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By Ron Coates, 9 February 2001 12:15

NEWS The US Presidential elections seemed to show that internet ads don't work - and could even put some voters off, causing them to switch candidates. But Labour's decision doesn't mean it won't be going online at all, or that the net won't have a major part to play next time round. Speaking on silicon.com's Behind the Headlines, Richard Sykes, chairman of consultancy Morgan Chambers, said: "It may not be used for advertising, but it will make itself useful in a thousand other ways. It will be a tool, they'll be organising the troops with it, playing dirty tricks. Special interest groups will use it to get their point across." Ian Lynch, analyst at Butler Group, wondered what all the fuss is about. "It's not as if ads on billboards can't put people off." Lynch added that New Labour has failed to get to grips with new media. Sally Watson, silicon.com's e-technology editor, who has extensive government contacts, partly agreed. She said: "They love looking 'new media', the websites and everything, but they don't really understand it." People who do understand it, or at least use it, find that they do more work. A Mori survey found that people using laptops and the net work, on average, a day more a week than their colleagues who are based in the office. Lynch complained - not entirely with tongue in cheek - about the "tug of war" between BT, which he claimed is delaying home working by being slow at rolling out high speed data services, and the railways, who are trying to encourage people to stay at home. Sykes thought that the trend towards teleworking is, in general, a good thing, because it allows people the flexibility to do their work at times of their own choosing. He said: "They can work at their own pace and at their own time. People who work from the desktop have to stay there until it's done." But Lynch warned that spending more time doing something does not mean you do it any better. And silicon.com's Watson, an occasional teleworker herself, underlined the need for proper exercise and plenty of recreation.