NEXT week’s General Election will decide how and by whom Britain is run for the next five years.

The campaign has been a vibrant one, with levels of interest in politics appearing to have grown since the excitement of last year’s Scottish Referendum.

Part of that vibrancy has been the way this election campaign has played out in the new digital world.

The election has been embraced, rather than ignored, by the social media generation and smart parties and candidates have latched on to the importance of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in getting their message across.

The days of election campaigns being about nothing more than knocking on doors, delivering leaflets and displaying posters are gone. There is now a digital layer of campaigning that is just as important as traditional electioneering.

This newspaper has attempted to use all the tools – both print and digital – at our disposal in our coverage of the campaign so far.

So alongside our traditional print reporting of the campaign, we have also produced live online blogs from hustings meetings around Gwent.

And yesterday we staged our first live online General Election hustings meeting, with Newport West candidates responding to questions from Argus readers via Twitter.

Politics remains important but – like everything else – it has to move with the times.