The inside track since 2003

After the passing of the Digital Economy Act last week and before the political parties each launch a manifesto next week, I wanted to ask your advice on my own Internet pledges.

I want to stand on a platform that is avowedly supportive of the generation that seek to use the Internet to make the world a better place. To do this I have to be able to draw authority from an electoral mandate from electors in West Bromwich East. So I’d like to produce a leaflet that sets out what I stand for. It will be delivered to as many homes in West Bromwich as my campaign team can manage. Friends will also help me get it out onto digital platforms for wider discussion as soon as the pledges are finalised. I only have a few days to do this.

It’s clear to me that the British political class as a whole (like others round the world) struggles with getting these principles right. I’ve had a stab here but I’d grateful for all honest attempts at improving them. It’s a healthy thing for Internet experts, like everyone else, to get into the habit of asking for what they want. You never know, you might end up getting it. That’s how politics works sometimes.

To give you the best chance of getting your ideas into me, I would appreciate comments to the pledges below both on this blog but also over on the uservoice site I have set up to help structure feedback a little.

As I say, we need to act fast so while I’ll leave comments open indefinitely, I am looking to create the initial list of pledges this week so ideas by the end Wednesday 14th April would be really appreciated.

My (draft) Digital Pledges

1. I will support and campaign for more transparency in the public and private sector.
2. I will oppose measures that unjustly deny people’s access to the Internet.
3. Whilst noting the acknowledged limitations, I believe people have the right to free speech on the Internet.
4. I will support all measures that allow people access to their personal data held by others. I further support restoration of control over how personal data is gathered, managed and shared to the individual.
5. I will use my role as an MP to support international free expression movements.
6. The Internet shall be built and operated openly and without discrimination.
7. I will support all measures to bring non-personal public data into the public domain.
8. I will support all proposals that lead to greater numbers joining the digital world and oppose measures that reduce it.
9. I believe that copyright and software patent laws should be reformed to reflect the needs of citizens in the Internet age.

P: Your wife got mired in a political correctness storm as well about telling a joke.

NW:  Yes at a rugby club. Well if you can’t tell what I describe as amusing in some people’s minds, in others not, risqué jokes at a rugby club, where can you tell such jokes.

P:  Were you thinking what’s it come to when a member of parliament can’t tell a joke about Pakistanis at a rugby club?

NW:  Well I mean I bet they tell jokes about honkies and others … you know … about us. I don’t object to jokes at my expense and I don’t think people that come here should worry about jokes at their expense. It was said with no malice. I wasn’t there by the way but it was said with no malice and the rugby club itself was thoroughly embarrassed by the whole sad saga.

Reviews the papers. Falls for spoof. Argues for signs in Mandarin. Listen to Colin.

NC: Now, later in the programme if I may before you go, we’re hearing a claim that the fox hunting ban is being flouted more than another law. Are you going to repeal the ban?

DC: Well we’re going to have a free vote in the House of Commons.

NC: But what are your instincts?

DC: My personal view is the ban has been a, is a mistake. I always opposed the ban…

NC: You’re a hunter though aren’t you you’ve been hunting?

DC: I have in the past. I always thought that the ban was a mistake because I think it is very difficult to enforce. I think it’s somewhere where the criminal law shouldn’t go and I think that the mess we have now pretty much proves that. But it will be a free vote. There are, MPs take different views, there are Conservatives in my party who support the hunting ban, it will be a free vote in the House of Commons and if the ban if kept it’s kept and if it’s repealed it’s repealed.

NC: And will you go hunting again if it comes back?

DC: I personally have got other things I’m hoping to do.

NC: No but if you had any spare… what is it, you’ve been hunting, for those who don’t understand it because it’s a tremendously divisive issue, explain the joys of hunting.

DC: Well I was born, I’m a country boy, I was brought up in the countryside and I love walking in the countryside and riding in the countryside and every aspect of growing up in the countryside. I was taught to fish by a wonderful grandfather. I was taught to shoot rabbits by my dad. You know and I’ve always been a country boy and I went hunting as well.

