Intute blog

Results from the recent EU elections have shown a rise in support for the British National Party. The Guardian newspaper datablog has a spreadsheet where you can view how well the BNP did in your area. You can also sort the results to see which places received the most BNP results and compare them with percentages in other regions.

But who are the BNP – what do they really stand for? Here are some useful resources from Intute

Of course the BNP has its own official site where you will find manifestos, statements and a YouTube channel

The Guardian newspaper has a special section of news stories and discussion of recent reports.

The Hope Not hate Campaign (supported by SearchLight Magazine) has information on the  BNP leaders and discussion of their threat. You can also read further materials on the main SearchLight magazine pages.

United Against Fascism has some useful materials It has a useful paper on the electoral rise of the BNP

The Joseph Rowntree Trust also has some analyses of the rise of the far right in the UK.  They include Far Right in London: a challenge for local democracy and British National Party: Inside the Roots of Its Appeal

Another good place for finding news stories and analysis is the Institute of Race Relations website.

More links to papers can be found on the Intute website.

UK Web Archive launch web archive of 2009 European Parliament election websites.

The British Library have been conserving archives for some time. Their latest collection is on the 2009 European Elections. This was conducted under the auspices of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) .

It is currently archiving 200 key English language sites from EU institutions, parties, pan European parties, candidates, interest groups (ranging from charities such as industries including pub and beer manufacturers!), news media (mainly news services as newspapers are excluded due to licensing and copyright issues).

Weekly snapshots of sites were taken for a key 20 sites, before and after capture election shots for alll others. This great collection enables researchers to get a real taste of how the election progressed on the web. They show the evolution since 2004 of Web 2.0 interactive features, sophisticated political communication online, and the development of Pan-European parties.

There are some technical limitations: streaming video may not be able to be accessed in the snapshot, in terms of Twitter, the first page of tweets only could be captured by the web crawler. But this doesnt detract from the quality of the collection which will be invaluable to researchers of today and the future.

Intute: Social Sciences features more Internet resources on European Elections.

Now it’s all over,  after the long build up.  Intute has followed the  the results,  on newspaper websites, blogs, specialist EU websites and more.   Some reactions:

The BBC Elections 2009 page shows results,  with a colour chart of the new European parliament and results for each of the 27 EU countries voting.  42.94% of eligible voters actually voted.  The Centre Right has got a majority now, with 264 seats.   The BBC also shows full UK results by region.   Mark Mardell, the BBC blogger, has some thoughts on the BNP and other far right gains in the elections.  The British press obviously has coverage, but this is overshadowed by the upheavals in domestic politics.   For example, the Daily Mail is more interested in female ministers resigning although it reports on issues such as UKIP’s success.    The Guardian has an intelligent article on the BNP in the European parliament.

EurActiv, the independent EU news website, has a good analysis of the results, with statistics and analysis.  You can also see the manifestos of the European parties.

Presseurop has a good roundup of articles, eg. the headline in a leading Portuguese newspaper,  ‘Left-wing roses withered’.

The Financial Times brusselsblog looks at winners and losers.  Daniel Hannan from the Daily Telegraph gives his 10 conclusions about the results eg. they are strongly Eurosceptic,   congratulating the Greens (they have had little overall coverage!) and more.

To read more and find good general EU resources, both pro-EU or eurosceptic, see Intute’s European Union section.

As the EU elections enter their final voting stage. A number of papers have reported that leading parties in a number of nations will be embarrassed by protest votes for minority parties.  I thought it was time for a round up of useful news sites where you can find the results as they come in.

The European Parliament has created an official results site where you will be check by country to see the final results

 The BBC pages will highlight the results by country. It is well known for its clear coverage.

Most national news services will also be highlighting the results from their country. A good starting point for tracing these is the EU feeds website This site has been created by the European Journalism Centre. It provides free access to news feeds of the latest headlines and news stories from over 300 national and local newspapers from European nations. Updates are usually made every 20 minutes throughout the day. Select the country flag in order to view the appropriate news feeds.

Presseurop.eu is an interesting  portal created by a network of media publishers led by Courrier international (Internazionale in Italy, Forum Polityka in Poland and Courrier Internacional in Portugal, with the support of Cafebabel) and funds of the EU Commission. It aims to provide access to summaries of high quality news about the European Union, EU nations and EU accession countries taken from a number of leading European national newspapers.

Silobreaker is an interesting news and current awareness website and search engine maintained by a UK based company which aggregates news headlines, news blogs, video and audio resources in innovative ways. These include: Network Searches which associate explore the relationship between people, companies, organisations and keywords in the news; Hotspots Search which provides geographical mappings of news items, displaying the location and size of the news stories in terms of article volume and Trends Search which generates charts of article volume and market share for specific issues

Another option is Newssift, a news search service from FT Search Inc., an independent entity within the Financial Times Group. It annotates articles, news stories and reports from thousands of online newspapers, newswires, blogs and online TV and radio news services worldwide (mainly English language).

