Scottish Labour Has Joined Snapchat In A Bid To Reconnect With Younger Voters

    The fightback against the SNP is on and it's taking place in 10-second disposable messages. The revolution will be Snapchatted.

    Scottish Labour has launched a Snapchat account in a further sign that the app is taking over UK politics.

    The popular app, which allows users to send self-destructing photo messages over a secure service, briefly took the political centre-stage last week when prime minister David Cameron called for the security services to have access to secure messaging services.

    Liberal Democrat justice minister Simon Hughes responded by taking to the service and pledging that the Lib Dems would do everything in their power to ensure unlimited access to Snapchat.

    Labour's Ed Miliband soon followed suit, telling an audience of students in Sheffield that he has no plans to ban Snapchat, which is commonly associated with the ability to send self-destructing pictures of intimate parts.

    But now Scottish Labour has gone a step further, becoming possibly the first political party in the world to set up an official Snapchat account. The party, which is on the service under the "scottishlabour" username, will use Snapchat to solicit ideas from younger voters as it fights back against the dominant SNP.

    "Last weekend we launched our #MyFutureScotland campaign, [and] it is being led by Melanie Ward who is our PPC for Glenrothes and Central Fife," said Scottish Labour staffer Garreth Lodge, who set up the account. "We're obviously doing the traditional methods of people emailing in their ideas etc, but also including the option to Snapchat, tweet, send a vine, [or] Facebook us."

    He added: "There's no doubt many politicians in history I'm sure would have loved to have been able to vanish their photos after three seconds!"

    BuzzFeed News sent a Snapchat to the account last week. Several days later, we received a reply featuring Scottish Labour's deputy leader Kezia Dugdale MSP giving a thumbs up.

    But will Scottish Labour reply to every Snapchat they're sent?

    "We'll try," Lodge said.