NC: And was it for pest control or was it just for the fun of chasing the fox?

DC: Well people like, if you like riding and people like riding across the countryside and it’s an opportunity, and lots of people do it together, it’s an opportunity to see parts of the countryside you never see before. That’s a lot of why people go and it’s part of something that happened, something that happened in the countryside for a very many years.

NC: People against it would say you can do that without killing an animal.

DC: Yes of course that’s true and I do, I like riding. But the point is that the fox population has to be controlled – every farmer will tell you that and every farmer will also tell you that the methods now being used in more case gassing & shooting and trapping and snaring, are as the Burns inquiry itself found, very very cruel and the case on animal welfare grounds for the hunting ban I’ve always thought was very very weak. But as I say it’s a free vote issue. This is something I would never whip any party members to have. It has you’re right been a divisive issue, I think the right thing to do now that the ban’s been in place to have a free vote and to see whether people want to keep it or not.

Interesting approach from Labour HQ in light of the total catastrophe in the political billboards market. To save their ad agency the humiliation of getting their billboards hacked, they’re going to first base by asking people to design Labour’s next political advert. Like the crowdsourcing methodology. Here’s the two design briefs:

1. Labour’s pledge to protect frontline investment in key services

Objective
Highlight Labour’s pledge to protect frontline investment in key services
What single thought should people take away from your poster?
Labour will protect frontline investment in policing, schools, childcare and the NHS, with a new guarantee of cancer test results within a week
Why should they believe us?
Labour has always valued the public services on which mainstream families rely. In 1997, when the British people entrusted us with the job of protecting our public services the task facing us was clear – to rebuild and restore them after decades of neglect. Standards have risen and now we need to give guarantees of high standards to everyone – not just the lucky few – at the same time as delivering value for taxpayers’ money and services which are tailored to everyone’s personal needs.

2. Highlight David Cameron’s lack of substance
Objective
Let people know about David Cameron’s lack of substance. He’s boasted about being a good salesman – he’s not the conviction politician we need for these tougher times.
What single thought should people take away from your poster?
Running the country is a serious matter and David Cameron doesn’t have the substance to take on that job
Why should they believe us?
All David Cameron’s focus has been on changing image – airbrushing posters, sledding at the North poll or being photographed cycling. Because of this he seems to think that it’s easy to get away with the same old Tory policies – telling people he’s for fairness when promising a tax giveaway for the wealthiest and cutting Child Trust Funds and Child Tax Credits when families need them the most. Instead of taking on the old fashioned, hardline Tories in his Party, he has appeased them by giving in on the issues they are obsessed about like foxhunting, grammar schools and Europe.

Here’s the new pledge card:

scene from west bromwich east

I’ve been testing the new iPhone application, hipstamatic. It takes beautiful, sixties style images.

Wow. I’ve just seen what Conservative education spokesman Michael Gove said about Lord Ashcroft:

KW:  Joining me now is the shadow schools secretary Michael Gove. Michael Gove I want to read you something: “The party’s unhealthy reliance on Ashcroft puts its entire electoral strategy at risk. Move over Jim Davidson, there’s an even more high-profile comedian backing the Tories. Let’s give a big welcome to the king of the one-liners, self-made millionaire, self-style [inaudible] Lord, I was just taking the Michael Ashcroft”. Michael Gove you wrote those words in 2000. Do you stand by them now? 

MG: I wrote those words when I was a columnist for the Times and I was paid to entertain… 

KW:  Were you not paid to tell the truth? 

MG:  Well I was paid to entertain and the column was designed to amuse and to provoke. The critical thing is that Lord Ashcroft has I think taken notice of what his critics have said, rather more substantial critics than me…

That this House notes with deep concern recent newspaper speculation that the BBC is considering closing its 6 Music and Asian Network radio stations; believes that both radio stations offer outlets for independent and non-mainstream music; further notes that both 6 Music and Asian Network reach out to audiences not otherwise well served by the BBC; congratulates 6 Music and Asian Network for acting as a source of talent for the BBC and other media; recognises that the BBC has a duty to represent and give a platform to minority interests that need a mainstream platform to develop and grow; and calls on the Government to encourage the BBC to continue its support for 6 Music and Asian Network for many years to come.

