Electioneering on Google Maps

The Brighton Argus has started an interactive Google Map, inviting readers to mark where they have seen local parliamentary candidates campaigning and what they said, if they spoke to them. This is a great way of showing how much campaigning is actually going on and how active each of the candidates is. What it is likely to show is how each party focuses their campaign on different parts of the Brighton Pavillion seat. Each party will be focused on getting out their voters. I'm going to be interested to see if all of the three main parties, plus the greens, are targeting the same areas.

Do politicians respond well to being tracked down? The recent re-launch of Eye Spy MP on Twitter caused a minor stir after the complaints from MPs about the original incarnation, Parliament Spy, were aired in the Telegraph. It mirrors those occasionally amusing and rather pointless spots of celebrities the public send in to trashy mags: "I saw Cassandra from Only Fools and Horses in Highbury Fields." That I actually did see. There is certainly a place for the cheeky anonymous posts and I enjoy reading them.

The politicians may not like it, but this is a great example of tracking political campaigns and I'd be keen to see this rolled out. From a campaigning perspective it provides fantastic intelligence on the opposition's activities.

Is anybody listening?

David Cameron still has some way to go before he has total control of his party. Today's outbursts by Douglas "clean my moat" Hogg and Sir Patrick Cormack that MPs deserve even more pay, following the expenses scandal, shows a party still very much out of step with the national mood.

The Daily Telegraph was simplistic to suggest that many MPs don't need a second home when they have to work late in Parliament. However, to suggest that MPs' pay should be doubled is so far off the scale as to be simply stupid.

Once MPs stop having second jobs and focusing on the job they were elected to do we'll be in a better position to start sorting the mess out. If MPs themselves actually agreed to the many sensible reforms of Parliament that have been suggested on a number of occasions we might start to make progress. If Parliament met at reasonable office hours, not at night, we might have progress. It might also allow MPs to spend more time with ordinary people and less time in the Westminster bubble. That really would be progress.

No second jobs

I have always felt that MPs should have only one job - the one they were elected to do. I'm pleased that second jobs won't be permitted by Labour and that the Tories are following suit. It might mean that Parliament actually begins to sit at reasonable hours, making it less necessary for some MPs to have second homes.

Howard Stoate may be a good local MP, but if the same rules apply to lawyers and bankers, they should apply across the board and it is only right that he should focus on one job.