The following video “Vince Cable’s Way” has graced our homepage for the past week or so, but that prime position has now gone to our commuity’s latest entertaining offering, “Vince Charming”. Of course, depending on when you read this, it may not be there now, so both are embedded below for your enjoyment. And you can always catch us at the InVinceCable YouTube channel of course.
Rory Cellan-Jones took the opportunity to present the InVinceCable website to viewers of BBC 24 this lunchtime. (BBC 24 News isn’t available on iPlayer, but if we can get hold of the video or a still we’ll post it here.)
Rory is covering Election 2012 from a digital / social media perspective. Having referenced our campaign in a blog post on the 24th March, Rory obviously considers the work we’re all doing on the campaign to have achieved a certain momentum warranting the BBC’s attention.
Perhaps it was our making Vince the Mayor of Number 11 Downing Street?! Perhaps it’s our new tongue-in-cheek video? Perhaps it’s because our Crowd Flutter had William Hill suspend bets and then shorten the odds on Vince becoming Chancellor? Perhaps it’s everything, little, cheeky or more substantial, that we’re all getting stuck in to.
Please do register your interest in the campaign by completing the short form on our website, or joining our Facebook group, or following our tweets, or wearing our Twibbon, or all of these and more! BBC or not, we’re only as successful as the number of voices we can bring together.
Our objective is simple: To harness a groundswell of the UK electorate such that, in the event of a hung parliament, the Prime Minister has no choice but to invite Vince Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Thanks.
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In what some could call a “cheeky” PR tactic, the #invincecable campaign team has made our man FourSquare’s Mayor of Number 11 Downing Street, the residency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Now you could say FourSquare remains nascent. You could argue that there wasn’t much competition for the venue. But that’s missing the point… we just did it. It took 7 minutes and 42 seconds. And here’s screenshots to prove it, and the first all important media coverage too.
With your support, in fact only with your support, we might be able to announce a different position for Dr. Cable at 11 Downing Street come 7th May 2010.
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As the candidates for the UK’s next chancellor of the exchequer go head-to-head live on Channel 4 tonight, the grassroots InVinceCable We Trust campaign will gather more pace as Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable challenges the grasp of economics of both Alistair Darling and George Osborne.
The idea of Vince Cable as the best candidate for chancellor is gaining widespread public support. In a survey conducted last week by MSN Money, 23% of respondents felt that Vince Cable would make the best chancellor (second only to Richard Branson with 29%). Alistair Darling and George Osborne received 7% and 8% of the vote respectively.
The InVinceCable We Trust campaign is evidence of single issue campaigning made possible by the emergence of the social web. The campaign has a single focus, promoting the view that Vince Cable is the politician most qualified to be chancellor of the exchequer following the election.
The campaign is remarkable in many respects. It is a grass roots pressure group that is not affiliated with any political party; it has no endorsement from Vince Cable or the Liberal Democrats. The campaigners have neither asked nor volunteered any political affiliations to each other. Most remarkable of all, several of the core team managing the campaign have never met. Meetings are held use Skype conference facility and agendas and minutes are published on a wiki site. This is no ‘virtual organisation’ however, it is in the process of incorporating as “We The People”, which will allow the campaign to raise funds and structure its own governance.
The campaign is the brainchild of marketing communications professionals Philip Sheldrake and Mark Pinsent and the main activists came together through word of mouth – much of it on-line. They have been spreading the word on-line for several weeks.
Note to Editors: Further details about the campaign are available at the website. Details of the core team are available at http://invincecable.wikispaces.com.
For further information contact: Rob Brown +44 (0)7900 053109 rob@invincecable.org.uk @RobBrown
Mark Pinsent +44 (0)7872 589389 mark@invincecable.org.uk @MarkPinsent
Philip Sheldrake +44 (0)7715 488759 philip@invincecable.org.uk @Sheldrake and via @invincecable
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In our last post we mooted that this campaign’s #crowdflutter tactic may well have been the cause for William Hill shortening the odds on Vince Cable becoming Chancellor after the next election and then suspending further betting, and now we know that’s exactly what happened.
