And another thing…

OF COURSE, it’s “just a bit of fun”, as they say. But Yoosk have launched an online vote to try to identify “Britain’s Best MP”.

Having been asked to participate, along with Douglas Carswell, Lynne Feathrstone, Chris Mullin, David Howarth, Bob Russell, Gisela Stewart and Jo Swinson, I agreed to appear on video, answering a series of set questions, which were put to all the candidates.

The results don’t actually mean anything, of course (especially since Douglas is beating me by a margin of more than two-to-one at the moment). But if I win, I will have a series of t-shirts, posters, mousemats and calenders produced to mark my achievement.

Vote here up until 31 December.

LIBDEM MP Jo Swinson has revealed through her Facebook page Twitter that she has been dropped by the Beeb from tonight’s Question Time panel.

I know how she feels, though in my case it was a senior minister who ordained that I should not appear, despite the Beeb actually wanting me on the panel. This was in the aftermath of the hoo-ha over my blogpost asking why everyone was so bloody miserable. I was still a minister at the time, and wanted to remain one. So, cravenly, I submitted and withdrew.

“Thanks, Tom, we’ll make it up to you,” I was told. Weeks later I was sacked.

Politics, eh?

I’M NOT thin-skinned, but if I’m to be the victim of a lazy hatchet job by a journalist, I think I have the right to expect at least a minimum level of accuracy.

Under the headline “Proof at last… our MPs really are a bunch of prize twits”, the Scottish edition of the Mail on Sunday today ran a critical piece on me and two parliamentary colleagues, Jo Swinson (LibDem, East Dunbartonshire) and Eric Joyce (Labour, Falkirk) for having the brass neck to Twitter from the Commons chamber.

It’s not available online (wiser heads prevailed, I presume), but the gist of the story is that we three have been “caught posting messages on the social networking site during PMQs.”

Caught? Doesn’t that imply a desire to avoid detection? I posted this Tweet last Wednesday in advance of PMQs. It automatically appeared on the front page of this blog — you know, the blog that many reporters read every day. Yet because this particular reporter accepted my open invitation to follow my Twitter feed on PMQs, he felt able to report:

In the middle of robust exchanges between Gordon Brown and David Cameron, Labour MPs Tom Harris and Eric Joyce and LibDem Jo Swinson were actively updating their followers with ‘tweets’ reporting the day’s events.

This is despite the fact that mobile phones, which can be used to post messages on Twitter, are banned from all but a few areas of the House.

Note the careful phrasing of that last line: “banned from all but a few areas of the House.” It’s intended to lead the reader to believe that phones are banned from the chamber itself, even though the reporter doesn’t explicitly say as much. In fact, mobile phones are now allowed in the chamber and I happen to know that the reporter did know that this was the case. How do I know that? Because I told him so when he called me at my constituency office on Friday.

In fact, the entire story is predicated on the assumption that using one’s mobile phone in the chamber is against the rules, otherwise there’s actually no story at all. Hence the deliberately vague wording above.

So, to recap: 

1. Three Scottish MPs were Twittering during PMQs.
2. They were entirely open about their activities. I advertised the fact I would be doing so in advance.
3. Twittering during PMQs does not break any rules (unless you’re Twittering while asking or answering a question which, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t happened. Yet). 

And I will continue to Twitter during PMQs whenever I can, as will Eric and Jo, I hope. If we were remotely worried about the kind of silly criticism we received today from the Mail on Sunday, we probably wouldn’t even be on Twitter at all. I can’t speak for my colleagues, but I think they would agree with me that if MPs can draw others into a political debate about PMQs or anything else using social media, then that is A Good Thing, however the media may wish to over-react or feign indignation.