[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 08:57:58AM +0100, Gordon Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 19 May 2009, Henry Bremridge wrote:
>
> > - WHY do the MPs have to visit Westminster? Why not have some decent
> > fibre-optics cables and set up good video-conferencing facilities.
> > Voting can be electronic. At least a side effect would be improving
> > communications infrastructure for others.
>
> You know what - I do the whole "work from home" and promote it, even have
> (and sell) video phones and VoIP based phone system to let you take your
> phone home, and have a colleague who does the big video conferencing
> thing, but what I've found is that there really isn't a substitute for
> actually getting together - however you don't need to do it every day, so
> maybe there's a compromise to be had.
>
:)
There is no substitute to getting together and having an informal chat.
Yes. (That is why the Paignton meetings are so useful..) But if there
was eg a quarterly conference of all MPs with briefings by Civil
Servants on the economy, issues etc? Similarly I would love to get some
MPs / Councillors to come and sit down to a demonstration of FLOSS
As you say, I am sure there are compromises
In passing I saw a recent article on the amount of time spent on debates
on matters of importance. The tone of the article was that basically the
country is run by the executive and MPs are kept as much as possible in
the dark. I could not find the reference now but did find the following
blog.
http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2009/04/20/no-time-no-time-in-part-time-parliament/
and The Economist had the following to say
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13649255
"If Britain wants to attract a better class of MP, a more effective
measure than larger salaries would be institutional reform. A
stronger Parliament would mean a better, bigger job—and less time to
spend fiddling expenses."
> And as far as electonic voting goes - the biggest problem there is that
> the public and those who know have lost confidence it in - mostly due to
> the companies who made the kit (Diebold
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold ) using sloppy programming
> techniques, closed-source platforms which can't even count and alledged
> bribery...)
>
> I think it'll be a long time before another electronic voting platform
> goes mainstream )-:
>
I do not think that electronic voting from home or by mobile for our
leaders should be allowed when the vote is secret. In this case the
voting is public..
On a side issue, India had a recent general election. Electronic voting
but only at voting booths. The organisation is incredible..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_general_election,_2009
--
Henry
Photocopies or faxes of my signature are not binding.
This email has been signed with an electronic signature in accordance with
subsection 7(3) of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.
Digital Key Signature: GPG RSA 0xFB447AA1
Tue May 19 13:24:46 BST 2009
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
-- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html