Tangent is taking the Labour community for a ride
July 24th, 2010
UPDATE: I just received an email from Tangent PLC’s executive director threatening potential legal action for my Tweet earlier suggesting that Gordon’s Brown website wasn’t very well designed:
I respectfully suggest you delete that tweet, issue no more similar ones and generally try to sell your products in a more professional way. I really don’t like the prospect of either a public slanting match or legal action, but if I need to protect my company’s business and reputation, I will.
Nice, I really don’t like being threatened. I am a tiny, tiny start-up business and I was not making a commercial point. A large PLC, working with the Labour party, which is afterall about fairness, threatening to sue a very small company because of a subjective comment on quality of design is really bad form in my opinion.
Since I wrote this piece for Progress in the Autumn of 2008, I have been known in the Labour party as somebody who has quite clear, sometimes forceful thoughts about how we should communicate with new media & the Internet as a party. I may rub some people up the wrong way with my comments, namely Labour HQ, Tangent One (Labour’s IT provider) and previously Derek Draper (although we did make up, not with a kiss mind you…), but I do it in good faith.
I believe that in the 21st century, the Internet is no longer a plaything of the geeks & nerds. In a political context it is now one of the most important tools in any political party’s tool belt for campaigning, fund-raising and engaging with the public. I believe Labour has failed time and time again to fully grasp how to engage with the Internet. They offer up excuses, be it the lack of funds to pay for fancy websites or as one of Gordon Brown’s special advisers told me in a private meeting in No. 10 last September, the fear of “pissing off Rupert Murdoch” if we under-cut the traditional media in favour of new media (this was just days before the Sun trashed Gordon Brown in a highly embarrassing Conference Week front-page). I will not stop publicly saying what I think until I believe Labour has succeeded in becoming a 21st century party. This extends beyond Labour nationally and even into the leadership race, where the vast majority of online activity is dismal in quality and strategic terms.
Tangent One (parent company is Tangent Plc) provides the “WebCreator” platform which, in return for a monthly fee provides a website content management system and templates for MPs, CLPs, Councillors, PPCs and the like all around the country. WebCreator is a cash-cow for Tangent, and is an added revenue stream for the company which develops some brilliant websites for the likes of Levi’s, Channel Five, Cadillac & Borders, and also provides Labour’s national web development services. I don’t take it lightly, but I think it’s time to recognise how much better the WebCreator service needs to be in this day and age. In an age where design on the Internet is crucial, are websites like the following up-to-scratch for communicating political message and engaging with electorates effective:
- http://iwc2.labouronline.org/164931/home (Sheffield Labour Party)
- http://www.brentlabour.org.uk/ (Brent Labour Party)
- http://www.ianaustin.co.uk/ (Ian Austin MP)
These are just a few examples. Anybody who uses the WebCreator system gets a very similar, not very well design web template which actually turns constituents off rather than makes them feel they can engage with their local Labour Party or their Labour MP. The website that inspired me to write this post is the new website for Gordon Brown MP, former Prime Minister and Labour leader:
I apologise if I’m blunt, but this website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. It has an unprofessional feel to it, and doesn’t portray the image of a statesman and one of Labour’s biggest figures. Tony Blair’s is far better, and it isn’t a Tangent website. It is not about money before people start throwing that excuse in the air. It would have taken an hour for one of Tangent’s top designers to sit down and design a site for our former leader. And when the party has given Tangent so much money over the last few years, you would think that would come for free and without prompting from me.
I’m sure Tangent means well, but it is time for them to stop providing shoddy websites to the Labour community. Eventually there will be an alternative to the anti-competitive Tangent/Labour HQ relationship which makes it hard for Labour politicians to choose other providers, but until then Tangent should in good faith, start providing a better quality service to its most important client.
The chances are that Tangent do it without making a profit – and probably even at a commercial loss.
And any web designer / builder is only as good as the brief they are given.
Now they may have been heavy-handed, but in that context – go easy on them!
Tangent’s Director needs to up his proofing skills or get a brain. When he says “slanting” doesn’t he mean “slanging”. Shows a lack of professionalism IMHO.
Welcome to socialism, bruvver
Readers may wish to see the following hashtags on Twitter:
#ThatWebsiteIsSoPissPoorItCouldHaveComeFromTangentLabs
#OffTangent
Agree entirely.
But, it isn’t that more expensive to opt out to other providers. The office I work in has, it isn’t ideal or the best, but it is a step up from WebCreator and certainly have a lot more control over design and content.
Would definitely recommend to others.
While Tangent are clearly in the wrong here, I think you should sort out your own house too, Luke. On Google Chrome, at a fairly standard resolution of 1024 x 768, your site layout breaks. The text content has no margin at all on the left, causing it to align flush with the edge of the browsing window and I have to scroll to see the second (redundant) navigation column (when, really, only one is required).
Just sayin’.
When the website of a former Prime Minister, whatever you think of him as a person, resembles nothing more than a 5-minute Geocities knock-off, you know there’s trouble.
