Sunny Hundal (045-B-1d.)
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Blogger Sunnny Hundal discusses the effects of blogging on British politics.
Transcript:
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Q. What is the real -- how did you start doing what you do?
A. Writing on the web? Well, I actually started in '95. I was at university and, as a joke -- not as a joke but as something to do -- I made this website for a friend of mine about an actress that he liked. So it was like a fan page, you know, in those days and I learned some HTML. I picked it up and I just made it for him and that sort of developed into this popular site and also I had to constantly work on my HTML and web design skills and, eventually, I got into a web publishing, ISP sort of a company when I left university and that was a porthole and you know it was involved in a lot of stuff in the dotcom boom and it was really interesting at those times. There was so much going on (in Soho,) so you know people funding all these dotcom companies and you know with so much money and then eventually I started getting into online publishing where it was not like a blog but more like an online magazine where you would write an article and people would comment on it beneath instantly and, you know, in the same format as a blog but you know, obviously not -- didn't call it a blog -- and what I liked about that was the fact that you could have instant feedback and a discussion with your readers so I -- it is sort of instant gratification in a way and that makes you want to write even more and that is how I sort of got into online publishing and, when blogging became big, I just started it up naturally, really.
Q. That first website you did was very popular. What was going on on it? What was that website about and how did it come?
A. Well it was '95 and there was not that many actress fan pages at the time and this was an Indian actress that my friend at university in west London really liked so I thought, as a joke, I would make it up and it was just funny -- you had all these people thinking that that was her website. You would get all this bizarre fan mail but a lot of people linking to it and posting comments in those days so -- and sending email and it became popular but I shut it down about five or six years ago. I was just, you know, like this is not really worth my time in maintaining it and websites take a lot of time to maintain but I have launched loads of websites since then and then shut them down as they became -- consume too much time, so, yes, that is the way it goes.
Q. Do you still do this?
A. Yes, yes. I picked up programming in a language called PHP, developed my skills in learning about My SQL which is like a database so I could make attractive websites and that is how I got into programming and then later on into WAP as well making, websites for phones and stuff like that but you know this is before I got into publishing and writing, basically, and now I call myself a journalist -- back in those days a web designer and then, once I got online and started writing a lot more, then I had to develop my writing skills then eventually became a writer.
Q. Could you describe how that happened because it sounds like your education has been from that who you are writing for could you describe that journey of how you are writing from fan page to --
A. The thing is a lot of people get into journalism because they love the idea -- this romantic idea of books and sitting down and writing, crafting an article, whereas I have grown up in a generation where actually it is quick -- something you write and you see what your readers say to that in response and the email you get in response to them reading that and the feedback you get so, you know, I made this journey from making a website for an actress to developing interactive sites, message boards where people would have huge and rowdy discussions about everything from cricket and football to global politics and setting up an online magazine and then lots of blogs and the thing is obviously over a period of time writing. What happened was I had to look at the national newspapers and see, how do they write? What is good writing? So I compared myself to that and learned you can not just write anything really on the web. If you really want people to read you, then they have to appreciate your writing too and what you are saying with clarity and being succinct. So I had to to develop my writing but, the point is, I have sort of grown up in this era and become comfortable with this era where actually interaction is the best feedback you get. It is not about publishing an article. You get paid for it and that is it. Your job is done. Actually, that is when the job starts. You know? You write something -- what you have to say -- but also want to see what people have to say in response and then keep that going as a conversation and that is the sort of generation I have grown up with I guess.
Q. What does that do to your writing? What are the characteristics of a writer of this your generation?
A. I think it is interesting. On the one hand you are forced to anticipate comments that people are going to make -- so you know what readers you have and, in a way, you are anticipating their criticisms and or whatever they are going to say in response and you take that into account in your writing and, also, I guess you can not -- you have to sort of make a point about what is going on right now. It is very instantaneous, in the sense that you know this is blogging really because, if you blog about something that happened a month ago or something that is almost irrelevant, then it is very difficult to get people to keep on coming back. One of the things that people want to come back to websites for is to get, sort of, have a filter as to what is going on around the world but also to be on top of things. That is what they are for, so you are almost forcing yourself to read a lot more because you want to keep up with your readers and they keep up with you. So you are having this conversation where they post links to you saying 'Have you seen this, have you seen that?' and so you are constantly reading all across the web but, also, what shall I post about tomorrow, what do I want to write about and, then, you think, yes, I could blog about this and then you go off and write it. But before you do that though, you think 'I want to develop my argument a bit further rather than what the people are normally going to say.' You want to say something different so I think it is different in a way that it feels like more of a conversation but it is a hybrid between commenting and conversation, you know.
