So runs the rather foolish quote from the Taxpayers’ Alliance in a story from the Daily Express expressing outrage at a job ad for a Director of Digital Engagement.

The Government should have better things to spend money on than a pointless deputy Twittercrat. The public sector as a whole should be tightening its belt during times of economic hardship, and this job would be a scandalous waste even during good economic times.

Taxpayers don’t want more Web2.0. They want an end to wasteful spending.

Neither the TPA nor the Conservative Party can see the point, instead frothing at the mouth and making the dim conflation that Web 2.0 is the same as Twitter. But both need to realise failing to understand something is not a reason to condemn it out of hand. If you too are not clear on Web 2.0 – try Wikipedia. It really refers to cumulative changes that have happened slowly on the internet over the last five years or so. Many web users may not be aware that things have changed. But almost everything you do on the internet these days includes Web 2.0 technology. If you’ve bought books from Amazon, watched something on Youtube, written a blog post or used web-based email you’ll almost certainly have used the technology.

Web 2.0 is vital to the future of meaningful use of the internet, and it’s important that Government plays ball. Government and local government both process a huge amount of data and have poor records in making that available for other people to use – one of the key things that Web 2.0 is about. Like it or not, communication on the internet is a big part of life for many people now, in business and in personal lives, and it behooves government to catch up and use the internet in the best way possible.

Here are two examples of Web 2.0 demands from tax payers. The first is My Society’s “Free our Bills” campaign – intended to get Parliament to reform how they make information about the lawmaking process available so that the layperson can better understand what’s proposed. Not a waste of anyone’s money, surely?

The second is from taxpayer David Cameron. His part has a policy of “Google Government” as reported in his speech to the Local Government Association earlier this year. They want councils to make available details of all their transactions, so that opposition councillors and members of the public can scrutinise their accounts and make suggestions on savings. But that too can be made much easier and more meaningful with the application of Web 2.0 technology. Clearly that wasn’t in Francis Maude’s mind when he was condemning it.

If the person appointed in the job ad can get both of those things done, there is real possibility of value for money engagement with real people. And that’s worth at least some of the salary this person will be paid.

On the whole, it’s been a stupid few days for the Taxpayers’ Alliance – see also yesterday’s shock revelation of Portsmouth Council’s employees’ 11 seconds per day on Facebook.

Good morning, on this fine morning – Charlie Sheen’s birthday, and one of Nottingham Lib Dem’s “delivery days.” Here’s hoping for no rain for me and for Charlie.

Top stories

Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the Tories have carried out a coup:

Tories claim: we have seized control of Scotland Yard

The Conservatives have wrested control of Scotland Yard from the Home Office and now have its top officers working to their agenda, a senior aide to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has told the Guardian.

Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor for policing, has declared that he and Johnson “have our hands on the tiller” of the Metropolitan police and have an electoral mandate to influence what it does.

He asserted that the Johnson regime had “elbowed the Home Office out of the picture” and would no longer act as a rubber stamp to whatever the force proposed, insisting: “We do not want to be a passenger on the Met cruise.”

What to link to in the Telegraph? Wogan thinks newsreading is easy? Bikini Godesses? Batman beats Spiderman?

Or Sentenced to death on the NHS?

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.
Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

Two must-read blog posts

Liberal England: Televised debates will be bad for Liberal Democrats

Yesterday we brought you news that Nick Clegg has agreed to take part in Sky’s debate of party leaders. Jonathan Calder thinks this might not be the best of ideas:

The arrangements under which the party gets close to equal treatment with the two main parties during election campaigns were hard won. If Sky TV is allowed to tear them up (if there is more than one debate, will Nick Clegg be invited to all of them?) we are unlikely to gain from it. As far as the media are concerned, the story is Labour vs Tory, Brown vs Cameron. The Lib Dems and Nick Clegg are a distraction to this and if they can sideline us they will.

Caron’s Musings: A Morning at the Pantomime – Holyrood Megrahi Debate misses the mark

Caron gives a blow-by-blow account of the Scottish Parliament’s debate about the release of Megrahi.

