I think we just have to keep up with the technology and adapt to changing demands. I don’t think we can replace Parliament or other legislative bodies with the new media but it can inform and influence decisions and that’s important.

I have no problem with issue based politics but I would urge people to join or at least engage with the political parties. None of us agree totally with our own party programme – we do have to compromise but without political parties democracy as we know it could not function.

I am, hwoever, concerned generally by the idea that young people are single issue based. I have a number of issues i’m concerned about and don’t feel that the parties represent them very well. However, i am unwilling to write to my MP, or a nearby MP with my Party perspective about them!!!

Thats why I think the value of this blog, and other alternative methods of communication are so essential.

A potential challenge could be seen from your above comment about engaging with young people is enable more issue based communication. Perhaps through better publicity and communication of All Party Groups and equivilents

It is interesting that you remark on the increasingly ‘issue-oriented’ mind of the younger members of society. I think this is an accurate portrayal of many people’s attitudes today. What effect do you (and other noble Lords) think this will have on Parliament in the future?

A concern is that people are switching off from voting in elections as they fail to be drawn in to ‘catch-all’ political parties, and so prefer to focus on being passionate for one or two particular issues. I myself feel like one of these, but still take pride in voting. Others may not be the same. Do you think the legitimacy or relevance of Parliament could come under threat from this new attitude to politics?

In particular I mean comments by other experts or by other regular bloggers. For example, one Lord adding their opinion to the comments of another’s article.

This, I would suggest, helps create a more lively debate as it keeps the debate in one place (rather than comments being split across several blog posts).

On a seperate point, I access this blog via Google Reader, an RSS aggregator, and it tells me that there are just 158 subscribers via Google Reader to this blog.

I subscribe to many varying feeds, and if I don’t read an article it tends to be because the headline hasn’t grabbed my attention – in fact I missed the original article by Lord Norton on this subject because it was ambiguously titled “Contribute to the Debate…”.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that to maximise participation on this site each blog post needs to be clamouring for attention in order to be heard above the noise of the overall blogosphere.

Once attention has been grabbed then having lively debates that involve many experts putting their oars in should help retain that attention.