Ed Dowding

One of the joys of social media (blogs, facebook, twitter et al.) is that one gets to be involved with things one cares about.

For example – and as a brief digression before I get going – after a good chat today a friend is updating the algal fuel page on Wikipedia. I strongly recommend a read – fascinating stuff.

But to the point.

This morning MySociety broke with their non-partisan position to highlight ‘that Ministers are about to conceal MPs’ expenses, even though the public has just paid £1m to get them all ready for publication’.

The Facebook group for this cause was at 27 this morning, and is pushing 200 some 9 hours later. And this on a weekend.

I happen to follow @tom_watson on Twitter, so thought I’d have a look at his voting record and his website and drop him a line.

I was disappointed in what I found, hence the somewhat negative tweet:

ed_dowding: @tom_watson I guess we can’t rely on you (http://is.gd/gdVg) to reveal expenses? http://is.gd/gdGE — thanks @mysociety for championing this

And then ever more disappointed when I looked further:

ed_dowding: Never realised @tom_watson is pro id cards, pro Iraq war, anti transparent parliament, and pro nuke. http://is.gd/9E79 — wow.

And to Mr.Watson’s credit he replied a this evening:

tom_watson: @ed_dowding I’m doing more than you know but by the tone of your two posts, probably never enough for you Ed.

Fun as it might be to point out that in my opinion he’s actually doing way too much and should quit ASAP, or point out that an ad-hominen rebuttal is no rebuttal at all, I went to his website to see if I was missing something when I looked at it this morning, and that perhaps there was more information about the causes he was championing there.

Posts on Tom Watson’s website from 30th December to 17th January:

• 8 are about what the opposition doing
• 2 are ‘jokes’
• 1 is interesting but not political (USAF / blog posts)
• 0 are about what Tom Watson is doing politically

Now I hope Mr.Watson is an excellent chap, working hard to appropriately promote or decry the causes he thinks would best serve his constituents, but as @labete saved me from pointing out, despite establishing the Power of Information task force, and having a specialist interest is the digital world and social media, I’m afraid, Mr.Watson, that

we don’t know what you are doing. Just how you are *voting*

Update 1: Monday 6.26am — I object to my MP concealing their expenses Facebook group up to 651 members

Update 2: Tom Watson’s blog post on ID cards (from June 2005…) is

Yes or No to ID cards? No essays please. A yes or no and your justification in no more than 30 words will suffice.

This attracted 106 comments which breakdown thus:

One of the comments was by Mr.Watson himself, giving us an update:

I voted yes of course! A longer and less flippant explanation will follow when I’ve got time between surgeries and junior watson. Apologies for starting a debate and then not getting stuck into it. Life is a little busier than usual. T

Now obviously I wouldn’t expect him to vote in accordance with an ad hoc internet poll, but I would expect him to answer his critics and constituents, and to keep his promises. I’ve checked the blog for a follow up. There was certainly no explanation in the subsequent 2 months, and searching for ‘cards‘, ‘id cards‘, and ‘privacy‘ returns no other follow ups. (If I’ve missed something here, I apologise – please link to the post in the comments and I will update this post accordingly.)

Update 3: Compare all this to the response from my local MP, Sandra Gidley (Lib Dem), which took place during this weekend. You’ll notice that her answers clearly state both her principles and her reservations.

Dear Sandra,

Can I count on you to vote against concealing of MPs expenses?

Yours sincerely, Ed Dowding

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I have always been in favour of the principle of greater clarity and transparency and will respond fully by post. That said, it is difficult to provide a categoric answer without seeing the full detail of the proposal.

Yours sincerely, Sandra Gidley MP

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Dear Sandra

I understand, and thank you for your swift reply.

I’d be intrigued to know what could be in such a proposal which would compel you to vote against it – can you share any concerns?

Thanks, Ed

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To be honest I think it is unlikely that there would be anything but I have learnt that the devil is in the detail and I now respond to all requests in similar fashion. Will explain more fully by post.

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Thanks, Sandra — please vote the right way. We have little faith in politicians as it is, and hot on the heels of wars, bailouts, Heathrow, and more bailouts, Guy Fawkes is looking like quite a dude!

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I’m not a betting woman but I would say the probability is 99% – my instinct is to support greatest transparency. I have been speaking to my Scottish colleagues who tell me that Scotland adopted a principle of full transparency and the whole thing got ridiculous because (this is just one example) people started to query the purchase of toilet rolls on an office budget. All i can say is that I think it is unreasonable for my staff to bring their own. The problem as I see it is that the public think all politicians are on the take and whilst I do not believe this to be the case I am convinced that once the public see the reality and the reasons for purchases are explained then they will rapidly get bored.

MPs have not made a very good argument for why they claim what they do but the reality is that there are very few jobs which require the upkeep of two residences – and there is extra expense involved in this.