Data retention question

[Ian Batten]

On 16 Jul 2014, at 22:23, Roland Perry <lists at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:

> In article <7FE96CB2-EE08-4791-9770-C079D607C25F at batten.eu.org>, Ian Batten <igb at batten.eu.org> writes
>>> This is also why people attempting to mock the Parliamentary system by posting photos of a handful of members in the chamber are attempting
>>> to leverage a falsehood. MPs can't be in several places at once, and hopping from meeting to another is simply par for the course.
>> 
>> So what's the point of having the debate at all if the other 90% of the MPs are simply going to
>> vote on party lines without listening to a word of what was said?
> 
> Because all the issues have been aired at length for some time. Not just since April but in the debates surrounding the 2012 comms data bill.

And yet, as the photo-montage you are objecting to so accurately shows, when the
issue is pay, suddenly MPs find themselves with a pressing need to be present in
the chamber.  It is, indeed, most odd: it's after all not as though the issues around
pay for MPs hadn't been well exercised in the preceding days, is it?

I am, I suspect, rather older than James, and usually am ready to defend MPs against
the accusation that they are lobby fodder.  Here, however, they appear to be lobby
fodder. 

And as to the shadow home secretary's claim that her children know more about crypto
policy than she does, I can only presume she also smugly tells people at dinner parties
that she can't program her video recorder, as though that makes her more interesting.
Why do MPs make out that utter ignorance of technology is something to be proud of?

ian