Get in touch

Just a quick note to say that I’ve had some problems with my email – but they are sorted now. So if you’ve emailed me recently then apologies for not responding / reacting as appropriate. I will get on it shortly.

If you do want to get in touch you can email me independent.mps@googlemail.com or follow me on Twitter @independent_mps

Speak soon 😉

invincecable

For those of you up to date on Twitter, check out the hashtag #invincecable. If you’re not on Twitter then click here.

A group has been set up with the motto: “In times like these, it’s the economy stupid. In times like these, vote for Vince Cable for Chancellor.”

The argument is that if we have a hung-parliament after the next election then the Lib Dems would be proportionately more powerful (as potential power brokers) and therefore we should lobby for Vince Cable to be the Chancellor.

I like the idea.

Would any new independents that are elected after the next election support a motion to make Vince Cable the Chancellor?

Will social media decide the election?

Social media is the buzz phrase du jour. As a phrase it covers a wide variety of online tools that are used for sharing and commenting on information and entering into online ‘conversations’ and ‘communities’. The best known of these include Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Posterous and of course blogging tools like WordPress (that this blog is written on).

However, what is particularly interesting with regards to the election is that it wasn’t a mainstream activity when we last voted our MPs in. Over the last few years it that has grown dramatically and is no longer talked about just by geeks. Nowadays many, if not most people, use one form of social media or another.

One of the great advantages of it, at least according to supporters, is that it democratises access to debates and movements – if you have an internet connection you can join in. You can become a respected and influential commentator based on the quality of your comment and not the position you hold – and even if you don’t start the debate you can easily join in (by posting comments, tagging, ReTweeting etc). It is mainly through social media that we now have many more ‘citizen journalists’.

For politicians it allows them to ‘knock on doors’ electronically and can be a powerful and exciting tool if used correctly. Not all of them get it yet, but many do.

However, it also provides everyone with the opportunity to hold our elected representatives to account. Many people have blogged about the expenses scandal and I’m sure many more will blog about their views of the main parties, of candidates, of policies and of the behaviour of people on the campaign trail.

So given the power of social media to hand more power to the people – will it decide the next election?

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This post was inspired by this news and this post.

The Jury Team … update

A few weeks ago I posted about The Jury Team, a political party for independents, set up by Sir Paul Judge just before the European Elections. In my last post I said that I’d tried to get in touch with them as obviously I didn’t want to duplicate efforts and would be happy to support them in any way I could if we were trying to achieve the same goals.

Well since that time I haven’t heard a thing.

But more than that – it seems as if The Jury Team has, to all intents and purposes, stopped activity. The blog hasn’t been updated since June 4th (I’m not very prolific, but come on …) and the Twitter account has only had one tweet since June 11th.

Oh well. If anyone knows anything about the Jury Team, I’d still like to get in touch.

Of course you can always follow Independent MPs on Twitter – @independent_mps)

Well, there’s at least two of us

I had a good meeting this afternoon with Lloyd Davis (twitter @LloydDavis and hashtag #lloyddavis4mp), who was one of the inspirations for this blog (and potentially this movement) with his post To run or not to run from last week.

It was good to meet and to talk about what this means and where it might go (neither of us know the answer to that right now) and perhaps more importantly how we might do it.

Although we don’t know the exact answer to the final question either, it does seem easier to address initially. And in effect the first part of the answer is to just get it out there and to see what happens. I detect a mood from people about a desire to have politicians that more closely represent the man or woman on the street, so if that desire is really out there then let me know, make a comment, follow me on Twitter (@independent_mps) and join the debate. I’d love to know what you think about this and how you think we should do it.