This UK General Election is, I have read, the one where the internet will make the running. It won’t, for three reasons. First, the web is fundamentally unsuited to political campaigning. Second, despite the arrival of blogs and other devices, the parties have little more idea how to use the medium than they did four or even eight years ago. Third, there is so much online chicanery – mostly mischievous rather than malicious – that it has a looming credibility problem.

Having said that, I have found a couple of ways forward that might just make it useful by the time the next election comes round – one from the US, the other from Henley-on-Thames.