An interesting report this week from Social Media Affairs (free registration required for full download)compares use of social media (blogs, twitter) amongst Uk political parties . It found that a higher percentage of right wing parties and candidates engaged in online activity.

In terms of MEPs the results are very different online, they found  activity does not correlate with size or strength of the party. The Lib Dems are the most active bloggers (42% blog) although they are only the third largest group.Whereas  in the more powerful Conservative group only 4% of  MEPS blog. with an

These results seem to correspond with a recent research study by  public affairs and communications consultancy, Fleishman-Hillard found underuse of the Internet (blogs, wikis) by MEPS  and political parties.

Political blogger Jon Worth has added a slideshare presentation which summarises some  key uses of technology during the 2009 European elections.

Another good starting point for tracing articles on this theme is the 2009 elections Twitter.This links to articles discussing usage in different EU nations.  For instance this tweet to a Czech newspaper site highlights how the Czech media is being dominated by a Facebook picture of an egg being thrown at a political party.

It is possible to use the Technorati website to look for recent blog postings about the European Elections. It can also generate graphs of increasing number and frequency of postings through the campaign.

Likewise the Neilsen BlogPulse site can be used to track recent postings. You can also generate graphs on trends. Here is an example from the EU elections.

Finally a good directory of EU related blogs can be found on Bloggingportal.eu

And you can browse Intute to find some of our recommended examples.

In the final days before European Parliament voting, the papers have been focusing on MEPS activities and expenses.

The UK Office of the European Parliament issued a statement outlining Euro MPs pay and conditions

On the 20th May BBC Daily Politics show asked the main parties whether they would reveal their expenses. The responses can be reviewed online

A major critic of MEP wages and conditions is the Taxpayers Alliance. A recent report by them argued that  MEPs can become millionaires through their generous allowances

Another critical organisation Open Europe has also published a ranking of all 785 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), scoring their record on promoting transparency and reform in the European Union over the last five-year term. It argues that many have sought to block or are indifferent to reform

This follows on from an earlier report in July 2008 by SpinWatch which revealed potential clashes of interest by MEPS receiving political funding from corporate organisations. It has case studies of 12 specific individuals which it argues are potentially more worrying than controversies surrounding British MPs expenses

On a similar theme.  The Parlorama MEP ranking portal recently provoked a scandal when it revealed the activitiy or (lack of activity of many Euro MPs) Launched by the former EU parliamentary assistant Flavien Deltort, it details attendances and activities of the outgoing MEPSs. It aims to give citizens going to the polls the chance to judge their MEP . You can download tables of rankings from the site  

 It can also be compared with the official European Parliament website which has added to MEP profiles, attendance lists and details of involvement in other parliamentary activities. To view these scroll down the profile of the individual MEPs

You can also view more information on your MEPs voting activities at the EP Vote website . Choose the members section to search for information on the votes they have cast.

The Greens have also compiled their own European Parliament vote tracker which gives details of votes cast by parties and MEPs from specific nations on ‘green related issues’. These also include a transparency section with details on whether they voted for greater EU reform and transparancy. The rankings have links through to official EP voting records where you can view the names of the individuals

Finally  ITV has an interesting website called Europe and You which focuses on British activity in the EP. You can get news from MEPs, plus a listing with profiles and links to their personal websites.

If you are haven’t decided who to vote for yet – why not try one of these free voter quizzes and online tools?

EU profiler was developed by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RCAS), part of the European University Institute (EUI); Kieskompas and the NCCR Democracy (University of Zurich/Zentrum für Demokratie Aarau)/Politools network. It asks a series of questions to determine which party matches your viewpoint!

MiCandidate is a tool created by a group of enthusiasts. It aims to offer a handy collection of reference files on the political parties and candidates standing. Records include summaries of the main policies and slogans of registered political parties, links to their contact addresses, official websites, blogs and YouTube channels.

Another well-known example is VoteMatch.eu developed for the 2009 European Parliament elections using software based on the StemWijzer voting indication tool pioneered by the Dutch Centre for Political Participation (IPP). It is intended to enable the electorate to make choices about which party policies most closely represent their political preferences.

There are also a  number of online voting tools designed for citizens in specific EU nations. here are a selection from the Intute catalogue.

Vote Match is a voter education project created by by Unlock Democracy and the Joseph Rowntree Trust for British citizens.

KohoVolit.eu is  Czech/ Slovak voter education project created by Michal Škop, Jaroslav Semančík and Jana Kubíková.

Latarnik Wyborczy is a Polish intiative.

