British politics are under structural threat, not just the temporary inconvenience of coalition.

Conclusion
The tectonic plates of politics move slowly and often take years before the movement is apparent. But they have moved and are continuing to move. The political groupings which understand this best will prosper most.

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