Lord Knight... tapping away
It is now not unsual to see peers in the chamber checking their smartphones. Some now also make use of iPads. Baroness Butler-Sloss used hers instead of paper when delivering a speech recently. During the Second Reading debate yesterday of the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, Lord Knight of Weymouth was sat on the Opposition Front Bench busily tapping away on his iPad, presumably making notes ready for his speech winding-up for the Opposition. Indeed, it may explain a particular passage in his speech: ‘I do not know if noble Lords tweet, but I do, and when I have asked Twitter and Facebook about this [need for the Bill], the overwhelming response is “about time”.’
This approach to new technology rather contrasts with the comments made by his colleague, Lord Myners, in the preceding speech, when he commented: ‘Unlike many other Members of the House, I have not been lobbied on this Bill. This may well be because I never open my parliamentary e-mail box and therefore do not read the e-mails that other noble Lords have been receiving. Perhaps I am in error in doing that.’
The extent to which members now use e-mail is such that Lord Myners’ comments may merit the equivalent of a Bateman cartoon…
Lord Norton errs, as well as blatantly breaking every one of the three principles of Good-Communication & Honest-Argumentation*
and does so on top of utterly misleading The Public:
Lord Myners’s key-input was that this un-necessarily costly and ill-defined, vapidly**-purposed new and ‘innovative’ Groceries Code Adjudicators Bill, has neither a sufficient factual-need base nor likely-achievable outcomes, spelled-out.
Lord Norton should also have properly heard, and faithully, not twistingly, included in this his ‘report-to-the-public'(which is in effect what this e-site Lords-of-the-Blog is) the input of Viscount Eccles who, along with similar input, doubt, and warning from Lord Haskel and Lord Howe, advised us of the experience of a strong body of other parliamentarians and economic-experts cognisantly endeavouring to deal with the many difficult complications that some Bills present but, as in the case of this groceries-regulating bill, fail even to acknowledge and detail much less to solve.
In trying to ridicule Lord Myners,
for being honest enough to tell us that he (‘)didn’t have time to read all of the emails piled up in his mailbox today [because this Bill required his undivided attention – ((and all respect and thanks, from me at least, for that, whereby Lord Myners et al showed up the weaknesses and the duplicity of this Bill))]
Lord Norton has only tried to pull the wool over our eyes, “ad vercundiam”, from the “Big Royal Blue Book of Received Wisdoms”***
* 1) Be clear and complete in your own statements
2) Be charitable by recognising the good-intention in another’s submission.
3) Be self-corrigible especially when shown to be misinformed, or otherwise ‘werong’ or omissive.
** vapidly = ’emptily’, insufficiently-argued
***the notional –
[but all-too-downwards-dictatorially-dominant,
and alien to The-Public’s-Needs-&-Affordable-Hows,
in the hands of The Westminster Village’s Establishmentarian-Obsolescent-Authoritarians (of which Body LN certainly appears to be an active front member)] –
equivalent of the ‘Biblically-True’ Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book,
which even on pain of imprisonment, impoverishment and death was never to be questioned, criticised nor even improved-upon.
milesjsd: The comment was about the use of technology, not the merits of the Bill.
From Twitter: @LesleyCowley (of Nominet) says – “@lordsoftheblog Would be great if more Lords both used and understood ‘new’ technology more, but it is not ‘new’ IMHO”
‘new’ is a relative term. Depends on how far back your memory goes to pre-Internet days.
OK, Lord Norton, your topic “Embracing the new technology, or not …?”
under which you now scold me
really I think for calling attention to your own trespasses outside of it:
“about the technology, not about the merits of the Bill
[nor about the between-the-lines ‘standing’ of Lord Knight on (your ?) ‘rush-the-Bill-through’ side of party-politicking
versus the ‘standing’ of Lord Myners (et al) on the ‘get this Bill true in its basis, and workable in its expected outcomes’]”;
—-
in the face of which un-detachable complications,
“new technology [in British Democracy]”
is indeed in need of Public Scrutiny
and for this my initial submission at 1030AM should be taken as of key relevance and help:
for instance the lessons that we (but especially “you” in the Seated Peerage)should have learned from Other Nations’ various progress and regress
notably the Chinese
“Seek truth first from Fact”
which in this blog’s case has not been done, neither for the “democratic-technology” presenting-topic
nor for the veiled “governance honesty-&-effectivisation” sub-topics made visible therein.
——
Technology, in the right hands, is the benefactor of us all. Lies are not so easily told when there are so many other points of view at the fingertips of every man.
However, like all wonderful breakthroughs, it is a double edged sword. Those with good intentions are not alone in the use of it. And the desires of so many humans, for that which is not necessarily in their best interests, is such a big money maker, that same technological advancement could be our destroyer.
It needs clever men of integrity to navigate these waters. I don’t envy them their job.
There is more needing to be sighted:
Since I
like Lord Myners’s “perhaps in error” (he did not open his email boxful of opportunist-lobbyings)
(which was not at all an error*)
I omitted to ‘lead’ to the thin “technology” thread
of this essentially major and serious Democratic-Communications Matter
kindly let me throw a random ‘democratic’ net of factors and complications therewithal:
1) the main substantial element,
upon which vital procedural elements will also depend)
is surely
“environmental-security of any ‘multiple-venue’
and intercommunicability-security of all channels”.
2) another ‘main’ element must surely be
“current real-time participation-ability”
two-way (or preferably multi-way) particibility by The People; certainly we should all be democratically-striving for maximum participation by as wide and representational a Public as possible.
———
* Lord Myners (et al) rightly exercises governance principles of
“Maintain the Aim”
“Concentrate and Economise your Forces”
” Communicate Effectively”;
by
A. Focusing upon representing all The People’s Needs (“Win7” i.e. for all peoples’ needs
rather than for the Lobbyists and The Westminster Villagers’ insider-opportunisms (which are only “win2” i.e. for the lobbyist and the parliamentary-member-in-cahoots-therewith, and none other).
B. Concentrating and economising by not wasting time on doubling-up, perusing emails and other approaches already being made to a number of other parliamentary-members (usually by already-rich individuals and ‘cartels’
unfairly-equipped to jump the “democratic” queue.
—–
And I support Maude’s correct indication of the need to secure such new technology, against ‘the wrong hands’ and ‘profiteering’.
Lord Norton’s flexibility element in responding that
“new” is “a ‘relative’ term” & “depends on how far back your memory goes”
[when his attention is called to a twitter from elsewhere advising (or opining ?) that
(‘) the topic’s “new technology” is not actually “new”]
might give hope still,
and even within this blog,
for clarity of the “embracing” of
(whatever it now will take)
as a sustainworthy means of ensuring
both survival & thrival of (human) Life,
longest-possible-term constituted as either
(1) an Oligarchy (including a ‘Benign-Dictatorship’)
(2) a newly-enabled People-Upwards Democracy (not including the currently constituted and covertly-prevailing “Westminster Democracy” which is in truth and practice only a form of Oligarchy belonging under (1) above.
—————————
Let us propose two questions, to be kept on the Table:
What is the essential and necessary real long-term “spirit”, for life-thrival-survival, that we need to be finding, identifying in clear terms, and cooperaively implementing in Practice ?
and
How may we
(All)
cooperatively engage in this “true-spirited Means-To-Our-End”,
including by whatever-means such as “new governancially intercommunicational technology” ?
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