The Wardman Wire

MySociety, the non-profit organisation lead by Tom Steinberg, has redesigned their TheyWorkforYou.com website with data about UK Parliamentary politics.

The site provides easily accessible records of the UK Parliamentary process, and now contains data going back to 1935.

This gem is from Churchill commenting in 1939 on the result of the Munich Agreement made by Prime Minister Chamberlain in 1938. It is strangely relevant to our current overseas entanglements:

I should also like to praise the Government and the Secretary of State for the declaration that they have made that it is our duty to provide 19 Divisions from this country, apart from our Reserves in India and the Middle East, for general service overseas should the occasion require it. That is a momentous declaration. I have rarely heard anything so important stated in a Service Debate. Anyone can see the explanation. It is the first instalment of the bill for Munich. People say that we are not involved in the affairs of these remote countries, but afterwards it is found that they alter the whole life of the people of this country, their daily habits, their financial position, their trade, everything. This is the first instalment. I wish I could think it was the last instalment of this bill which has come in, but I am afraid that other drafts will be presented month after month and year after year through the greater part of our lifetime. It is a great pity that this statement was not made a year or two years ago.

Political anoraks are going to rub their hands in anticipation, and probably lose the entire weekend to anoractivities (sorry).

The site has also been redesigned, and Tom Steinberg the Director of MySociety has requested feedback about the new version:

Please give some constructive criticism on how it could be even better (please note, focussing on design here, we already have a load of feature priorities to deliver). The extension of coverage back to 1935 has involved the import of a large amount of data.

Each speech has a unique web address, and can be referenced individually in online articles. Annotation may also be left on the site by the public.

MySociety also provides a range of other websites designed to strengthen the democratic process. In April a version of TheyWorkForYou.com was launched to cover the Irish Dail at KildareStreet.com. Kildare Street is co-ordinated by John Handelaar, who reported that 9,000 people visited the site during the first month of its existence.

The site redesign was done by Richard Pope, and the import of the mass of data was overseen by Matthew Somerville.

I also have a piece on the Press Gazette site.

Recently I have been fairly harsh on the Tories when they make sweeping unfounded statements that do as much damage to politics itself as it does to the individuals the, sometimes quite vicious, personal attacks are aimed at.

I think the lazy and liberal use of the liar word recently by a number of the parliamentary Conservative party and also the wider party and their supporters are stepping over the line in almost all cases. It makes them look mean, it is a personal attack rather than an intelligently argued point and it ultimately reflects badly on all politicians and politics. In short it is crude and lazy.

Throwing about the L word is not something we want to hear every time a member disagrees with another one or interprets an issue differently. The result will be a devaluing and debasing of all political argument.

Ben Bradshaw’s comments today are in serious danger of falling into this same category. His basic message is that all Tories hate gays and therefore anyone who is gay or not homophobic should not vote for them. It is cheap point scoring and a devastatingly lazy argument. Like the liar accusations, ultimately it just drags down politics.

In the same way the liar accusations sparked off retaliations about who is the biggest liar – Mandelson dragging Osborne down by accusing him of telling “untruths” – so we have a debate now about who is the bigger hater of gays, the Tory party or the Labour backbenchers.

Do we really want to hear politicians having such negative arguments? “You lie more than we do” or “You are more homophobic than we are”. I strongly suspect not. It is childish, playground stuff and actually quite offensive too. Most significantly, it is a meaningless, pointless debate as it does not get the heart of any issue whatsoever.

Parts of Tory party, including former leaderships, do have a very unpleasant history when it comes to homophobia, but Bradshaw’s attack is so unsophisticated and sweeping it is merely an easy cheap shot providing nothing for the electorate other than a confused, desperate sound bite.

I suspect Bradshaw’s comments have little do with his concerns about gay hating Tories and are more about him hating the Tories and using a well worn, out of date cheap shot to bring them down. Easy cheap shots do not score any points with me and I suspect they do not score many points with the electorate either.

PMQs this week saw the return of Groundhog Day – unfortunately, like most sequels, it was not as good as the original.

The storyline and plot were uninspired, merely a repeat of the first instalment with a slight twist on the original. We went from capital spending last time to total spending in this inferior plot and it became clear very quickly that this was not going to be enough to get the punters back in front of the big screen and the critics writing up rave reviews.

There were massive holes in the plot too – I mean who ever heard of a “zero per cent rise”?!  Well, that is exactly the sort of nonsense this week’s sequel was trying to pass off on us. Lead actor, Gordon Brown, responding to David Cameron who questioned the government’s plans to increase spending, came out with a wholly ridiculous piece of dialogue that refuted these accusations:

“No, total spending will continue to rise, and it will be a zero per cent rise in 2013-14. In 2011-12 and 2012-13, it will continue to rise.”

I nearly choked on my popcorn at that.  If we had to pay to watch this, I’d have demanded my money back. We then got caught in the familiar Groundhog Day loop, just like last week’s original performance, whereby Cameron asked the PM to admit he plans spending cuts, to which the PM refutes the claims. No originality at all.

Even the jokes weren’t any good this time round. David Cameron, usually such a comedic performer, was well below par on this outing; his timing was out, though you have to say he was not helped by a poor scriptwriter. What inspired the line of calling Mr Brown Mr 13 and half per cent, I will never know. What does it even mean?!

As the whole thing started to fall apart, Mr Cameron anticipated perfectly the response from the baying critics:

“I have to say that this is one of the most feeble performances that I have ever seen from the Prime Minister.”

This could have been the strapline for the whole event.  It said it all really.

One name that did come out of this with his reputation intact – if not enhanced – was the up and coming John Bercow. His role this week was reduced to that of a couple of cameo appearances, but it was quality not quantity that will win him the plaudits. Perhaps that is something the big names could remember, quality of questions not a vast quantity of the same question.

I can see why it was felt that a sequel based on government spending plans would be a good move for Cameron – but it just came too soon and felt too the same as the original; I think next week he will need to be more creative either in the script or the plot – or preferably both. That said, despite Cameron’s unimaginative and below par performance, the majority of rotten tomatoes will be firmly aimed at the PM in today’s reviews.