Q. I think it is difficult to really define but it feels like a -- is that what you have? Is it new or is it -- how do you define blogging?
A. Analysis is probably what I like best because everyone has an opinion, as they say, and, also, you can do news -- The Guardian, BBC provide great sources of news. I think what I would say is you have to also think 'what is adding value to this blog or whatever you are doing?' What can I bring to the table that other people can not? So you are bringing your own knowledge about specific interests that you have. So for example, my blog, Pickled Polictics, I mostly blog about race and religion and global affairs, something to do with South Asia but, you know, left of centre but around terrorism and all this stuff and it is an area that I have been interested in for a long time. I talk to a lot people about what is going on so I think I can add something that the national newspapers can not because they don't know the area that well. So I think what happens is that you are not necessarily just publishing news but you are doing that anyway but you are sort of publishing things, look at this, but you are adding to that -- not commentary but analysis -- saying this is wrong or this is right for two reasons or I usually say I have two points to make on this: one is this, one is that. You know and I hope that no one else has really thought of them so you are sort of making them think not just this is my opinion on this and I do not really care whether you like it or not -- sometimes I do that but usually I like to say I want you to think differently about this and this is how I would like you to think differently about this. So it is analysis I think.
Q. The connections are always ... we have already talked about what encourages you to stay connected with what the other people are reading in the same area or an opposing argument. Can you talk about that the connections you need to maintain what you write and also the results of being connected with all those different people. What does that make you?
A. (11.33) Blogging is like a world in itself which I mean, when I first started it -- outside of the blogging world you can almost not see it and then be completely oblivious to it. Once you go in there and see that people are linking to each other and it is like a network in itself and people go to each other, you sort of realise it is a world in itself. So you sort of pick up the same links from everyone else and you read around. So certain people you know are quite snarky and sarcastic about issues and the world. Other people take a party line, pro Labour or pro Tory or whatever it is, and you sort of go to them for that reason because what you want is to see what they are saying. So I do end up reading a lot of stuff which -- lets say for example I am leftwing, I end up reading a lot of stuff that is rightwing because I want to know what they are saying and also, at the same time, you are exposed to arguments, not necessarily -- they are very raw and also they are not bound by political correctness because it is one man or woman and his blog and you know the package -- mass whatever. They don't really care about the Press Complaints Commission and all the rest of it and, thirdly, because it is not bound by news -- the news formula. It is commentary and this is what I want to say. So there is so much comment out there that you get exposed to such a wide variety of opinion and you are sort of shaped by that because I think, you know, it is easy to just read the news and think that is all -- all we have to think, well, actually, I think that people read that and then they think a lot more and no one really expresses that and blogging really allows them to express it. I think it is good to be exposed to a whole load of opinion, otherwise how do you engage with other people, unless you can understand what they are trying to say and engage on that basis. It is, I just think it exposes you to a lot more and you need that in this sort of environment you are in, what people are constantly talking about in politics, people are constantly talking about terrorism and all these issues. People are afraid to say what they really want to say, so it just exposes you to different opinions.
Q. Do you link to people you disagree with?
A. All the time. Usually saying look at this idiot, look what he is saying and that is the way it goes. Sometimes I agree with them, so I will say this point someone has made, yes, or I will say, God, the usual idiots are getting into a frenzy because on this but that is not because they are rightwing, it is just because I disagree with their opinion. It might be someone that is leftwing and I think, God, or sometimes I will actually be -- I will not be as facetious I will just say this person says this, I disagree because this, this and this. So it just really depends on how I feel at the time.
Q. I think there is something really interesting about that the way that quite often good blogs will link to an opinion of blogging that they have and even detail -- he is that Tory blogger -- do you have a permenant link to him?
