Beyond the Code
or, how to win friends, influence people and make a living by writing open source software. It's not just about the code.
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Wednesday 27 May 2009, 1:48 PM
A call for an internet age speaker
If you think that the recent scandal in Westminster over MPs' expenses has little to do with technology, barring the odd flat screen TV, you'd probably be right. However, some open source software and the internet may well play a part in ensuring we never get into a similar situation again.
MySociety.org, a project of a charity called UK Citizens Online Democracy, has been producing web sites that allow you to interact with government services for some time. One of the sites MySociety has produced, TheyWorkForYou.com allows you to see into the workings of Westminster, and see what your MP has been speaking about in the house, the written questions they've been asking, how much they've claimed in expenses (but not details of individual items) and various other bits of information. This is all good stuff that's useful when your MP (or, more likely, their party activists) comes knocking on your door at General Election time.
What it doesn't do is allow you to see what's in bills that are being drafted before they make it into law. This information is available, but not in any form that's easily parseable in software -- certainly not in the same way as other bits of parliamentary information. This has so far prevented MySociety from making this information available on the internet. Unsurprisingly the group launched a campaign called Free Our Bills, aimed at changing this situation, but with limited success so far.
The resignation of the Speaker is seen as an opportunity to put this right, and MySociety is asking people to write to their MP on the subject. This reform could go even further. We're now used to buying and selling, keeping in touch with our friends, banking, and doing many other routine parts of our lives online. That could easily extend to government -- not just using public services, but taking part in the country's decision-making process.
If this sounds like a good idea to you, you could do far worse than get involved. The software to make an online democracy possible needs writing and testing — and of course it should be open source. It needs people to encourage its use. The internet has made many other aspects of life easier and more efficient. Why shouldn't it do the same for politics?
MySociety.org, a project of a charity called UK Citizens Online Democracy, has been producing web sites that allow you to interact with government services for some time. One of the sites MySociety has produced, TheyWorkForYou.com allows you to see into the workings of Westminster, and see what your MP has been speaking about in the house, the written questions they've been asking, how much they've claimed in expenses (but not details of individual items) and various other bits of information. This is all good stuff that's useful when your MP (or, more likely, their party activists) comes knocking on your door at General Election time.
What it doesn't do is allow you to see what's in bills that are being drafted before they make it into law. This information is available, but not in any form that's easily parseable in software -- certainly not in the same way as other bits of parliamentary information. This has so far prevented MySociety from making this information available on the internet. Unsurprisingly the group launched a campaign called Free Our Bills, aimed at changing this situation, but with limited success so far.
The resignation of the Speaker is seen as an opportunity to put this right, and MySociety is asking people to write to their MP on the subject. This reform could go even further. We're now used to buying and selling, keeping in touch with our friends, banking, and doing many other routine parts of our lives online. That could easily extend to government -- not just using public services, but taking part in the country's decision-making process.
If this sounds like a good idea to you, you could do far worse than get involved. The software to make an online democracy possible needs writing and testing — and of course it should be open source. It needs people to encourage its use. The internet has made many other aspects of life easier and more efficient. Why shouldn't it do the same for politics?
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