[...] A Website Is Poor, Get Libel Threat That’s right. Luke Bozier voiced his thoughts about Gordon Brown’s website and found himself on the receiving end of a libel threat from [...]
Blaming Tangent for some scruffy user implementation of some slightly minty old 1-size-fits-all DIY tat seems harsh.
And crucifying them for asking for some moderation of comments that go way beyond critting GB’s site as pants with the formula:
“public slanging match or legal action”
is also harsh. Yes, the 2nd part of the formula is (or might be, I’m no lawyer) silly, but the reaction from tweetsville is already disproportionate.
Hopefully everyone will calm down .. but if not I would suggest that Tangent are in a far different place than homeopathy say, scientology, or that woman who WAS NOT repeat WAS NOT a terrorist.
PS the scruffy edges on my blog are NOT repeat NOT the fault of Blogger or the template designer. I’ve tweaked it badly. All my own work.
@Carl – I think he actually means “slating”.
[...] their work is Luke Bozier, a Labour supporting communications consultant, who took the time to give a more detailed comment on the subject earlier today, explaining why he felt the Labour party’s relationship with Tangent Labs resulted in an [...]
Refer him to the reply re Arkell v Pressdram
http://www.nasw.org/users/nbauman/arkell.htm
Hell I could build something more befitting a former primeminister! It would be with wordpress and with a free template but it would far better than that!
It’s almost
oops!
almost as if they’ve done it on purpose!
I agree, webcreator is not a very good product for what it’s supposed to do. For a balance of ease of use for staff and good design better going for something like wordpress or joomla with a well designed template. Also, it’s wrong of regional offices to put any kind of pressure on constituency offices to use it when there are better options out there (which you’re right, does happen)
And transitional errors in the HTML … not impressive
Luke,
Your description of Gordon Brown’s website:
“I apologise if I’m blunt, but this website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. It has an unprofessional feel to it, and doesn’t portray the image of a statesman and one of Labour’s biggest figures.”
Is astute, grounded in logic, and accurate. It is perhaps that in-built reaction to defend oneself when one is offended that has Tangent threatening quite comical legal action. Sometimes the truth hurts, and I think you hit them hard.
Hopefully this will lead to some sort of reevaluation of how they go about designing their websites. Content matters, but if it isn’t presented in an aesthetically pleasing way, you got yourself a empty space.
Matthew, If Tangent do it without making a profit, then I believe that would be listed in the electoral commission’s donation register.
They don’t show up in the register search.
[...] also blogged his opinion in a longer post saying that Tangent, the web company that does many websites for the Labour party, [...]
I find the design of Gordon Brown’s site pretty underwhelming, and that it doesn’t project an image of professionalism or statesmanship. Can I be sued for expressing an opinion?
[...] do you reckon to it? I think it’s a bit shit and agree with this chap, Luke Bozier… I apologise if I’m blunt, but this website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. It [...]
If I were to start listing what was wrong with Brown’s site I’d be there all day. There is no excuse for someone who apparently consulted with the likes of Tim Berners-Lee to have a sub-par website.
Having checked the site out, I think Blogger and Wordpress provide better for free.
Well, since Gordon Brown’s website isn’t accessible and doesn’t validate, I’d say that Tangent would not have a legal leg to stand on.
It’s not just bad aesthetically, it’s bad code.
… and they haven’t even considered SEO.
The title is “Home”, not something descriptive, the keywords are and there is no description tag.
Jeez. Awful coding.
“They offer up excuses, be it the lack of funds to pay for fancy websites or as one of Gordon Brown’s special advisers told me in a private meeting in No. 10 last September, the fear of “pissing off Rupert Murdoch” if we under-cut the traditional media in favour of new media”.
Wow. Feeding a half-hearted media hegemony online for fear of losing favour with the offline media hegemony. Utterly self-defeating!
Have posted a blog about this called ‘Instant Corporate Karma’..
http://bit.ly/cBA3vL
…bit late to the party, having been scrabbling around trying to find the GB site, after someone Tweeted you’d been taking some heat.
Gordon does need something significantly better.
Luke,
More power to your elbow. Also, they appear to be crap at threatening letters. Tangent: if you’re going to threaten legal action at least pay a solicitor to send a proper nastygram, rather than a whiny passive-aggressive email implying that you’ve somehow been bullied by a blogger.
1. You’re right – Labour MPs standard websites are pretty poor. Some are really bad.
2. Brown’s looks really amateurish. It looks like someone’s personal website they cooked up themselves. It does not look like the website of a public figure, never mind a former head of state.
3. The vague threat of legal action is just
ridiculous.
4. How many people would have read your comment if not for this mess? How many will now? Stupidity.
Wordpress. Just do it in Wordpress. Sheez, are Liebour really that thick? OK, don’t answer that.
Whatever the merits or demerits of your opinion (which I agree with, that website is awful), using a legal threat to silence criticism is unforgivable. It is bullying plain and simple, and entirely contrary to freedom of speech.
Screw that guy and his stupid company, I hope he gets the blowback from this that he entirely deserves.
