Countdown to the Election 2010

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This year, as part of the pre-election activities, the three main parties have both focused on and used IT to their advantage. We round-up who's said what, when, why and, more importantly what it means to your business.

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So the Digital Election is nearing the finish line but not without its highs and lows.

It seems the Labour party couldn't quite get the hang of a little website called Twitter, with one candidate fired for his rude tweeting and another leaking postal vote results over the microblogging site.

The Conservative Party also had their failings when it came to using technology, coming out with the slowest of all the party's websites, which took a painstaking average of 24.78 seconds to load.

However, despite the mistakes the role of social networking and the internet has been very prevalent in this election, for example when the three party leaders agreed to take part in online debates using Facebook and YouTube.

Then there were the TV debates which gave the Liberal Democrats an equal platform with the two leading parties, as well as a chance for their leader Nick Clegg to hammer home his opposition to ID cards.

But this election has also brought forward new parties with new dreams. Back in March, the Pirate Party released its election manifesto focused on copyright and patent law, privacy law, and freedom of speech. Unfortunately when it came to vote day, the party only managed 1,340 votes. Not bad for a first try though!

The party could have captured the moment as in the lead up to the election the Digital Economy Bill, now passed as an act, has had a lot of focus from the IT-influenced voter.

The bill got swept through parliament in the wash-up period after the election was called, a move criticised by many and which even led Mr Clegg to promise its repeal if his party were to get into power.

But it did mean the parties spoke more of their plans for the future of technology in the UK, from Labour's pledge of 2Mbps connections for every home by 2012 to the Tory promise of 100Mbps for most by 2017.

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