Ever wondered what the first versions of the main political parties’ websites looked like? No? Fine. Well I’ve gone and found them anyway.
I used the Wayback Machine to go and look at the earliest versions for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, the Green Party, and UKIP. The Machine doesn’t always make perfect copies of the sites, hence why some images are missing, but you’ll get the idea.
Nowadays the internet runs on HTML 5, but back in 1996 it was all about HTML 2. Now, let’s apply Rocky logic for a second: Rocky II is a superior film to Rocky V, therefore it follows that HTML 2 internet is far better than HTML 5 internet. WRONG.
Here is the Labour Party’s website, circa 1996. Note the faux cartridge paper background and the link that just says ‘Women’:
Back in those days, it wasn’t so much about canvassing support as it was about the merch. History of the Labour Party on cassette, anyone?
FACT TIME: The Liberal Democrats weren’t always led by Nick Clegg. Here’s their 1996 website. Isn’t it just adorable how they insist on hyphenating ‘e-mail’ and ‘on-line’?
Also, remember when you had to work to get at a site’s content? I had to figure out that they wanted me to click on that image of a door.
Once I got in, it was very disappointing. MUCH LIKE WHEN THEY GOT IN! HO HO! ZING!
The Conservatives were a bit slow to get on the internet. Wayback doesn’t have anything before the year 2000.
They made up for it by having a WAP version (see the bottom right corner). Remember WAP? As I recall, it was the first attempt to bring the internet to your mobile phone. Though there isn’t a single recorded instance of WAP internet working. Usually you would spend ten minutes trying to connect before running out of credit. And if Ben from Year 7 maths is still going around saying he can get his WAP phone to play Flash animations from Joecartoon.com, you tell him he’s a fucking liar.
I wasn’t able to see what the Conservatives’ site would look like on an early 2000s mobile phone, so I’ve made a mock up:
Then there’s the Green Party. Their site is a bit boring because, well, they’re the Green Party:
But the piece de resistance has to be UKIP’s first effort. A graphic-rich multimedia event that would stir feelings of Euroskepticism in even the most staunch continentalists:
Surprisingly, they recommend that the site is viewed on monitors with 256 colours. I’m sure lots of UKIP supporters would prefer their monitors to just have one colour.
But look at that spinning logo. JUST LOOK AT IT:
Facebook don’t allow animated GIFs. Just as well, really. UKIP’s competition wouldn’t stand a chance if Farage was posting animations like that.
Piss taking aside, there’s something disarmingly honest about these sites. Half of them look like they were done in Microsoft Word, but they remind us of when the internet was viewed primarily as an information resource. Rather than today, where Labour and the Conservatives respectively pay monthly fees of £10,000 and £100,000 to get on to your news feed, these sites were happy to just be there in case you wanted to know more. In a time where the personalisation of the internet means that algorithms and content sponsorship are increasingly deciding what we do and don’t see, it’s nice to be reminded of sites from a simpler time. Even if some of them felt the need to have separate sections for women.
