Tomorrow morning I'm speaking at a meeting in the Commons on a report published today by Orange and Future Technology on how technological developments might affect politics over the next twenty years. While I don't expect to see a hologram of David Cameron at PMQs there's little doubt that technological developments will have a major impact on the way we do politics and conduct the business of government. The key findings of the report include:
• A challenge to UK politicians to keep up with a new generation of ‘digital natives’ who expect MPs to get up to date with 21st century technology so they can have two-way meaningful conversations with the public and not just a one way online presence through a static website.Tom Savigar, Director of Future Laboratory comments: ‘Obama has really shown the way ahead. In the US election we saw en-masse small-scale donations and we saw decentralised campaigning, where activists themselves fed canvass returns straight into the politician’s online database. There was real integration of communications and data technology – Obama’s people had wrist devices which could take a donation and send you follow-up email or text within minutes.’
• Citizen politicians could be at the heart of the political process, both on the internet and in Parliament. In the future Prime Minister’s Questions may allow a regular slot where the public can ask questions about the issues of the day.
• Wikilaws will allow the public and experts to have their say on legislation. MPs and the public will be able to keep in touch with debate and scrutiny in real-time.
• MPs can matter more, leading online campaigns and bringing government direct to the public. Digital technologies will place MPs at the heart of their constituencies and allow instant multichannel communication between constituents and public services to solve surgery problems.
• The political long tail must be grabbed. Obama raised $280 million in small donations under $200, demonstrating the dramatic impact new technology has on the political process. British political parties will have to follow this lead and rely once again on mass participation not a few large donors.
I think this whole area is fascinating, and I've asked Phil Hendren to write it up for the next issue of Total Politics. You can download the full report HERE and comment on the Orange blog HERE.
MPs and other politicians need to be bold and put themselves at the heart of this process – in blogs, in online discussion and online campaigns. Too many people in politics view new technology and new media as a threat rather than an opportunity - hence the fact that fewer than 40 MPs have blogs, and the fact that all the political party websites are woeful in both content and ambition.
It's probably a generational thing, and will change over time as the web literate generation becomes more powerful and influential. Roll on that day!
15 comments:
Username: Harriett
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Dataloss as an assumption. Grand stalinist database schemes and not the slightest clue about any of it.
Just another way in which our politics has managed to become both mendacious and irrelevant at the same time.
What we need technology for is a way to connect with the vast swathe of 'deeply affected but not really aware of it' types.
I look at polls, Brown's lies, ther BBC, the spin from both sides, the national finances and prospects and think it's time to emigrate. Not normally an arrogant sort, I do sometimes feel anger verging on contempt for the mass of unthinking tribal fuckwits out there (of all political parties). We seem as a nation to be sleepwalking into oblivion.
Yes I know that Labour is deliberately creating a client state - but cannot those outside that client state (the ones paying for it) wake up? What terchnology is going to break this'frog in the saucepan' problem?
If it is about the future, David Cameron stands at the wrong dispatch box...
Is that José Manuel Barroso highlighted in orange
Given my flying car or jet pack has never appeared I don't hold much hope out for these.
Popular blogs struggle with the stream of rubbish tried to put on them via. comments can you imagine how much effort it would take to manage a public debate via. the internet for say abortion?
the Internet allows people like me to talk crap with limited accountability- hardly the recipe for a functional debate for national issues.
I think it's also important to note that technology is being cynically used by politicians and the established media to falsely present channels that they claim are a democratising force, but are in reality of detriment to that.
One of the recent examples of this was the infamous YouTube questions that were introduced during the primary debates in the US. "Hillary, do you prefer diamonds or pearls?". Would any of the big networks ever let people vote on questions they'd like the moderator to ask, or vote for citizen representatives to quiz them? It would be unthinkable.
I can well imagine seeing Andrew Marr playing Gordon Brown a YouTube clip of some Labour drone asking, "Gordon, do you prefer haggis or black pudding?".
Or how about electronic voting machines that are in effect black boxes, easily hackable, and leave behind no audit trail?
We don't need politicians using technology to improve our democracy - it is WE who need to use technology to improve our democracy.
