Jon Bright (London, OK): I was at a Google / Demos event on Wednesday night held in Google's rather swanky Buckingham Palace Road offices (note to self: corporate events have the best nibbles). Everyone coming in was made to sign a rather intimidating secrecy agreement which I'm hoping none of the following will be in breech of.
A strong panel included Nick Robinson, Matt d'Ancona, Catherine Fieschi and Stephan Shakespeare, and they were all there to discuss whether the huge advances in communications technology, exemplified by mobile phones and the internet, will change British politics significantly. I've been to a fair few panel discussions where the free wine couldn't really mask the dullness of what was being said, so it was refreshing to attend something so well informed.
The point that a lot of the panel made was that there is a difference between changing the way we do things and changing what we do - and in terms of politics the internet seems much more adept at the first than the second. So blogs and other forms of internet news sites can break stories earlier and provide a heightened level of independent scrutiny - they are great BS detectors, as d'Ancona put it. The lower cost of polling has meant more polls more of the time - sophisticated stuff which allowed Brown to pull out of a potential election bungle at the last minute. And everyone knows about the ability of organisations such as Avaaz to quickly organise enormous global petitions in response to specific crises through appropriate use of social networking sites.
But all of this is about making connection between people quicker, easier and cheaper. And it all still needs to work through existing institutional channels, which are decidedly set in their ways. There are only two ways to change a political system - from the inside and from the outside. The age of the internet does not make the first a foregone conclusion by any means, and despite repeated use of the words "information revolution" I do not think the second is imminent either.
What's this all about? I think when people are wondering if change is happening it can be because they are hoping a change will happen. One strong theme discussed was addressing disengagement from politics, especially among young people. Everyone knows that the majority of people will switch off when they hear the word politics (try talking to them about the constitution). And the internet, or other methods of faster engagement, are often touted as potential solutions. Fine. But I would have to agree with Matt d'Anconca again, who was very lucid all night - people aren't apathetic, they are disenfranchised. Reversing this will require a revolution in government structure, not in technological capacities.
