Lords of the Blog
Now this is very cool – the House of Lords has a cross-party blog – Lords of the Blog. There are a dozen peers blogging there from all three parties.
Would be great to have such a blog in New Zealand. You could actually have MPs debating issues in front of us, with us able to contribute. I’ll add it to my list of long-term projects. The challenge of course is to get Government MPs (regardless of party) to participate.
Hat Tip: Red Alert
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Tags: Blogosphere, Parliament
October 19th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’ve been thinking something like this would be good too, a public extension of the political process. Two way connection. It could also be used for polling as a form of a mini referendum.
It would need to be party independant, posters need to be identifiable/verifiable and a degree of moderation possibly necessary. I think it would need to be a bit more formal than the existing blogs, and would complement them. I informally sounded out something like this to a few MPs but the response was a polite “good luck but not really interested”.
DPF, your experience would be invaluable but because of your affiliations you would need to be counterbalanced or just assist setting it up. Electoral commission?
October 19th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
does that mean the electoral commission is left wing or are impartial?
October 19th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I reckon it would be great if the Nats could get their back benchers to get something started. Working with your own team might feel safer for them but would allow others to join the debates that they moderate. There is a bit of moderating work though especially if one wants to keep the blog ok for students to use.
October 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
No Trevor. You find many nefarious reasons to shut down any semblance of departure from the party line on your red blert. Many of us have tried to engage with you at your sad excuse for a forum of debate only to be shut down ,deleted or banned so head on back to safety before we get some genuine debate under your thin skin.
October 19th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Pete – if you wanted an independent administrator, it would almost certainly be the Parliamentary Service (Lords of the Blog is managed by the non-partisan Hansard Society).
But onto more important matters … how ’bout the beard on Lord Hylton?
October 19th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
The parties can do their own thing. Some of them don’t seem so keen on an independent approach, they think policy is still a one party focus. It’s not about safe, it’s about listening to the people., and the people feeling like they are listened to. It will be good for both. This is an opportunity to get a whole parliament connection with the public. Parliamentary Service sounds good.
That’s some half a beard.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Yeah, great idea DPF, you could really get it cracking along, sponsors might be keen, hell you might even start to make some money from it……..
Then the Mowree’s will decide that they own the airwaves and you have to pay them to settle the grievance they never even knew they had until you started making money out of it.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I thought MPs had a live blog already, with live radio and telecom broadcast and a swarm of journos reporting them.
Let them peruse reports, talk to constituents and experts, read widely, and study and ponder…. Good thinking and beneficial actions are what we need from MPs, not more chatter, regardless of whether it’s electronic.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:40 am
Rodney and Roger would be up for it…….and slap the rest of them like beeetches! Have a go Trev if you think you are hard enough!
October 20th, 2009 at 8:08 am
@ gravedodger Don’t think we have ever moderated Cauctus Kate or whaleoil, DPF once, Tim Ellis a bit but not much. And never for saying something we disagreed with. In fact almost as a point of principle we have been harder on people trolling or going off thread from the left.
Rules are not too hard – stay on topic, keep language seemly don’t troll.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Are you allowed to punch people in the face like you do in parliament trevor?
October 20th, 2009 at 8:11 am
@ James – I’m certainly hard enough but I still think that Nact MPs probably need a bit of practice first.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Trevor Mallard (141) Vote: 0 0 Says:
October 20th, 2009 at 8:08 am
= soft ( possible demerits )..