Public Whip (formerly ran by dedicated activists, now owned/left to rot by airheads)

As promised:

(I once moderated, along with treborc, the forums made available for discussion about Public Whip, which was primarily about putting House of Commons data on votes and the like into a form palatable to the public. When the founders, Francis Irving and Julian Todd, finding their hands full with other projects, handed control of it to Katy Bairstow and Richard Chiswell, the latter pair were effusive about how they would ‘improve’ PW, and immediately closed down the forum, citing security concerns over ‘leaky’ emails. Since then, they appear to have sat on their backsides, again, citing the fact that no-one appears to wish to pay them to work on the site improvements. They won’t even approve my comments now, so here it is instead. In a rush, so I’ll add tags tomorrow)

Joe K on August 23, 2012 at 10:29 am said:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

My reply (‘You must be a democrat’) is no longer appearing as ‘awaiting moderation’, so you must have read it and deleted it. So here’s the ‘more to follow’, since it’s apparently required, and will end up on my own blog, and linked to via Twitter, if you don’t permit it here…

First off, while I hate to break up your pity party, I should point out that I haven’t said anything to offend you yet. I asked what *would* be more offensive, future tense. you might think it’s a fine line, but it very definitely *is* a line, and you’re wasting your energy on pre-ire.

‘Perhaps you’ve had some experience in this field?’ What are you, twelve? I’m quite prepared to accept that it was just naivite or incompetence, or a combination thereof that led you to take on something you were in no position to handle. There’s no shame (well, not much) in admitting it. Actually, I guess your reputation could take a bit of a knock, the way news spreads on the internet. Well, you made your bed…

Carry on being ‘fed’ up with my comments. You take the rough with the smooth when you take on a public site. I made it clear that the forum was what mattered in my view, and that code was Greek to me, but you still insist on conflating the two issues, like an Assange-bashing Guardian journo. I could create a (non-leaky) Public Whip forum in minutes. It’s debatable if anyone would post on it, but if they did, I suspect it would be to speculate on when they might see any sign of this great gold-plating you speak of?

If you can’t get the money, and you’re not prepared to work for free, as I presume Julian and Francis did, just admit you bit off more than you could chew, but *don’t* try to shift the blame on to somebody else. Clean up your own mess.

Or try suing me..?

 

Anne Marie Morris

As a topical follow-up to my previous entry, take Anne Marie Morris (please!).

It didn’t have to be like this. Theoretically, that speaker, or deputy speaker, is supposed to maintain order, and that applies not just to the farmyard noises in the background, but to the behaviour of whoever is currently permitted to speak. OK, maybe ‘Calm down, dear’ wasn’t an option, but a robust brace of ‘Order!’ might have represented a less violent alternative to the usual remedy for hysteria.

Not so much ‘birth of a battleaxe’ as ‘meet the mentalist’, and [Bercow? He was notable by his silence in the clip I heard] allowed it to happen. I wonder why?

 

Shout Along With The Commons People

Listening to the deputy speaker in Parliament coming close to losing his rag the other day, due to the barracking of MPs over Libor, I couldn’t help thinking again that one of the most urgently needed reforms in the chamber is to allow television cameras to wander around the room freely, so that we could finally see who the main culprits are. Attention-seekers as many of them may well be, audio-visual evidence of their behaviour would soon be used by their constituents, if not the speaker’s office, to rein them in.

There is another effective alternative, though. A collar, akin to the ones used with dogs, which could deliver a mild(ish) electric charge whenever noise levels in the chamber exceeded a certain level (I wouldn’t be surprised, after all, if the levels are harmful to the ear).

If that seems a little draconian, there are more humane variations on the same theme. Some of them would probably relish a ten minute blanket time-out, say, for excessive noise, but if one takes the total amount of time an MP spends in the chamber while a rumpus is going on, and uses it as a psephological ‘handicap’ during election time, they could become very meek indeed. True, the ones with large majorities might feel they have less to fear, but their handicaps could be modified to address that.

It would be worth publicising this initiative just to wipe the smug looks off their faces for a moment. 

Come on, speaker’s staff, make it happen…