Blair the Technophobe

Richard Allan is a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, and has a (deserved) reputation as one of the few UK politicians who a) cares about or b) knows anything about technology. He’s also a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad when it comes to chasing answers to questions about how government is wasting spending our taxes on technology.

Sadly, he’s standing down at the next general election, which means he won’t be around to ask more awkward questions about the disasters that will have occurred by then. But in the meantime he’s able to put Prime Ministers on the spot, and blog about it afterwards.

As an aside, one of the more impressive uses of webfeeds that I’ve come across is directly relevant here - theyworkforyou.com provides an enormous amount of information about the workings of the UK political systems, including webfeeds for the activities of every single one of the 658 MPs in the House of Commons. And equally impressive, or depressing depending on your point of view, is that the entire site has been built by volunteer efforts.

UPDATE: Richard Allan has posted a transcript of the exchange in question - see Tony Blair squirm…

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