Between elections the internet is really starting to challenge politics as usual. As part of this change, we’d like to put you in touch with your new MP. Not for a specific purpose, but in order to hear what they’re working on, to debate their thoughts in a safe, friendly environment, and generally to build better, more useful relationships between constituents and their MPs.

If you enter your details, we’ll add you to a queue of other people in your constituency. When enough have signed up, your MP will get sent an email. It’ll say “20 of your constituents would like to hear what you’re up to – hit reply to let them know.” If they don’t reply, nothing will happen, until they get an email which says there are now 100 people; 200 people; 500 people – until it is nonsensical not to reply and start talking.

When your MP replies, it won’t be one-way spam, and it won’t be an inbox-filling free-for-all. Instead, each email will have a link at the bottom, which will take you straight to a forum where the first post will contain the MP’s email. There’ll be no tiresome login – you can just start talking about what they’ve said. Safe, easy and democratic.

When I signed up I brought the total number of users in my constituency to 19, so only one more Glasgow North constituent needs to join in before we find out whether Anne McKechin (Labour, fairly Blairite voting record) will respond.

Related posts: Write To Them, Write To Them, They Write Back

From the BBC report:

The laptops will be encased in rubber to make them more durable, and their AC adaptors will also act as carrying straps.

The Linux-based machines are expected to have a 500MHz processor, with flash memory instead of a hard drive which has more delicate moving parts.

The laptop will be more rugged and flexible than ordinary ones They will have four USB ports, and will be able to connect to the net through wi-fi - wireless net technology - and will be able to share data easily.

It will also have a dual-mode display so that it can still be used in varying light conditions outside. It will be a colour display, but users will be able to switch easily to monochrome mode so that it can be viewed in bright sunlight, at four times normal resolution.

From the MIT page:

When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab.

It seems to me that, in designing a low-cost laptop for educational use in developing nations, the folk at MIT have also come up with the perfect laptop, full stop. I wonder if they’ll offer it for sale at a premium — $300, say — to subsidise the work of the One Laptop Per Child scheme, or if the low price depends on huge bulk orders by NGOs and government departments. (And, yes, I do realise it’s a bit iffy getting all gadget-lusty over this project.)

See also: the Simputer, a handheld device with similar aims launched last March, Bridging the digital divide, a Guardian piece on the $100 laptop from last February, A Lesson in Computer Literacy from India’s Poorest Kids, on the Hole In the Wall computer experiment, and, tangentially, On the Joys of Primitive Computing: The AlphaSmart Neo.

> I will actively support those people who, on behalf of all of us, refuse to register for an ID card, and I pledge to pay at least £20 into a fighting fund for them but only if 50000 other people will too.

If you’re against ID cards but fear that not registering would hamper your or your family’s ability to work, travel and generally exist with full civil rights, do sign up.

WriteToThem.com makes it easy for folk to get in touch with their various representatives, from local councillors to MEPs, via fax and email, so, if, like me, you find yourself in a towering rage as the Today Programme feeds you dreadful news each and every morning, it only takes a couple of clicks to unleash your inner Angry of Tunbridge Wells. I don’t use it nearly enough, to be honest, so this is in part a note to myself to harass my representatives more regularly.

In case anyone was wondering, I was using WriteToThem.com to pester my seven MEPs about EU software patent legislation - Lord, could I sound any sadder? - and David Martin MEP responded almost immediately with a clarification of his position on the issue, and useful information on the proposed legislation. I’ll save wittering about the crazy world of patent law for another post, as I’m waiting for permission from Martin to quote from his email, but for now, have a look at No To Software Patents for a quick guide to why the Directive on the Patenting of Computer Implemented Inventions must not be allowed into the statute books.

WriteToThem expands the service in two ways: you can now choose your medium, either fax or email, and quickly find and contact not just your MP, but your local councillor, MSP, Welsh or London Assembly Member, and your various MEPs.

WriteToThem is one of a suite of websites made by MySociety.org, a volunteer organisation funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s e-innovations fund, which includes TheyWorkForYou, to help you you track your MP’s performance, and UpMyStreet, a wide-ranging resource for local information.

In other words, MySociety are helping to make the web work for people, in a simple, practical way, and they’re doing a great job of it.

Cheers for that.

Brian has cancer, currently in remission, and as a result of his treatment developed epilepsy. Finding conventional medicine was ineffective in controlling his fits, he started to grow cannabis, exclusively for his own medical use.

After being arrested and charged, the Legal Aid solicitor assigned to him failed him miserably (I hope no one sues me for saying so, but to my eyes, the incompetent handling of the case verges on negligence) and Brian ended up with a two-year sentence. To make matters worse, in a bizarrely wrong-headed move, Brian was at one point placed in solitary confinement as he was believed to be suffering from depression (presumably worsened by the fact that he was placed on the grim ‘beast wing’ usually reserved for sex offenders.)

Initially released after 20 days, awaiting an appeal, Brian’s lawyer cocked up again, and he was registered as a fugitive while visiting his mother in England, after the appeal failed. As a result, he’s back in Porterfield prison, Inverness, serving the longest sentence for cannabis cultivation of any prisoner there charged with the same crime, despite being caught with less weed than any other inmate.

Whatever your views on legalising cannabis, it’s hard to see why a man with cancer and epilepsy, who was quietly growing plants that eased his suffering because he didn’t want to get mixed up with dealers, should be separated from his family and have his health put at risk.

There’s a petition underway - please sign up if you feel Brian’s case is a miscarriage of justice, and, if you live in Scotland and have a minute, a quick letter to your MSP or the Scottish Executive Justice Department can’t hurt Brian’s chances of a reprieve.

Brian is also keeping a Prison Diary, which you can read on the website devoted to securing his freedom, which has more details on the case.

For those who’ve been following the campaign to save Tramway from closure as a visual art space, I can happily report that the Scottish Ballet have withdrawn their bid for funding to make the site their headquaters.

Phil Miller has the full story in The Herald.