Archive for 'gordonbrown'
Brown's big picture of the digital future
Gordon Brown's speech, describing a vision of Britain's digital future, is stirring stuff, with its pledges to make Britain a world leader in terms of digital jobs, public service delivery and 'the new politics'. The announcements and commitments came thick and fast - from the £30m to create an Institute of Web Science, to be headed [...] read on »
Did we just win?
We've all learned to be cynical about government announcements - but I'm reading through today's 'Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government' paper, and I can't help smiling. We certainly aren't in a position where the PM can make a policy declaration, and it all falls into place by lunchtime; there are some vicious battles ahead. [...] read on »
Downing St reopens its email function
Rejoice, bloggers! Downing Street has started the rollout of its (apparently?) much-missed function to send an email to the Prime Minister. There's been plenty of commentary on the function's disappearance last summer, from Tim Ireland to Francis Maude, much of it coming from the slightly naive position of 'how hard can it be to set [...] read on »
No10 blogging from Brussels summit
Time to unleash another Puffbox production for 10 Downing Street. Gordon Brown's off to Brussels to chat about this and that (mostly that, I guess), and as with the trip to the US in April, they've sent a member of the No10 web team to report on proceedings. I've been working with them to develop [...] read on »
Brown comfortable on camera?
Just a quick return to the subject of yesterday's speech by Gordon Brown to the Google Zeitgeist conference. Having failed to watch the Windows Media stream on the No10 site, I was glad to see the speech posted on the event's YouTube area. And it's remarkable for one reason: look how relaxed Gordon Brown seems, [...] read on »
PM hails Google's model of globalisation
Gordon Brown's big speech at Google's Zeitgeist conference this morning saw the unveiling of a new initiative involving the MetOffice, British Antarctic Survey and Google Earth to visualise the (potential) effects of climate change worldwide. It's quite nice, but ultimately you'll load it up and go 'hmmph'. More interesting perhaps was his citing of the [...] read on »
Questions to the Prime Minister!
Downing Street's journey ever deeper into new media continues... as Sky's Joey Jones observes, 'cyberspace probably seems the safest place for Gordon Brown right now.' And on the day he addresses Google's Zeitgeist Europe conference, apparently to announce 'a number of areas (plural? hmm...) where the UK Government and technology giant Google are planning to [...] read on »
Web as a weapon: visionary stuff from Gordon Brown
It didn't generate much media coverage, but there were some stirring words in Gordon Brown's speech on Saturday to the Church of Scotland general assembly. One of the recurring criticisms levelled against him has been a lack of a defining vision: well, try this one for size. The greatest arsenal of power today is not [...] read on »
Cameron's online challenge
David Cameron takes his 'be my friend' campaign to the Guardian's Comment Is Free this morning, with a piece about the internet 'transforming our political culture', and how young people are more political than ever - just not via the old-style channel of political parties. As I noted last week, he's presenting this new concept [...] read on »
Cabinet Minister for digital inclusion?
A timely piece from the BBC's Ashley Highfield on the 'digital divide'. It's timely, because as of this week, Britain has a Cabinet-level minister with responsibility for digital inclusion - Wales secretary Paul Murphy. This news appeared to come as a surprise to BBC Wales's David Cornock when it emerged at PMQs this lunchtime. Mr [...] read on »