So, our Parliament gathers to scrutinise one of the biggest decisions ever taken by a Scottish Minister. Yes, the mood is going to be tense, but you would expect an air of industry, of gravity. You expect the contributions to be full of detailed analysis and careful consideration. You would think that everyone would absolutely be on their best behaviour, knowing that the rest of the UK and potentially America is watching. […]

Unfortunately, our MSPs can occasionally be relied upon to behave with all the decorum of a roomful of 2 year olds fighting over a single bag of sweeties and today was one of these occasions. It was as if the nation had dressed its parliamentarians up in their best clothes for the big occasion and crossed its fingers and hoped for the best that they would be on their best behaviour.

And finally, an honourable mention to Mark Reckons’ Fisking Mike Ion on LabourList regarding voting against Labour.

Well, that’s it. August is over, nights are drawing in, it’s downhill to Christmas, and LDV’s daily 2×2 slot that’s more-or-less been on hold over the summer returns to its more-or-less 8am schedule to bring you two top news stories and two must-read blog posts from the world of Lib Demmery.

With just 120 days till the end of the year, 2nd September is the day the Great Fire of London broke out in 1666, the day Thomas Telford died in 1834, and Salma Hayek’s birthday. Happy birthday, Miss Hayek!

Two top stories

PM’s role in release of Megrahi

Gordon Brown and David Miliband were last night drawn directly into the furore over the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing when it emerged that Britain told Tripoli that the prime minister and foreign secretary did not want to see him die in prison.

In a major setback for Downing Street, which has insisted the release was entirely a matter for Edinburgh, it emerged that a Foreign Office minister intervened last February to make clear to Libya that Brown and Miliband hoped Abdelbaset al-Megrahi would not “pass away” in prison.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve had enough of this story now. The decision has been made, the man is imminently going to die; moreover, there is no way of reversing the decision and returning him to his Scottish prison. Why are we still all talking about it?

See also

• Anders Hanson: Megrahi
• Andrew Reeves: Megrahi row continues
• Darrell Goodliffe: Al-Megrahi: international power politics at its worse

Police arrogant over crime victims warns chief constable

Bernard Hogan-Howe, the outgoing head of Merseyside Police, said it was “intolerable” if officers do not appear to care or listen to what victims need.

In a public attack on the tactic of “screening out” certain crimes, the chief constable said it is the duty of officers to do the “right thing” by those who pay their wages.

Instead of selecting which offences are worthy of attendance, Mr Hogan-Howe said every victim should be offered a visit, no matter how minor the crime.

The story carries a quote from Chesterfield’s Lib Dem MP Paul Holmes:

[Hogan-Howe’s] comments are “indicative of how detached much of the public, including many victims, feel from their local police force”.

“Years of centralised control and Whitehall bureaucracy under Labour has created a system of targets and numbers that has distorted police priorities.”

Two must-read blogposts

It’s not every day I agree with Ann Widdecombe

Rational Liberal takes issue with Europe’s edict that all-woman shortlists are the only way to fix the problem of a lack of representation of women in politics, and along the way discovers Ann Widdecombe agrees with him:

Ann Widdecombe put it rather succinctly recently:

I believe, as a woman, that every woman in Parliament should be able to look every man from the prime minister downwards in the eye and to think she got there on exactly the same basis that he got there.

It’s not often that we’re in agreement, but Widdecombe is talking sense here. Judge candidates by the content of their character, not their sex. The problems of opportunity for women in politics need to be addressed at their core, not at the final point when the candidate is actually selected.

It’s like that Lib Dem conference discussion all over again.

A fall in personal debt is not a bad thing!

Jane Watkinson tackles yesterday’s news that we the public decided last month to start paying off our debts rather than going out to spend more, undermining the Government’s plans to restart the economy by getting us out there buying stuff.

This […] response to a reduction of consumer debt actually shows that we are far from moving on from the type of consumer driven attitudes and culture that lead to the economic crisis. I personally, would want people to see the reduction as a good thing for the economy, and good news for the hope that we may move away from the “what I buy is what I am” attitude.

That’s it from 2×2 for today. If my bleary eyes have understood the rota correctly, it’ll be me back here at 8am tomorrow, so I will see you all then. Have a nice day!