Oh I don’t know I think Tangent have done a great job on Brown’s website.
It’s dull, dour, characterless and boring just like the former PM.
It’s badly made, badly coded and completely unfit for purpose – just like the former PM.
It’s choker full of bullshit – just like the former PM.
In summery it’s complete and utter sh*te – just like the former PM.
Well done Tangent it can’t have been easy coming up with a website that accurately represents the failures of Gordon “incapability” Brown but you’ve go close.
Poor me, poor me, pour me another Luke. Whilst clearly this Exec Director or whoever shouldn’t have threatened legal action there was something about this that didn’t quite ring true when I first read it. You make a single comment on the design if one site and you’re threatened with legal action? V strange indeed. So I decided to do my investigations and voilà it didn’t take long at all – indeed one scroll through your (admittedly volumous) twitter pages found a litany of comments slagging off the Web Creator product. I particularly draw your attention to those where you actually contact the MP directly to tell them how poor their fires are and ask if they would rather go with your company instead. So whilst am in agreement with all that not smart to threaten legal, methinks young Luke here isn’t quite telling the full story…
Tell them to pi55 off. Gormless brown is no longer in power so he’s getting some mug to do his bullying.
Thanks Gormless brown for getting our country in the state its in. I lost my business thanks to you, you to55er.
Mr. Friar, I think Luke has shared more than enough information for most of us. Also, if Steve Jobs can take shots at his competitors so can Luke Bozier. Sincerely, Paul
@Simon Friar
I don’t really see how Luke trying to get business from slagging of the Web Creator product makes any difference to his point.
Approaching someone with a crap website and asking them if they’d like it replacing with a better one is good business practise.
If his points weren’t valid then it would be a very difficult sell to prove that they need new a new site if they do not.
At the end of the day, the politicians are failing their disabled constituents by not having an accessible website. Personally, I’m sick of professional companies building inaccessible sites. It is shoddy workmanship and they should not be in the industry if they are not building to professional standards.
Tangent’s response should have been to point out why their product is good, not to try and silence someone (correctly) pointing out why it is crap.
Solidarity with you Luke – I agree 100%. The Gordon Brown site is poor, and typical of a WebCreator site, and the backend of WebCreator is even worse than the front end.
Frankly the whole strategy behind WebCreator is wrong – any company, however good, is not going to have the resources to create a system that can evolve as swiftly as open source alternatives. A system that tailored WordPress 3 for Labour candidates would be more user friendly, would generate accessible code, be better for SEO, and would cost far less.
Oh, and I say this as someone who has developed plenty of sites for people in the Labour Party. So presumably I’ll get some threat from Tangent as well now.
TO be honest Luke, you should sort your own house out, your own site is pretty lame too to be honest.
Plus, if you have specific ideas on who to improve GB’s site then why don’t you write it down in bullet points, nice and simple, and send to his advisors. Going public with criticisms does nothing for the Labour Party. Engage and help instead
Completely agree with your original comments about Tangent and their websites.
I would have thought that the Labour movement could muster enough design people to create an opensource platform or adapt WordPress to offer a simple plug and play system for local parties etc.
None of the parties seem to have got this right. The Lib Dems are hooked on Prater Raines, which quite frankly makes Tangent look fantastic.
I agree too. In fact you could do better with 2 minutes on Blogger.
“WebCreator is a cash-cow for Tangent, and is an added revenue stream for the company which develops some brilliant websites for the likes of Levi’s, Channel Five, Cadillac & Borders”
Most, if not all, of those sites were actually developed by Lateral, a company that Tangent acquired a few years ago.
http://www.tangentplc.com/acquisition_of_lateral_by_tangent_creates_digital_dream_team
[...] saw the website, and thought it looked pretty bad for the website of a former Prime Minister, and wrote a blog post about it and tweeted: Gordon Brown’s WebCreator website is not befitting of a former Prime Minister. [...]
thought you might find this amusing – might be worth going to in fact – http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/Events.aspx
.15-5.45
Nick Gillett – Managing Partner, Tangent One
Harnessing Social Media Without Fear
This presentation looks at how brands can harness social media by starting and owning debates rather than attempting to change them. It also shows how you can use technology tools and good old human psychology to ensure your brand treads as safely as possible in what can sometimes feel like a minefield as much as a marketing medium.
Late to the party, but – yes – the site suggests that Dr Who is back and is bringing in websites from 1995.
And as for the legal threat? Tossers.
An image of the entire email would be good, though.
Rgds
Interesting article, and certainly Gordon Brown’s website is very poor. I cannot understand the Labour Party using ‘web creator’ (unless, beneath the hood it is a well known platform that has been customised). It makes much more sense to use a commercial or open source solution that is being more widely maintained, documented and supported.
One question, though, I notice the Labour websites you like are also from Tangent labs, but hosted on Taobase? Would these be a better tool?
…although the MD of Tangent deserves to destroy his companies relationship with Labour purely through his handling of this matter. If his company can’t respond positively to critical feedback then that is a problem.