Labour must use web to campaign, says Brown

Brown: "We have to use email, Twitter and other social networking."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Labour Party activists to embrace modern
communications media in the battle to win support in time for a general election late next spring.

Speaking during a question and answer session at Brighton ahead of his main conference address, Brown said overseas development secretary Douglas Alexander, who also heads Labour's campaign team, is briefing delegates behind the scenes on how to adapt some of the techniques developed during Barak Obama's US presidential election battle to the Labour cause.

Obama raised $500m online during his 21-month presidential campaign and built a groundswell of support through emails, social network groups and text messages.

"We have to use email, Twitter and other social networking. We have to use all these new media to get through, because sometimes we don't get fair treatment from some newspapers in this country," said Brown.

"There are more people online talking to each other than there are readers of some of our newspapers and we have to use that new media to our best advantage."