A. Sorry. I do.
Q. I think there is something really interesting about that although you have fundamental disagreements, you think there is something in it for your readers to go and have a look at stuff that he has got. I do not know what I am getting at but some kind of different way that people write blogs, what they expect of their readers probably, the independent probably would not recommend that you read the Daily Mail so there is something different going on to do with that -- not really a question but --
A. (16.14) Actually, you know what is funny is I think that is British blogs more than American blogs. American blogs are crazily partisan. The left blogosphere doesn't even acknowledge the right blogosphere and, unless you really want to criticise them, and the same thing goes to the rightwingers there -- they are only linked to the leftwing blogs when they are making fun of them. I mean, to a certain extent, I am quite partisan in the sense that my blog role has comrades who I sort of agree with, you know. I call them but I do, for example, if I have a disagreement with someone rightwing like Ian Dale, I do link and say read this and I say et cetera et cetera and as a response, you know, I think he is wrong for this reason and sometimes I agree and all the rest of it. So we do link to each other. You have to maintain a sense of balance where you are not just going over the top in a sort 'we are left and therefore we should hate the right and we are rightwing we should hate...' There is an element of criticising, cursing the other side a lot but I do not think you should take it too far. I am not really that obsessed with being a Tory or a Labour person so -- which is probably why I don't do it but I know there is loads of people who do.
Q. I am interested in any left and right people ... what I think about it, politics does badly at many levels -- it doesn't connect, posing arguments -- there is one person that is sending a letter to your MP, the MP may get five letters saying we need to privatise the hospitals the -- et cetera, et cetera. So they have to suddenly deal with all those but what happens in blogging is those people somehow link to each other, they find out about each other and have the debate. But is there something in that sort of thing? On many different levels, blogging, there is a really good communication, different -- one acknowledges the other.
A. (19.04) Yes. I mean, you do have some bloggers who acknowledge other people's arguments and I think that is important because I think people will see say this person says this, I think that is wrong because this, this, this, and there are actually bloggers who just do that, having a conversation. Now the thing with that is blogging actually is very difficult. It is a difficult medium to have a conversation with. I attract individual conversations. This is how I look at it. I attract people who have an opinion about a whole range of issues and I will track what we are saying so I want to know what they are thinking but, actually, you can not track conversations between people and see them go to a logical conclusion. That is very difficult. On the web right now, and the way that technology is right now, and I have been grappling with this for a long time, if I had a debate about a particular issue and I had two or three different bloggers on different websites blogging about, it would be very difficult for me to have those conversations one page and then see where it is going and track that automatically, you know? You have this track back system so you can see who is linking to yours but you can not really see that going on in the conversation so -- and a lot of times people discussing things on blogs they might even agree with each other but that is online and, because people become defensive really quickly, you actually see conversations over the smallest of differences blow up into one massive argument, you know.
So actually I think that what is interesting about blogging is not the fact that you can see conversations go on to reach any conclusion or get anywhere in some sort of a consensus but the fact that all you can do is just track lots of different conversations and see what people are saying and be enriched by that. You can not actually see a debate move in any specific direction. I have never seen any single debate happen online move in any single direction. You will come back to it and, two or three years later on, you will be talking about the same thing. So rarely do I think the conversation moves on. I just think it is interesting actually to see what people are saying and be enriched by people's different views.
Q. Can we go back to why you are doing it. Why do you daily feel to write what you think?
A. (21.55) Well I think sure (interruption).
Blogging becomes a job after a little while. That is a problem to a certain degree. At night time I think I have to update my blog for tomorrow, I need something for this, something for that, can I write something right now for tomorrow? So sometimes it is a chore that you have to almost do and you are not even sure why you are doing it. You just have to do it because the blog is there and needs about two or three articles a day and that is the end of that. You are almost like feeding on monsters and the monster is in your house -- you can not get rid of it. That is my blog and the -- not advantages but the come back from that is that I do get a lot of people that I meet and they say 'I love your blog and I read it' or 'I hate you because I saw something on your blog', you know, et cetera, et cetera. So that feedback is the only thing you get. You don't get any money out of it or nothing like that. You just have interesting opportunities, interesting conversations and all the rest of it but, you know, you I do not know why you do it. You sort of do it for the gratification of the fact that you have a conversation and informing people and you are having a discussion amongst yourselves. I can not really imagine -- I do not see any other reason for it. It is kind of difficult.
Q. Getting people to have discussions?
A. We are political junkies, right. I am a political junkie, so I want to see what is happening on the news and then discuss it with someone. So blogging is a fantastic way to do that. Having your own blog is an even better way to do that because you read something and then you are interested and blog it and you have about 20 comments later on and it is great. You are having a conversation. You have got it out of your system, you know. You have said it and then you move on to something else. You know? So you almost start feeling that you almost want to discuss something and you feel like you want to say something but, although you could, you know actually it is not that it doesn't really lead you anywhere.