But more importantly we first need to reform media ownership laws and do something to promote a healthy and free press in this country. I'm afraid bloggers are no match for the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
You only briefly mention the impact that blogs and their comments have on influencing political debate. Often it is not the original blog post but the balance of the reactions that get noticed and adopted by the mainstream media.
All political parties are very poor at using technology to interact with the public. More could be done to use hand held technology when canvassing/ campaigning, but I leave it up to the parties to figure that out for themselves.
I doubt whether any of these potential means of involving the public will be as phenomenally successful as the "cones hotline".
If you've ever participated in a e-petition on the No.10 site, you will probably have found the patronising e-mail you recieve makes you feel less, rather than more "listened to".
Then there was WebCameron. Where you could go and post your question and "Dave" would answer the most asked. Until some of the questions started to become too inconvenient to answer.
That party politics and the business of government is, for the public, primarily a spectator sport is due wholly to the behaviour and attitude of politicians, not some perceived communications barrier which can be overcome with faster uplinks and shinier graphics.
I think a real and visible feedback mechanism to MPs will reduce their ability to ignore the electorate, as is clearly the case now.
The reason the people take direct action, such as the Stansted invasion, is because the political class ignored their concerns.
The reason for them being ignored, is a whole other matter, but expect the big lobbyists to lobby against this.
wotever.
I have three suggestions for improvements to the main debating chambers of Parliament, though they are not that high tech.
(i) Provide enough seats for every member to sit down comfortably (and be able to enter and exit with reasonable convenience).
(ii) Provide a modest desk, for papers, and perhaps with electric power and LAN connection, for portable computers.
(iii) Provide a fast voting mechanism (probably electronic) that can be used without members leaving their seats, so that less time is spent on voting, and more time on discussing the issues pertinent to how to vote.
Best regards
I agree with Iain and am for a more concensual approach to government: It would both make the electorate 'buy in' to caring more about policy agenda and this in turn may well improve accountability in society causing all sorts of knock-on advantages. Such as making living as a community more pleasent and so potentially reduce pressure on public services.
However, to bombard MP's with opinions, complaints and often mis-truths often at the uncaring snatch at the return key on your key board would, I fear, at this early stage just increase the need for bigger budgets and public office enxpense right across the board. My MP didn't use email (or a computer for that matter) for this reason.
Britain does not have the fatal; 'wait and see' attitude, but is measured in adaptation; e.g. Not introducing the Euro yet.
I believe that B. Obama is finding a great solution to both lobbying and funding problems but he may be creating a strong reckless monster that gives a mojority on a whim.
And then their is the real question of course; do you fine people actually want to empower the nation? - shouldn't a leader be the leader of leaders not this months top of the pops (back at christmas!) or king of the jungle?
I would take technology further into the area of referenda, citizen initiative laws & the sort of detailed assessment of opinion that computers now make possible. Currently polling is much more a matter of trying to "prove" a particular issue popular (by the phrasing of the question or of other questions aked first, or even less worthy tricks).
The reason we first had FPTP elections was because they are the simplest (the reason we still have them is because to parties elected by them get elected only by them) but they are a very blunt instrument for representing the people. PR would bring us into the 20thC, which would be no more than a start.
As a supporter of small government I would not like referenda to impose new laws over the heads of politicians but would like them to be able to cut laws, taxes, government employees etc. And EU & immigration referenda of course. Consider this the sort of separation of powers that a bicameral chamber once provided.
The first three of those recommendations are stupid.
(1) There is no way for politicians to have meaningful two-way conversation with the public. They can have a two-way conversation with a random citizen, but it is unlikely to be meaningful, just random and ill-informed.
(2) Oh god please no. The only thing less informative than PMQs is Question Time. Please don't make the former more like the latter. We should be strengthening the accountability of the PM to Parliament not weakening it.
(3) Wiki. Laws. I suspect this has lost something in the translation to a bullet point because there is no way they can mean what this says. Sure, digitize the lawmaking process. Make it indexable and searchable by folks and web sites. Lets have an easy way to view amendments make by MPs and add comments etc. But lets not have a Wiki editable by the public.
Must go read the actual report to see if it's as crazy as these bullet points suggest.
http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/iabblog/archive/2008/12/12/analogue-politicians-in-a-digital-age.aspx
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