Spalpeen

A few tidbits on Gordon Brown and open government:

-On his site at the horrible titled GordonBrownforBritain.com, Gordon’s got a rather useless poll that asks readers “What should this site be talking about this week?” with a series of topics including the NHS, International Development, Education, and the Economy. What isn’t clear is that this message has been there for nearly ten days, with no content on the site actually discussing the NHS, which is the top voted topic. Guido Fawkes phoned up and asked about this topic, with not much luck. He also puts it all into greater perspective, here. How’s Gordon going to maintain a more transparent Government if he can’t keep a simple website on topic? Gordon Brown’s online campaign is a failure, because he knows he will be elected. That’s not democracy.

-Gordon had a nice little anecdote at the Deputy Leadership Debate in Sheffield, where he mentioned the Reagan joke (Sir, this man is an anti-communist … I don’t care what kind of communist he is etc.) and referred to press conferences in America. He mentioned that in public debates, people are only allowed to ask pre-approved questions in groups. The irony was that the layout for the debate and his talk was identical: several series of approved, grouped, three-at-a-time questions from the website, followed by questions from the audience in groups of six, with no follow up question. That means a very diluted discussion at best, and the ability for Gordon to ignore questions (which he did). To put this kind of ridiculous limits on the discussion is insane, and to mention it as open democracy in action is absurd.

-Final point: watch the first episode of Yes, Minister. Open Government doesn’t work without a radical change in behaviour.