In the past two months, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Secretary of State Ed Miliband have had to deal with sudden heated bouts of ridicule in the press thanks to interactive interviews they gave on a UK parenting website. Why? Mumsnet looks like a perfectly innocent source of advice for young mums (and a few dads). SHN set out to investigate how a humble web group has transformed into a politically powerful platform for debate.

"I might have to dash off, I've got too kids in the bath upstairs," says Carrie Longton as we begin the telephone interview. Later, children singing at the tops of their voices are heard in the background. "Quiet, darling!" Carrie urges calmly as we talk about the evolution of Longton's website, Mumsnet, which she co-founded with sports journalist Justine Roberts nine years ago.

I didn't need any further proof that Carrie knew exactly what being a parent was all about. After all, Mumsnet started without any political aspirations whatsoever - it was simply an online platform for parenting product reviews and maternal interaction.

"We've always set out to help parents with advice, because parents need to be real experts on so many issues," explains Carrie. "We didn't set out to be a campaigning organisation. That's evolved really from a grass-roots level, whether it's because of a campaign lobbying issue or the result of something that's happened to one of our users."

She cites the case of a Mumsnet parent whose child sadly died of cot-death. Mumsnet responded by organising a march for a relevant charity, and over the past few years, action as well as interaction has increasingly become regularly associated with Mumsnet's activities.

A gradual development, Mumsnet's foray into the world of political PR has resulted in suddenly booming attention from national (and international) media as well as heightened interest from spin doctors themselves. What has really galvanised the interrogative side of the Mumsnet question-time sessions, however, is the looming general election. Carrie indicates that Mumsnet will be taking the democratic climate in its stride:

"There's going to be a heap of debate and a lot more interaction with politicians as the time grows near. Lots of people are starting to approach us because it's seen as the done thing to do now." She mentions that a Q&A with Nick Clegg is on the cards.

"We're putting people in touch with their potential leaders. Mumsnet will be seen as a way of getting policy out there, it's a more public way of addressing voters. If I were a politician I would want to do this, I'd want to be listening to what people have to say. I think it'll be seen as the test-bed of opinion for a certain section of the voting public."

So the web-savvy mums of Britain have merely been flexing their muscles up till now. The best is yet to come. Carrie speaks with unflinching conviction about the role she clearly believes the site is playing. She describes the Mumsnet situation as helpfully wedged between two worlds - parents with an irrefutable interest in Britain's future and the politicians constantly seeking new and more open ways of interacting with them.

I ask what sort of political affiliations Mumsnetters tend to show, and Carrie responds by saying that, on the basis of a recent survey, the one million users of the site appear to represent pretty much every political viewpoint you could access in the country. "We've got people whose husbands are in the armed forces or in big business and so issues like Trident and bankers' bonuses are very relevant to them," she says. "Mums care about cars and they care about mortgages - the big things in life, not just the day-to-day."

A million potential votes, then, is no mean target audience. And when the national press is so interested in the questions Mumsnetters put to their suited political quests, the influence of an appearance on the site could in part help to sway an election vote. Stranger things have happened.

Carrie tells me she thinks the media reaction to 'biscuit-gate' was, in her words, "bizarre" and that she was completely taken aback by how the press presented the story. "The press assumed he didn't know how to spin the biscuits, but it wasn't that. He was simply trying to focus on a lot of very difficult issues at once."

The idea of an Amazonian gang of plotting parents is not representative of Mumsnet users, Carrie says. They're not out to 'get' members of government, their questions and motives are genuine. "Miliband was a bit of a sweetie-pie," explains Carrie, "he got through lots of questions and felt he'd done quite a good job and then got clobbered the next day in the papers about nappies. What was wrong in the coverage was the idea that the Mumsnetters were after him somehow. It's not all judgemental. That's what's slightly galling. These people have come on Mumsnet and tried their best and the press have focused on some other angle every time."

Carrie admits that shifting from domestic day-to-day issues to the most controversial points of party policy can be difficult for VIP guests to handle, but after all, that's the world voters inhabit, and Carrie sticks firmly to the belief that the Mumsnet Q&A sessions are representative of the full spectrum of issues that interest the site's users.

She adds that politicians and speakers they put questions to now are prepared for the so-called 'biscuit question' and try to second-guess the Mumsnet users and the ever-watchful press - a heightened state of suspicion which, she says, "makes it more difficult."

But Mumsnet's ambitions ought to help it over-reach attitudes like that. "The women's vote is key wherever you are," says Carrie. "People want to do it [use the site to interact with politicians] - and it works. It's a new way of getting in touch with people." By now, the children's voices in the background have begun to dominate, so I say thanks for the interview and leave Carrie to get on with the weekly Sunday evening ritual. A mother's work, indeed, is never done.