I am making this statement in advance of the release by the Cabinet Office of limited information about the award of my peerage and of the undertakings I gave at the time.

While I value my privacy, I do not want my affairs to distract from the general election campaign. I have therefore decided to release a copy of the letter which I wrote to William Hague, and to expand on what actually happened.

As the letter shows, the undertakings I gave were confirmed in a memorandum to William Hague dated 23rd March 2000. These were to “take up permanent residence in the UK again” by the end of that year. The other commitment in the memorandum was to resign as Belize’s permanent representative to the UN, which I did a week later.

In subsequent dialogue with the Government, it was officially confirmed that the interpretation in the first undertaking of the words “permanent residence” was to be that of “a long term resident” of the UK. I agreed to this and finally took up my seat in the House of Lords in October 2000. Throughout the last ten years, I have been declaring all my UK income to HM Revenue.

My precise tax status therefore is that of a “non-dom”. Two of Labour’s biggest donors – Lord Paul (recently made a privy councillor by the Prime Minister) and Sir Ronald Cohen, both long-term residents of the UK, are also “non-doms”.

As for the future, while the non-dom status will continue for many people in business or public life, David Cameron has said that anyone sitting in the legislature – Lords or Commons – must be treated as resident and domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. I agree with this change and expect to be sitting in the House of Lords for many years to come.

[I started the blog post earlier in the week but didn't get time to finish it. The announcement of the "Vote for Change" message has spurred me on to retrieve it from the bin]

James Forsyth’s fascinating piece about the Tory ‘dead shark’ dilemma confirms to me that what we are witnessing is not, as some commentators would have us believe, a natural tightening in the polls before an election.

It’s more significant. It’s the consequence of short-termism, compromise and a failure to embed change in the Conservative Party.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson rediscovered social democracy for Labour. They struggled and won many battles in order to achieve this.

David Cameron has failed to redefine his party. He compromised with his right wing instead of taking them on. The nearer we are to the election, the more it shows.

If you look at the Times today, you can see where Conservative attempts to market the party as new and fresh comes unstuck when you look at the data. One in 16 new Tory candidates are related to past or present Tory MPs! Half of them were recruited from within the party machine, the lobbying industry, The City or the Bar.

Not for the first time in recent months, the media are behind the British Public in their thinking. The Sun front page accusing Gordon Brown of being the “Prime Monster” received almost universal ridicule in the thousands of conversations taking place in the social media space. Sure, the Tories score short-term hits with well-spun news pieces but they’re not telling the whole story. And voters sense this.

The truth is, people know that David Cameron failed to face down the Conservative right. A majority of the electorate may not be enamoured by the European Union but they know that the Tory position is so illogical that they look ridiculous in Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

And more importantly, they know that the Tories were all over the place on the economy. If you need reminding of their inconsistent position, here’s the Sun promoting George Osborne condemning the nationalisation of Bradford and Bingley.

They’ve not changed themselves enough and near an election, people are seeing this. I can’t find the story from this week that reflected the poll showing that a third of people say that they don’t know what the Tories stand for but it’s a dramatic statistic.

So  I think to open up an election with the message “Vote for Change” is extraordinarily naive. A third of voters don’t know what change they’ll be voting for. Worse, many people still think they offer the wrong kind of change. It’s a complacent message. It builds on the Tories’ hubristic belief that the election was gifted them last year. It lacks hope and optimism. It’s devoid of a future offer. They’ll regret it.

Robert Popper. Genius.

He spoofs Andrew Pierce and then gets written up in a number of national newspapers, including the Sun, which I notice does not appear to support Labour these days.