£10,000

MPs have voted themselves an allowance of £10,000 a year for running websites. Why don't they just head down to Wordpress and get one for free?

Seems like some friendly web design company is going to be creaming £6.5m or so from this, when a basic blog would do the trick. MPs could keep us updated on their activities, give reasons for why they voted as they did, while people could leave comments and feedback.

Comments

[Yusuf Smith]

As-Salaamu 'alaikum,

Yes - what a load of nonsense that is! Running a website NO WAY costs that amount! Hosting costs are less than £100 per year; you can get web designs for free and, failing that, probably get a bespoke design for considerably less than £10,000, and get someone in to get Wordpress or MT going for much less than that as well. A free Wordpress.com blog would probably not suit the more net-savvy MPs but anyone spending that amount on a website is wasting money for sure.

[Abdur Rahman]

Salaams Osama,

Yes. What a rip off! Ya Allah!

Abdur Rahman

[Mustafa Arif]

Reading the article it appears that the new allowance is not just for web sites but for public engagement, in general. Web sites being just one example along with petitions, leaflets, newsletters, etc.

Personally I think MPs could, and should, do much more to engage their constituents and accept that this will cost money.

Now sure, if all an MP does is post a simple wordpress blog it won't cost very much. But if they want to do more adventurous stuff - pod casts, interactive question-times, etc. they might need to hire someone skilled to put it together for them. £10,000, even if spent entirely on a web site, isn't cheap. But it isn't that expensive either. I've been involved as both a customer, and a supplier, for much more expensive projects.

More importantly, an MPs time is precious. They should spend as much time as possible actually representing their constituents. And there just aren't enough hours in a day even to do just that. Inevitably, therefore, they are going to need their interns and/or assistants to work on managing much of the content for them. (Even comment replies to a blog need moderation time!). And yes, many of them will be volunteers but it's usual for volunteers to get lunch and travel expenses. They also need a computer, desk, office space, etc.

So I don't see much wrong with this.

The Opposition position seemed to be that MPs have enough in existing allowances and that relaxing some of the rules associated with them would have been better than creating a new allowance. That's probably fair. I'm not too familiar with the details of MPs allowances but I certainly am under the impression they get enough.

That said, creating a new allowance does at least provide an impetus for MPs to do something. If MP continues to fail to build an online presence I can at least point out that he has no excuse now that there's extra funding for this sort of thing.

[aineliva]

So Alex Salmond will be setting an example to his mates and using Wordpress, Blogger, or Typepad then?

[joe90]

You got some good points there Mustafa mate,
but the problem with British representative democracy is that people elected by us to represent our views do the exact opposite.

Look at opinion polls on public views on such things as public services, illegal invasion of Iraq, Trident replacement etc - British MPs are completely cut off and alone in a wee world of their own, and completely unrepresentative of the vast majority of ordinary British folk.

Millions can't even to afford to heat their homes properly -
33% now affected by fuel price poverty in Scotland
The Herald
30 Mar 2007

What's the minimum wage again?
How much money do students get in grants and busaries?
etc etc

After all, Dell are now going to install freeware Linux as an operating system on their hardware -
Dell deals blow to Microsoft’s
The Herald
30 Mar 2007

As Osama mentioned, things should be getting cheaper as software and systems are developed, not more expensive.

All the best Mustafa!

[joe90]

Just to mention,
that in today's Herald it said in its 'buisness pages' that last year, 2006, the UK became a net importer of oil, the first time since 1980.

I cannot find the same article on The Herald's web edition however, but honest, it's the truth!