For example in 2006, November 2006, we published a manifesto which was in The Guardian -- when I say we, I basically started my blog with Pickled Politics with a specific aim in mind, which was to say that we want to talk about race and religion in Britain but with a more progressive viewpoint and we think that those views are not being heard. So I was like ethnic media and the mainstream media are rubbish when talking about these issues in a more nuanced way, so here is our own space. It became popular and also I developed this argument over a long period of time. That then led to me getting to any people and then saying to people that this is something I think we should have a wider conversation about -- how about we produce a manifesto saying that the way that we do race relations and religion and all this politics, and the rest of it, needs to change and people signed up to it and so I wrote an article for The Guardian in November 2006. We published a big manifesto, published in the Guardian website and that sparked off a whole conversation around community leaders within the Muslim community and other communities. So that was something -- an argument I had developed on my blog over a long period of time, right, so it is not like it is entirely useless. What you do is have these ideas and you want to express them and you want to develop and refine those arguments and then you do that over a long period of time and then you take that somewhere and so I have written about politics and terrorism because I have developed those arguments on my blog and then end up going to, for example, to the Fabian Society and say, 'Look this is what I think the government should do on this,' et cetera, et cetera. What is going on? So sometimes it can lead on to other things too.
Q. And the fact that you have developed the ideas on your blog means that they have been to an extent tested and explored with other people?
A. (26.45) Yes, I think so. That is the whole point, is it not, that you want to throw those arguments out there, see what people say and then do a kind of criticism depending how strong they are and obviously people have different viewpoints so you will be -- you could test those arguments out before you put them forward in a more official sort of document, right, and that is what I love doing. I am not saying entirely that you -- it doesn't lead anywhere. I do think it sort of leads somewhere. You just have to figure out where you want it to go, I guess.
Q. We are trying to ... do you still feel (inaudible) the stuff that you want to say, it is about you getting that across (inaudible) sort of improve the situation who are you doing it for?
A. (27.48) Well, I mean political blogging is a beast in itself, right, and you can actually take this somewhere. So, for example, there was another document that a bunch of bloggers together called Houston Manifesto. It is an argument, again, developed over a long period of time, taking a pro war position on Iraq on the left, then personally I have been involved in campaigns originated from bloggers. We ran a campaign with a number of guys about giving asylum to translators, Iraqi translators to British armed forces in Iraq. We felt the government was doing nothing to protect them. We blogged about it a lot. We tried to make it into a big national issue, which it did become. We organized an event in Westminster -- this is all bloggers doing it, you know, having a conversation over email. This is what we need to do. How do we get involved? What shall we do? Having an event at Westminster and then forcing the government to do something about it, which they did. They have just announced that they are going to bring some 2,000 people over from Iraq who were specifically translators to the British armed forces, something the government had not even considered or said anything about. While the Danish and Americans were doing it, we were not doing anything about it. There are other campaigns also that I am working with people and something against the 42 days precharge detention which has been all over the press and we have been blogging about it. I organized a letter through lots of people, got published in The Guardian. We are doing another campaign around abortion and the human fertilisation and the embryology bill which is with a bunch of feminist bloggers. So what you could probably say is sometimes you could say, okay, we feel no one is really doing anything about this issue or we want to raise awareness of this issue make some noise and what you can do is link up with another bunch of bloggers or interested parties, use facebook, use blogging, whatever you can to get people together, and say look what you need to do is write to your MP or come to this protest and do this and get yourself organised online and that is where the duty of blogging lies and where I think political exchange is going to move towards actually where you are using online networks to get people together, feed them information and say this is what you can do and then hopefully lobby MPs on that basis.
Q. Do you see it as a part of politics, an in-built part of the system or is it working from outside to change the system or what is it, its role?
A. (31.04) Well, I think see ourselves as empowered citizens, people who know what conversations are going on, what the government is doing. They are informed on issues and then we sort of know where we the pressure points are, sometimes all right, and then what we want to do is say, this is what we need to do, let's try and do something about this. Your ordinary person, who is say, for example, very annoyed that their local government is not doing anything on a particular issue, might not know how the local government structure works. On the other hand we have bloggers on my other blog, Liberal Conspiracy, who follow government bills in detail and if the government tries to pass something without telling anyone they will spot it and suddenly word will go around and then the blogger is all over it saying look at what the goverment is trying to do and I do not see that as we are outside the system and therefore we have to have a war with government. In America, funnily enough, they do in a way see that now you have a presidential campaign going on and there was a huge convention of left wing bloggers there that said they are at war with the mainstream media about the presidential elections and that is how they see it, whereas I see myself as an empowered citizen trying to do something worthwhile about issues we are passionate about and then saying, 'we are passionate about this, what can we do on that?' And a lot of us blog for The Guardian or other websites so we have our links, we know journalists. Sometimes they might say we want to push this issue, can we talk to someone and get the word out there. So you sort of -- I think you have to work with the system.
