So who is the world’s first Liberal podcaster?
It’s possible to make a case for Gladstone with his 1888 recording on a wax cylinder for Thomas Edison (and you can understand from this extract of the Gladstone recording on the Liberal Democrat History Group website just how resonant and impressive his voice must have been). However this wasn’t particularly political in intent.
I think there’s a better case for Asquith and Lloyd-George who produced records for HMV in 1909 backing the controversial ‘People’s Budget’ – and are amongst the first politicians in the world to use mechanical reproduction of their voice in order to spread their message more widely – a closer analogy to the practice of podcasting.
It appears that Asquith was recorded on July 20, 1909 (listen to an extract of Asquith’s speech here) and Lloyd-George on July 23, 1909 (listen to an extract of Lloyd George’s speech here) – so Asquith has it by three days.
Reassuring to know that the current review of how we can use the latest technology to strengthen our campaigning versus the other parties is following in a proud Liberal tradition. 🙂
