Tim Almond

George Osborne: Politics and Media in the Internet Age

I’ve just read a transcript of a speech that George Osborne made on Politics and Media in the Internet Age. It actually made me a little dewy eyed.

Normally, when politicians talk about IT or the internet, I want to cry for different reasons - because they’re spouting vacuous nonsense that they don’t understand about such things as "virtually reality tourism", or failing to understand the nature of computing in terms of costs and scalability.

But by George, to borrow from My Fair Lady, he’s got it. He’s completely grasped where all this is at. The networked nature, the empowered content creation. Yee hah! I want to punch the air and run around the room like a madman that there’s a major politician who is seeing where things are at and telling the world. How people are wired in, how they use information. How the internet just ain’t just a newspaper or TV program on a screen. He’s showing a huge understanding of what’s out there.

I’m going to write more on this, with some technological stuff extending on George’s idea about open data. Right now, I need some coffee.

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Tags: Politics, Software Development, Technology, Ideas //