Q. Do you feel like, I do not know -- is it your job then to sort of check up on people? Are you like the sort of the, I do not know -- is it like a nice extra public service making sure that the government is, independently, making sure the government is doing a good job, a critic in a way? You are sort of just making sure they have done this, they have done that, right?
A. (33.39) Yes. I mean, you could spend all your time talking about the government but, I mean, I necessarily don't. I will give you a good example of this. One guy particularly annoyed that you could not protest within 1km of Westminster so the government had a consultation around the bill: 'Should we get rid of it?' He made it his duty to try and get as many people as possible to write to the government and say this is a bad idea and the government then acknowledged in the bill recently that they had an unprecedented amount of ordinary people writing in to them saying that that restriction was a bad idea. They are changing it now, right, so you could go all the way from one person being really obsessed about civil liberties and trying to get his fellow citizens to try and write to the government and do something all the way to having a conversation about terrorism and having, not necessarily a conversation which is obsessed by government policy, but having a broader conversation about terrorism. These are some of the issues. This is what we should be doing. This is how we should see society that could fit into a wider conversation. You never know -- that could lead somewhere. It doesn't necessarily lead to government policy but sometimes it does.
Q. What you are doing is quite creative and I think there are a lot of websites saying the government have done this and that -- bad, bad, bad -- but there is also a creative work going on in terms of how do you do this and that, suggestions. Do you feel that is sort on the rise or like the government is going to be more than, more alert and able to move these and get ideas in or let anyone persuade them how to?
A. Well, will the government let bloggers influence them? Probably not. The government does get a lot of feedback on issues that they put up for consultation anyway. I am sure they have a lot of people that lobby on a whole range of things. Bloggers are just one of them. We don't necessarily have an organisation behind us. So if one blogger is writing about it incessantly, it doesn't mean the government will listen because it is one blogger, right? I think there are some parts to the government which have said, look, we should really try and engage more. Michael Wills MP, for example, is trying to have an online conversation about how the government can be online democracy or online conversation can feed into a better democracy. Now I do not know if that will go anywhere but government blogs so far have got nowhere in terms of a Minister blogging and all they get is abuse. So to that extent I think we have less valuable conversations here than we do in America, because in America you do have a lot of politicians who blog on big blogs.
Q. (Interruption) Do you see value in them having a more direct correspondence with you and allowing you to understand why they make certain decisions, more direct maybe?
A. (37.40) Yes. I mean, obviously I would love more MPs to blog I would love for people to get involved in a conversation online. There are some MPs like the Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, who blogs a lot, but it is also, I think, MPs should be of the mindset that they need to connect with people and I think a lot of MPs are not. So blogging is a conversation that you have to put a bit of time and effort into, for example like an hour a day at least, I would say -- not just reading what all the people are saying and blogging yourself and all the rest of it. So it is not something that the government can just sort of do which is like a one off thing -- you know, go off and write something like a press release and put it on the blog. You have to not only get involved in that conversation which is going on outside but also see how the medium develops. So what I am saying is, like, the government can not just, or any organisation really, can not just set up a blog and just blog, right. That doesn't get you anywhere. You have to, in a way, take in the whole package which is talking to other people, responding to what they are saying, having comments, responding to those and also seeing where is it going to take you because, if you do something very short, it is just like you are putting your opinions on the website -- so what -- and it annoys people even more.
Q. So why does the government not do that? That is surely what it should be doing, waiting for the feedback having conversations with people. Why is it not?
A. (39.39) It could be partly because government is in power, therefore it feels like if its own MPs say too much then it might -- the problem is right now that a lot of the media act in such a way to online bloggers that it makes it very difficult for MPs to go out there and say something because there is the danger that the media will use it as out of context and then make a big story out of it. I mean the BBC itself has the same problem. Their editors blog. They don't really like a lot of the editors to go on there and reveal too much because if they do then inevitably the Daily Mail or Telegraph will use that and make a big story out of it and BBC apologise or BBC admits blunders over something when all they are doing is saying, okay, we have that wrong for doing this, something we should not be transparent about, et cetera, et cetera. So partly the problem is that, because the government is in power, they feel like if they get involved, that there is too much danger of things going wrong, which is also one of the reasons why the Conservatives have got involved more in areas which they like, for example, like, Conservative Home, you know, where it is almost like a walled garden, where they sort of know roughly what is going to happen and they are in that area and they can do that. The Labour does not have something similar which is so institutional, so therefore it goes on to websites like some Labour MPs blog for The Guardian Comment Is Free and all the rest of it but, broadly speaking, they are too afraid to blog because they think, if we say something which might let our guard down, then it is going to become a national story in which case we look stupid. There is no point in doing this. The dangers are much more than the benefits. That is the problem. So it is actually quite difficult. I would say to persuade them to get involved in the conversation, I would much rather they just read what was going on out there and then sort of, you know, debated that way. So just keep track of what is going on rather than necessarily blogging yourself.
