The Conservatives unveiled Webcameron at the start of their party conference.

The video blog is designed to project David Cameron to a younger audience that has grown up with the rise of blogging and social media sites such as YouTube. You could call it Cameron Direct: by-passing journalists and their pesky questions.

The launch hit the headlines, enjoying a positive reaction even in papers traditionally hostile to the Tories, such as The Guardian.   

There’s been a lot of talk about how the Tories are stealing a march on Labour: many of the best known political blogs are on the right, such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. But it’s hardly surprising: opposition lends itself to polemic, unlike government, and blogging thrives on controversy and forthright comment. Similarly, the big advances in party political communications have often been by parties in opposition: Gordon Reece’s makeover of Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s; Peter Mandelson’s and later Alastair Campbell’s work for Labour from the late Eighties onwards.

I applaud the idea behind Webcameron: using the latest communications tools is a sensible move, especially when they’re all about a two-way conversation. Cameron, like Blair 12 years ago, has a (perhaps short-lived) advantage of appearing fresh and different, prompting many cynical voters to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But I can’t see Webcameron having huge appeal beyond the politically aware and active. The latest video of the boy David talking about how the conference went was an insomniac’s dream. Worthy but dull. Content is king, and by the evidence so far Webcameron will have to raise its game.

PR bloggers such as Simon Collister and Stuart Bruce have contrasting views of Webcameron and its likely impact. Simon shares my view that politicians have to engage in a more honest debate on key issues and policies. Stuart appears to believe that politicians are as much spun against as spinning and often engage in more genuine conversations than the mainstream press would have us believe. 

By coincidence, I found two examples this weekend on the web that support both these points of view.  The Guardian website carries a video by Dan Chung showing the media pack pursuing the hapless Boris Johnston after his comments about Jamie Oliver and school dinners.  It made me feel sorry for Johnston, whose comment "Can I ask you in all sincerity if you think you’ve over-egged this?"  struck me as a very fair question. The media pack in full cry is not a pretty sight.

The other example was Iain Dale’s post admitting that he may have been too quick to dismiss Isabel Oakeshott’s story in the Sunday Times suggesting the Tories were gung-ho about privatising the NHS. The article quoted Tory policy chief Oliver Letwin as saying there were no limits to privatisation plans. Dale initially followed Tory head office’s party line but after talking to Oakeshott concluded that this may be a case where both sides genuinely believed they were right. Dale’s candour is commendable: voters like politicians who are prepared to listen to other views and admit they don’t have all the answers. It amazes me that so few grasp this simple fact.

Dale is the man behind 18 Doughty Street, the web-based ‘television’ channel that launches this week. Iain’s approach on his blog suggests that the new venture may be more than a predictable rightwing outlet for the hang-em and flog-em brigade that many fear. If it not, it will sink without trace.