Political cyberterrorism: Labour is Conservative

The general election is hotting up and the Internet will play a big part in it.

Odd then that the Web address www.newlabour.co.uk points to arch enemy www.conservatives.com.

What's going on here? A man known as Robert Parker owns this URL that, quite frankly, many many people are likely to tap in if they want to know more about the Labour party/government. Robert is a hard man to get hold of. He won't answer his phone and the company that registered the URL seems to believe that the Data Protection Act prevents them from telling us any other contact details.

Nevertheless, a prime piece of cyberspace seems to be controlled by a maverick whose wishes are more blue than red.

The Labour Party knows all about it. A spokesman informed us that this wasn't the first time he'd been asked about the URL. The thing is: it's all right because the official Labour party site gets loads of hits and so that's good enough for us.

Is the political party upset about this? [Repeat same line as above - official Labour site, etc, etc.] Has it tried to contact Robert Parker? [Repeat same line as above]. Is it planning to get hold of the URL under a trademark? [Repeat same line as above].

New Labour - or, simply, the Labour Party before the media masterbators were in charge - is not very happy about it but it would seem that, even with a general election beckoning, they can't touch it.

Does all this mean that Labour is offering previously unheard of depths of understanding over how the Internet works, or is it simply an indication that all UK political parties have become one and it's only the quality of soundbite that differentiates who runs the country and who doesn't? ®