CJA debates role of New Media in the Election Results 2010
7th June 2010

The Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) debated the role of new media (bloggers, twitter and Facebook) on the UK General Election Results 2010 on Monday 7th June at the House of Commons. The panel included award-winning author and former Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party, Michael Dobbs; Lord Dholakia Chair of the Liberal Democrat Party, Labour MP Stephen Pound, author and political analyst Nicholas Jones and editor of the Liberal Conspiracy blog, Sunny Hundal. Chair of the CJA (UK) Rita Payne hosted the panel debate and Q&A which was attended by journalists, commentators and members of parliament including Virendra Sharma MP.

Among the topics debated were MPs expenses, the live TV debates, all women and BME shortlists with most panelists agreeing that May 2010 was "in many ways a mould-breaking" election. In this forthcoming book 'Campaign 2010', Nicholas Jones looks at the "thrills and spills of the campaign itself - the TV debates, the emergence of "Cleggmania", Gordon Brown's "Bigotgate" encounter with Gillian Duffy and the role of the media who seemed to consistently call the wrong result". "I don't think we have seen the end of political spin" said Jones, "what we have now is two teams of propagandists yoked together, so I think we will see a new page in spin"!