Simon Dickson, principal consultant at Puffbox, writes stuff about e-government, online news and politics. Some important people read it.

They asked, Gordon answered

10 July 2008 4 , , ,

Whether or not you like the answers he gives, the presentation of the 'Ask The PM' questions and answers on the Downing Street YouTube channel is really nice. The 'split-screen' treatment gives equal prominence to punter and premier; and one plays when the other finishes. Nothing too clever, but I really like it.

The second round of questions has already opened: this time, on the specific topic of health. Worth noting a tightening of the editorial criteria: nothing party political, nothing over a minute.

Meanwhile, over at the Governance of Britain site I developed with the Ministry of Justice, we've got the first of (what should hopefully be) a regular series of video messages, introducing debates around the constitutional renewal programme. Minister Michael Wills is great on camera: then again, he has a background in TV, and has plenty of practice.

  • downingstreet is a German user of YouTube. I think you want http://youtube.com/DowningSt (are incorrect usernames the new incorrect domain names? :) )

    Incidentally, I started playing the question I could see and after a few seconds the questioner was drowned out by Gordon Brown speaking over the top (far be it from me to draw any sort of political pun from that), and I wondered what on earth was going on... the auto-playing of a video I can't see as it's too far down the page is rather a bad decision IMO.

  • I think you probably meant to link to:

    http://www.youtube.com/downingst

    The one you have there is a little surreal, to say the least!

  • Sorry folks, what can I say. It was late, and I wasn't even meant to be at a computer. Fixed now. But aren't you glad you saw that (slightly sinister) clip of our German friend getting into his overalls?

  • @Matthew Good point re the auto-playing clip. I guess I've spent too long on MySpace pages which do that... and developed fantastic 'pause button' reflexes.

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