Puffbox

If there's one lesson to draw from the unveiling of Directgov's experimental School Closures site, it's the sheer goodwill of the community towards them. Quick précis for those who missed any of it: at 11.50pm on Sunday night, Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson publicly throws down a gauntlet. With the country facing snowy armageddon, could Directgov [...] read on »

A few days ago, I bought an iPod Touch; and I can finally understand the fuss. I didn't really want it; I'm not short of portable media players, and my Android phone gave me a perfectly good touchscreen to play with. But I'm very excited about mobile-optimised web interfaces at the moment, and felt I [...] read on »

The latest move from Tom Watson's Power Of Information Taskforce, effectively a big BBC Backstage-style government mashup competition, is a master stroke. The Power of Information Taskforce want to hear your ideas on how to reuse, represent, mashup or combine the information the government holds to make it useful. ... We will take the best ideas [...] read on »

One senses there's not a lot of love between Guido Fawkes and Tom Watson. So it's all the more remarkable that, within a few days, they've effectively reached an identical conclusion on the need for a better approach to public sector job advertising. A week ago, Tom wrote a blog post noting the lack of a [...] read on »

OK, I'm an idiot. The lengthy and fair-minded piece I wrote this morning about a speech by Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne at the RSA was a year late. Osborne made some interesting points about the need 'to recast the political settlement for the digital age.' And now today, there's an email doing the rounds (see [...] read on »