Leader: The web's election?

Today we heard how people living in constituencies with a Labour MP are more likely to have broadband than any other. You can see the top and bottom 10 areas here.

Only don't get too hung up on the politics. It doesn't take Peter Snow to work out that many Labour seats are in more metropolitan areas. There are plenty of rural communities, less likely to be able to sign up to broadband, with members of parliament of a different hue.

No, more interesting altogether at this particular period in a General Election campaign are the websites of the major parties.

According to the Usability Company (guess what they do), while all the parties have made strides since their first online forays, there is still much work to do.

Provide that much pawed-over manifesto as simple HTML or even a Word doc - presumably with the 'track changes' feature turned off - Labour is advised. Or, for Howard and co - keep it simple.

And as for the Lib Dem effort, well, a colour scheme of white on a yellow background is unfortunate to say the least.

The main political parties are connecting with voters through the web but just as with getting government services online this year, getting online is only the first step. Doing things well online is the greater challenge - maybe one for four years or so from now.

Follow our Election '05 coverage on silicon.com until polling day to find out how the politicos are using IT to campaign and what they promise to do for the industry should they be elected.