ParliamentaryBlogs


There's a piece in the Guardian today, Falling through the net, which looks at how useful maintaining a mpblog could be to our beloved Members of Parliament. Within the last couple of weeks I asked an MP's constituency assistant why the MP didn't have one; "He doesn't have time" was the answer. Their purpose is to communicate or disseminate information and invite feedback or a conversation. Interesting that a public servant doesn't have time for that. In fairness though, I think the 'doesn't have time' answer might have been just an excuse for ignorance of how little need be involved.

I'm a regular reader and occasional participant of Tom Watson MP, Clive Soley MP, Richard Allan MP and I usually check to see whether Austin Mitchell MP is updated. Clive has a paper, Why MP's should blog which explains his motivation, and Tim Ireland who runs Bloggerheads has a Why Politicians need Weblogs page which explains the merits and lists some further examples (no more MP's as yet, but a sprinkling of Councillors).

The MPBlog is a opportunity for elected representatives to get into conversations with people who normally would remain below their radar. MP's not yet doing it are, in my rash opinion, either ignorant or lazy. Ignorance of some still-somewhat-obscure techy thing is forgivable however, but there is little excuse for prolonged ignorance, especially when paper versions of The Guardian and others give the medium a fair bit of attention.

Posted by Paul in Communication Politics at July 29, 2004 11:44 AM | 0 Comments