The tactic simply encompassed crowd action to place individual bets on Vince Cable becoming Chancellor.
Apparently bets are now back on, but the likelihood of Vince Cable becoming the next Chancellor is now considered by William Hill to be higher than for the current Chancellor Alistair Darling.
The following notice has just been posted to the William Hill press website:
GAMBLE ON CHANCELLOR CABLE
BOOKMAKERS William Hill have slashed their odds about Vince Cable delivering the next Budget from 12/1 to 7/1after a stream of internet bets for him to do so.
‘For reasons not immediately apparent to us we suddenly took a slew of internet bets for Mr Cable to be Chancellor when the next Budget is delivered. It obviously is very unlikely unless there is a Hung Parliament or Mr Cable defects to the Tories, but we have shortened his odds as he is now the best backed contender for the role, and a shorter price than Alistair Darling.’ said Hill’s spokesman Graham Sharpe.
Hills make George Osborne 2/5 favourite to present the next Budget, with Vince Cable 7/1; Alistair Darling 8/1 and Ed Balls 10/1.
The #invincecable campaign organised a so-called #crowdflutter today, with bets being placed on Vince Cable becoming the next Chancellor of the Exchequer with William Hill. And whilst we can’t be entirely sure of cause and effect, it does seem incredibly coincidental that the bookie has now suspended betting…
The future may be digital, and the present too to a large degree, but at crunch times like national elections good old fashioned paper reaches the parts of the nation digital does not.
You can get the InVinceCable We Trust flyer printed at your local printshop or via online print services such as http://www.copycentre.org, or indeed you might just want to email it to everyone you know and save the ink. Better still, do both!
We already have a Twibbon to allow you to show your support for the invincecable! we trust campaign. And there will be some more Twibbon choices coming soon to reflect our campaign objectives. But if you really want to share the love, what better way than to replace your Twitter image with the following from now until the election?
[Photo credit: David Spigolon]
Just right click the image to choose to save it to your local hard disk drive, to your desktop for example. Log in to your Twitter account at twitter.com. Click Settings top right, and then Profile and follow the instructions to upload a new image. After the election, it’s as easy to change it back to a pic of you.
And what about those campaign objectives? Well at a most enthusiastic meeting in central London last night, with participants further afield dialling in via Skype, we set out our objectives as follows:
invincecable! is an independent, grass roots campaign with the aim of making Vince Cable Chancellor of the Exchequer following the 2010 election. We are not affiliated with the Liberal Democrats, or any other political party.
If you’d like to find out how to join in, take a look at our wiki, follow @invincecable or join our facebook page (seach for invincecable). Believe us when we say you will be most welcome!
Sky News is reporting this morning that two if not three of the latest polls in the national newspapers are once again pointing to the increasing likelihood of a hung parliament after the election. For many UK voters, an elected hung parliament would be a new experience – the last was in 1974, so anyone younger than 56 wouldn't have been able to vote in that one – and despite the doom mongers who claim that a hung parliament would see the UK head towards bankruptcy, there are an increasing number of commentators who see the prospect as potential beneficial. Julia Langdon, a political writer since the early 70s and Gordon Brown's biographer, said on Sky News this morning that, "a hung parliament could be very good for democracy."
Meeting with the invincecable! we trust team last night, it's certainly something that we regard as a potentially positive outcome of the election, and not only because in the event of a hung parliament the obvious (indeed, only credible) choice for Chancellor is Vince Cable. The prospect of a hung parliament gives the UK electorate the chance to think about politics in a completely different way. The British voting public is, in effect, the recruitment panel for a number of extremely important public jobs. Previously, however, we've only ever really voted on parties, with a nod towards the one person we'd like to see take the job of Prime Minister. With a hung parliament, the voters should absolutely be able to pick and choose those individuals they see as being best equipped to handle each of the respective Cabinet roles: PM, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Defence, Health, Education and most critically of all, of course, Chancellor of the Exchequer. It's impossible to vote for a hung parliament (perhaps it should be another option on the ballot paper?) but getting one might be the best result of all.
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