Q. Don't they stand a lot to gain from interaction more generally because they could be open to anyone potentially. We are working on this, an easy way for people to interact and popular. Straight forward but it seems like the technology is there but there is a sort of fear to adapt it exactly. What people say is it is very scary, intimidating, admitting some fallibility?
A. Yes, yes. You are right. There is a lot of advantages. There are a few good examples like MP Tom Watson who is with the government, blogs a lot, writes about sort of IT and now is involved in this project to change the government's -- re-evaluate the government IT projects. I think there are some good examples but a lot of them really are still stuck in 19th, 20th century -- they really are. They can not get their head round technology. I mean you can understand the fact that technology is a bit tricky sometimes and you really have to get to grips with it -- especially blogging -- but it is actually really bizarre how many of them just don't know what all this is really about and it is frightening that the UK is moving on so quickly in technology and all these kinds of things and our leaders really have no idea what is going on. So it is actually really frustrating in that sense and I think what the government really needs to do is say it is about time we educated our own people, you know, tell them what is going on. Let's have a sort of like the BBC educates its own journalists. That is what the government needs to do, say we need to educate our MPs on technology because, right now, a lot of them are really clueless but I have been to events you know, organised by the Fabian Society, the New Statesman and peacefully admit they really don't have much clue about what is going on. So that is the main problem, I guess, which stops them from blogging.
Q. If you were going to sell it to some MPs, what would you say -- to an MP who has not done any sort of online blogging, reading -- what would you say they can benefit from that ... ?
A. I think by far the most important advantage of blogging, reading blogs, is that you connect with what ordinary people are saying. Now you know we write about issues that we care about and that is all we are blogging for -- no money. Sure, sure, sure (45.37) Crap what was I saying?
Q. You were saying about --
A. (45.25) Right so why should an MP blog? Right I think by far the most important reason why he should blog is that they are connecting with ordinary people. Now the problem is that you know you are working in Westminster and you are sort of in the Westminster bubble and you get involved in that world and don't really know what ordinary people are saying and what are the issues and also have that very down to earth conversation rather than what is just, what is filtered through the media and that is a problem that they all read what is going on in the media and then have to respond to that rather than saying well how can we be honest to people and talk to them in a way that they want to because, right now, I feel just like the politicians are interested in what the mainstream media have to say and their conversation is not with the general electorate, their conversation is actually with the media and the media's job is to have a conversation with them, the MPs, because they want to influence the national agenda. So they are just having a conversation amongst themselves, whereas the people on the ground are just seeing this bizarre play taking place and that is why they feel cut off from that -- unless, of course, you are someone like me who is, you know, very much part of also what the mainstream media is saying and you then understand where the MPs are coming from and you just think, you know, you are not being honest. They just talk in cliches because they want to pander to a specific audience and I think, by blogging, it sort of, sort of says, be honest about what you want to do and talk to people, ordinary people, about whether your local constituency -- I would love for MPs, not to blog to general political bloggers like myself but to their local constituencies, you know -- where ordinary people in there can see this is my MP, this is what he is doing. That would be great.
Q. Talking about the future, you know, more and more people are blogging and reading so that is improving to give you more and more control and influence and compete with the mainstream national press?
A. Yes.
Q. So why does that force this to happen? Won't that force MPs to have to start to take it seriously? What do you see the future of that?
A. (48.26) I think, to a certain extent, it will take some time because (a) the MPs themselves have to be educated on technology, what is going on, how can I get involved in it, what does it mean for them? I mean in terms of blogging itself, in a way it has reached a plateau where the number of people entering into it has almost tapered off and the reason for that is because the technology itself has not moved on. So it is actually very difficult, like I said, to have a conversation over a long period of time and have that go somewhere. The only thing -- the only way -- sorry.
(Interruption) End.
