The Waugh Room

Wednesday 26th January 2011 | 11:22

Snap election? Nah...

Just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, neither too does one job ad make a snap election.

Yesterday, Guido speculated that Tom Watson's bullseye on Coulson could give us all pause for thought about his source's other, wilder, claim: a general election this May.

What triggered this extra speculation was an innocent-looking vacancy at CCHQ, for an "Online Communications Manager".

Yet far from representing a "beefing up" of the Tory war machine, this ad*was more a case of trying to fill a big hole, I'm told. And that hole is going to be created by the departure of Sam Coates.

For those who don't know him, the preternaturally youthful Coates (not to be confused with his Times namesake) is David Cameron's sometime speechwriter and web guru.

Currently CCHQ's Head of Digital, he is stepping aside (at around the time of the Spring Forum) because he is off to do his patriotic duty: he's a reservist and will be going to Afghanistan.

Given Sam's importance to the PM and to the Tory campaigns machine in general, it would be rather odd if he were simply allowed to disappear in the weeks before a general election.

More importantly, talk to anyone at CCHQ or Number 10 and they'll all tell you the same thing - the Coalition is a Five Year Plan not a ruse for a cut-and-run attempt at an outright majority.

Sam is typical of the former blogger-turned-party apparatchik who can plug the old order into the blogosphere. Some left-of-centre new media people were surprised that he turned up to the Netroots event recently, but it summed up his open-minded approach to the web.

Alex Smith has already been appointed as Ed Mili's political online comms adviser. Though Alex was keen to play down suggestions that he has been spinning lines-to-take to lefty bloggers, his appointment marks a big breakthrough in the way Labour is slowly getting its act together online. For his part, Sam recently held his own session with right-of-centre think tank and campaigns chiefs on how they could better use new and social media.

From their targeted emails for fundraising to their use of Twitter for rapid rebuttal, from their exploitation of Facebook to the purchase of ad space on Google, the Tories have long been ahead in the online war.

They know that the stars are finally beginning to align for the Labour blogosphere, fuelled by a natural renegadism of Opposition and youthful grass roots activism (not to mention the odd big backer). Moreover, while the last election was not an internet election, the next one certainly could be.

Given all of that, if Sam were to suddenly announce he was staying on at CCHQ, then we'd definitely know there was a snap election on the cards.

And he isn't.

 

*The ad itself is for a more junior post than Sam's. It doesn't look like there's going to be a new Head of Digital for some time, if at all.