Today in parliament...

02
11
09

Today in parliament...

tagged with:

parliament

...or rather yesteryear in "Mother of Parliaments". Apparently MP for North East Bedfordshire, Alistair Burt, has had his, digits rapped, for reading from a constituent's letter on his Blackberry during a speech in the House of Commons.

Now, after a decade of the sort of rumours of MPs being ordered around by whips and so on to be "on message" via electronic devices, I suppose they may be paranoid that someone is getting their entire speech, live, from some backroom researcher or coach (and it mightn't not be a bad thing I suppose for MPs actually to be informed when they open their gobs!). But really - this sort of luddism is ill-becoming the so called "Mother of Parliaments".

With us all being ordered to save paper, not to "print this email unless absolutely necessary" and so on, if someone sends you an email version of a letter you want to read out, why print it if you can take it in on your PDA with you? If you have made notes for your speech on your iThoughts mind-mapping tool on your iPhone, why not use them in a debate or speech without the inconvenient and tree destroying interim phase of printing the damned thing out? If it helps them make better speeches because of the new ways you can rehearse using such tools, why not use them?

Trackback URL for this post:

http://jockcoats.me/trackback/3467

Comments

Submitted by Mark Reckons (not verified) on November 3, 2009 - 00:37.

If I had an important speech to make I don't think I would solely rely on an electronic device to read it from. Too much chance of gremlins getting involved...

Mark Reckons's last blog post... I give Melanie Phillips a good fisking

Submitted by The Poet Laura-eate (not verified) on November 3, 2009 - 08:11.

Fair enough if it is a letter from a constituent and he makes it clear it is relevant to read out extracts to illustrate parts of his speech, but frankly I would worry about a politician who read out his ENTIRE speeches from a PDR and seemed incapable of sponteneity and thinking for himself/on his feet. Nor would I want him reading his e-mails if he was supposed to be listening to and participating in a debate as my elected representative. There is a time and a place. The rest of the time these devices ought to be switched firmly off!

There are already studies to prove that constant electronic interruption can undermine brain function, effectiveness and sanity rather than enhance it. But I am not a luddite, just feel (myself included) that we all need to strike a better balance between cyber life and real life.

Submitted by Jock on November 3, 2009 - 08:23.

The point is they are not allowed to read speeches so that's not an issue anyway. But they are allowed to carry papers both with letters and speech notes. I use mine for speech notes too. No reason why not.

I'd personally prefer for them to be in debates with the possibility of being called out than not attending except for the vote at the end.

Anyway, time the place was bulldozed or sold as a curio to the Japanese.