CandidateWatch Ireland was created by German non-profit organisation Parlamentwatch e.V and TASC, an Irish think-tank for action on social change, to provide Irish voters with information

Wahl-o-mat Europawahl A German voter education site created by Germany’s Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung/bpb)

 Választási Iránytű (Voter’s compass). A special project of the Association of European Election Officials (ACEEEO), containing a vote match system for Hungarian voters.

StemWijzer Europa This site is a special project of the Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek for Dutch voters.

Testeaza-ti votul! is a voter education site created by the Black Sea Trust, a project of German Marshall Fund of the United States, to increase political participation and voter turnout amongst the Romanian electorate.

Another excellent starting point for tracing European election campaigns in the various EU member nations are the EPP Parliament Offices. An official listing is offered on the European Parliament website.

This week a study published by BAT Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Future Studies – a research centre based in Germany which was originally set up by British American Tobacco) reported the results of some market research conducted with 12,000 Europeans in 10 EU nations.

It showed that recent scandals involving politicians and parties had taken their toll. According to the results 60% cite the belief that they are being lied to in election campaigns as a reason for not voting.

The full survey can be downloaded from their website allowing you to examine differences in different nations.

But what does this mean for the forthcoming European Elections?

In comparison a TNS/SOFRES poll released this week by the European Parliament showed an increase in interest  – a  predicated 49% turnout (fieldwork 4-15 May), up from 34% in the previous Eurobarometer survey (January and February).

Eurobarometer is a good place for finding other polls which track EU citizen’s levels of interest and knowledge about EU elections.

If you interested in finding out what citizens think about the elections in different EU nations some other good sites recommended by Intute include

Questions for Europe (a collaborative venture between YouTube and Euronews) where you can view videos of questions about European politics submitted by site users to politicians (plus their answers!)

Blogging portal.EU aggregates posts from over 350 EU political blogs – you can read a selection of the latest writings.

Another interesting blogging site is Think about it (a project of the European Journalism Centre (EJC). It was launched as a competition for a community of young bloggers. For 4 months from February – 81 bloggers from EU are being invited to comment on EU politics .

You can view the latest tweets via TweetElect.09 (created by public relations consultancy Burson-Marsteller EMEA) . It automatically checks for tweets containing hashtags relating to European elections. The website provides access to postings. These include news feeds for individual, parties and news services in a variety of EU nations. It also contains statistics on the most talked about country, political party, figures and themes

Finally discovered this week via the French media  France 24 election coverage, a useful interactive map of the latest trends in blogging and Tweeting about the Elections.

The Guardian newspaper recently reported a study that men with daughters are more likely to vote for left-wing parties than other fathers.

I found that this was based on some research by Dr Andrew Oswald of Warwick University and N. Powdthavee of York University. The full text of their article ‘Daughters and Left-Wing voting’ can be read online.

This lead me to think about the forthcoming European elections. Intute has some interesting studies about voting preferences in the EU. Left-Right and the European Parliament Vote in 2004“, in: Marsh, Michael, Slava Mikhaylov and Hermann Schmitt (ed.), European Elections after Eastern Enlargement. Preliminary Results of the European Elections Study 2004, CONNEX Report Series, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden: MZES, pp. 97-140. Considers whether voter preferences or political systems are more important  in influencing voter choice.

Another survey considers who votes for right wing parties using evidence from the 2004 European elections. The support base of radical right parties in the enlarged European Union States“, in: Marsh, Michael, Slava Mikhaylov and Hermann Schmitt (ed.), European Elections after Eastern Enlargement. Preliminary Results of the European Elections Study 2004, CONNEX Report Series, Vol. 1, Wiesbaden: MZES, pp. 297-326.

You can trace many more useful articles and papers about voter preferences and voting patterns in earlier European elections using the Piredeu bibliography. It includes links to any of them that are free online.

Another useful place for tracing the latest surveys of voter intentions is Eurobarometer. It has a number of recent surveys relating to the elections. For example this one from March surveyed what women thought of the European Parliament and who they intended to vote for.

A recent research study by  public affairs and communications consultancy, Fleishman-Hillard found underuse of the Internet (blogs, wikis) by MEPS  and political parties. View the clip online via YouTube

Alternatively their website provides free access to the Digital Trends 2009 report and data which surveyed use by 110 MEPS during April- May 2009. This offers insight into trends in the run up to the elections.

Further information on the use of Twitter by MEPs can be found on the Europatweets website which has a directory and links to statistics on recent postings.

Maybe this is why the official European Parliament website has just launched its 2009 election campaigns in a variety of different formats. The press release mentions 8 online platforms.

These include the EuroParliament TV channel where you can find videos.

The European Parliament YouTube Channel

The official Flickr website has over 100 photos from the EP relating to the 2009 election campaigns. These are examples of the design of the posters being used by the Parliament  Plus closeups and shots in various locations!

Twitter the EU election campaign headlines

The European Parliament even has a Facebook site (which currently has over 11,000 fans! )This has the latest RSS newsfeeds.