In 2005, it seems to me that getting access to party manifestos during an election should be pretty straightforward. Just download them in an accessible and easy to use format that’s cross platform.
Adobe’s PDF format would seem to be the choice to make. And most party’s have used it, with one very notable, and very surprising exception:
The Conservative Manifesto
The Labour Manifesto
The Green Party Manifesto
Plaid Cymru’s Manifesto page (it’s not there yet, but previous ones are in PDF)
SNP (no sign of their manifesto yet)
Veritas’ PDF library (no sign of a manifesto yet, but lots of PDF documents all written by Robert Kilroy-Silk!)
The UK Independence Party (no sign of a 2005 manifesto yet. Previous ones available as PDFs)
So who’s missing from this list of the great and the really not-so-good-at-all?
Yes the Lib Dems. Their manifesto is available in an Online DM version. It’s easily screen readable, but downloading is a different matter. It’s an executable that as far as I’m aware is not Java, but a bespoke PC solution.
If you’re a Mac user, or fancy reading a manifesto on your PDA or Smartphone, or Linux machine, you’re going to have to read what they describe as the “plain text” version. But it’s actually a rich text file which is no bad format. It’s just a shame it’s not correctly described as such.
Personally, if it were my manifesto, I’d want to make it as available to all as possible. The other parties have done so. The Lib Dems haven’t.