Lobby

"How can our listeners fight back against the digital economy bill?"

So asked the host, in a podcast about the passage of 'debill' - an informative commentary given by a thoughtful Liberal Democrat MP. The question probably seemed like a natural one.

What the music industry will do in the face of a generation who don't view digital anything as a premium product is fascinating. Attempting to wave a legal club at the internet in general, and unauthorized downloading of copy written material in particular is an undignified response to the slow death of parts of the entertainment industry. But, whatever enticements Lord Mandelson might have received from worried media barons, the problems - even defining what they might be - will not be solved by party inspired legislation. A bill, one of whose key areas is to "extend the range of video games that are subject to age-related classification" may well be no more than an expression of one generations exasperation with its own progeny.

And the reply given in the podcast to what listeners could do? The answer was what you would expect from a politician. "Election coming", "lobby your MP", "best time to make them focus" etc. Yeah, sure.

My MP, whose selection depends on picking up the large batch of Asian voters in Southall, doesn't appear to have any interests in the digital economy - or in fact much at all given his attendence record.

Party politics revolves around jockeying into position to form the next government. There is little time to handle what are often called "single issues". When fox hunting was banned, this was a loud bellow from the bowels of an old class based hatred. So despite that fact that almost no one cared about animal welfare, toffs chasing vermin generated intense interest between the parties. But that was the exception that proved the rule - in most cases, issues that are local, and simple enough for MPs to give direct answers to are few and far between.

If I advocate direct democracy, it is not because I have some wide eyed belief in the wisdom of crowds. A political representative is a nice idea, somewhere up there with a personal shopper or a personal trainer. But I wouldn't waste one minute writing missives to an MP unless I was communicating within the bounds of his or her attention span, understanding and interest. If we separate the formation of government from the forming of legislation, then we might stop asking an MP who knows instinctively how to reduce the cost of social services, about the legality of invading a Middle Eastern nation, or whether a child of 10 can be evil.

Control of the internet is one of the many issues that is above and beyond the remit of a constituency MP. No one gained their seat in the last election promising to stop the illegal downloading of Desperate Housewives. Expert committees can be formed around willing members, and with so many MPs, every topic will have an advocate - but it's a very indirect route. I cannot, or course, simply vote for an MP whom I happen to agree with.

Of course, those media barons will pay MPs via the lobby to represent their interests - but this leapfrogs democracy altogether. Indeed, it is one set of stakeholders barricading themselves against the interests of another. There is no efficient way for us to say "as a stakeholder of the interenet, I do not consent to my government stifling a utility it did not create, while acting as proxy for a corporate interest". There will be demonstrations from enlightened geeks, but we know full well these will be ignored - or worse.

Until there is a valid direct way to connect opinion to legislation, at some level there will be disinterest in Westminster politics. And disinterest is not always neutral.